For many years the biggest automaker in the world was Volkswagen, but Japanese giant Toyota and US monstrosity General Motors have always challenged Volkswagen for top bidding worldwide. For the past several years Toyota has been the leader in sales in the world for the automotive industry after taking the grown from GM in 2012 and never relinquishing it until this past year. While all the data isn’t in yet with GM planning to report its annual sales around February 7, it looks like Volkswagen has once again taken the top spot for sales around the globe.
As one of the leaders in sales for several decades, Volkswagen has been a champion in the industry with small but active vehicles that offer a dynamic driving performance and the size that fits in every area of the world. Even in older parts of the world, like Europe, where some city streets are still tiny, the models from Volkswagen are able to fit in and navigate the tight turns and surrounding buildings with some form of ease. This has made the VW brand one that more customers have trusted over the years, despite a decline in some parts of the world in the last several months.
Even though VW has experienced some declines in certain markets, the total number of vehicles sold in the world for 2016 come in at 10.3 million with Toyota close on its heels at 10.2 million vehicles sold during 2016. The cause of this increase for VW was found in the Chinese and European markets where deliveries were much higher than the year before while Brazil showed a significant decline of 34 percent and the VW sold three percent fewer vehicles in the US during the 2016 model year. During the same time period Toyota experienced a decline of two percent in the US.
The upcoming 2017 model year could be tricky for Toyota and any other automaker planning to build in Mexico because of the proposed border taxes by the new Presidential Administration. In addition to a proposed tax, automakers that have had success in China such as VW and GM will find it tougher in that market this year. The Chinese authorities have reduced the tax breaks given to automakers that sold vehicles with smaller engine sizes, which as a significant portion of the sales experience by both of these automakers.
Will Toyota retake the lead in 2017? Can GM make push past Toyota and VW? Will VW continue to grow and hang on to the slimmest of leads for this year? We get the fun of watching and seeing what happens, but for now Volkswagen has the crown and can celebrate being the top automotive brand for sales in the world. This is exciting news for VW especially considering the challenges they’ve had to face over the past several months. It seems VW is right where it belongs once again and is poised to bring us new products that will keep the top spot in the VW name.
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