Toyota was the world’s most popular carmaker for the second consecutive year, widening its margin over second-placed Volkswagen Group.
The Toyota, Lexus, and Daihatsu brands sold a total of 10,340,336 vehicles last year, an increase of 954,191 or 10.2 percent from 2020, the first year of the coronavirus pandemic.
Meanwhile, the passenger car and light commercial vehicle divisions of the Volkswagen Group saw sales drop 5.5 percent to 8,610,600.
We have excluded truck brands Hino (155,212), MAN (151,000), Scania (90,400), and Navistar (29,900) from both groups’ main figures.
Toyota
While many other carmakers had to drastically cut production due to the global semiconductor shortage, Toyota was able to navigate through the first three quarters of the year before implementing widespread plant shutdowns.
The Japanese automaker attributes its ability to weather the early part of the storm to inventory stockpiling and its close relationship with suppliers.
With 8,912,949 worldwide sales, the Toyota brand increased by 11.8 percent from the previous year.
Daihatsu rose by 4.5 percent to 725,179, driven by a 50.2 percent increase in sales outside Japan, mainly in Indonesia. However, the small car specialist still sells most of its vehicles in its home country, with its 527,739 sales in Japan accounting for almost 73 percent of its total.
Lexus didn’t fare as well, where its 702,208 sales fell by 2.3 percent from 2020.
Breaking down the company’s figures by region, Toyota saw gains everywhere except in Japan, where it dropped 1.9 percent to 1,476,136.
A 10.2 percent jump to 2,332,262 made Toyota surpass GM and become the largest carmaker for the first time in the U.S. market.
Overall, Toyota’s brands sold a total of 2,482,236 hybrid cars (up 27.0%), 111,882 plug-in hybrids (up 131%), 14,404 pure electric vehicles (up 331%), 7,482 mild hybrids (none were sold in 2020), and 5,918 fuel cell vehicles (up 234%).
Volkswagen Group
For the second consecutive year, the Volkswagen Group finished with the silver medal.
Volkswagen fell 8.1 percent to 4,896,900, Audi fell marginally 0.7 percent to 1,680,500, Skoda suffered the most with a 12.6 percent drop to 878,200, and Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles fell 3.2 percent to 359,500.
Together, Lamborghini, Bentley, and Bugatti fell 4.5 percent to 23,100.
On a brighter note, Seat rose 10.3 percent to 470,500, while the ever-profitable Porsche jumped 10.9 percent to 301,900.
As for geographies, drops in key Western European markets (2.7% fewer at 2,860,400) and China (14.1% fewer at 3,304,800) were slightly offset by a 15.6% increase in North America (908,400).
The German automaker’s multibillion-dollar push into the electric vehicle market is slowly turning into solid sales figures.
The company’s various car brands sold a total of 452,100 EVs in 2021, an increase of around 95 percent from the previous year. Electric cars now account for 9.2 percent of the Volkswagen Group’s sales.
With strong government incentives and strict CO2 targets, most of the company’s electric vehicles were sold in Europe (310,400). Another 92,700 were sold in China, and 37,200 in the U.S.
We’ll delve into the figures for both companies when we do our annual summary of global sales, which should be available sometime in February.
