San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
TOYOTA IS WORLD’S BEST-SELLING AUTOMAKER
Toyota overtook Volkswagen in 2020 to become the world’s top-selling automaker, the first time the Japanese group has clinched the position in five years.
Toyota’s group sales, which include those of its subsidiaries Daihatsu Motor Co. and Hino Motors Ltd., for the year were 9.53 million units, the company said Thursday. That compares with VW’S 9.31 million, announced earlier this month.
The victory for Toyota came despite a painful year for automakers. Although demand for cars recovered marginally toward the end of 2020, industry-wide factory and showroom shutdowns in the spring were enough to drag sales down 14 percent from 2019, according to an estimate from IHS Markit.
It was also a topsy-turvy year in which the gravity of automakers’ losses was largely determined by their level of exposure to the regions most disrupted by the virus.
VW has a strong footprint in the European Union, where passenger car sales fell an “unprecedented” 24 percent to fewer than 10 million units in 2020, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers Association. The German carmaker’s sales fell 15 percent, its worst performance in close to a decade.
Toyota, on the other hand, has a bigger presence in the U.S., where total car sales in the nation fell 15 percent in 2020. The Japanese automaker’s global sales were down 11 percent. Although the U.S. has the most COVID deaths and cases, there haven’t been the same lockdowns as in Europe.
Prior to 2020, VW outsold Toyota in every year since 2015.