At the end of the first quarter of 2025, the ranking of world’s largest automakers remained the same as it was all of last year, and most likely the same as it will be when 2025 is over: Toyota Group king of the hill, followed by Volkswagen Group, followed by Hyundai Group.
Toyota Group ended the first quarter on a strong note, with quarterly global group sales up a stout 7.5% Some of this was the effect of a low base in the previous year, when Toyota battled with regulatory problems. Toyota’s Kei-car division Daihatsu for instance jumped 195% in Japan and 80% worldwide. Toyota/Lexus increased its global sales by 4.75% compared to Q1/24
Volkswagen Group was up 1.4% YOY for the quarter. They were down 7.1% in China, compensated by increased sales in Europe. Quarterly global BEV sales were up a strong 58.9% in Europe, where Volkswagen Group outsold Tesla by a factor of 3:1
Best-performing Volkswagen Group brands were Lamborghini, up 12.8% YOY for the quarter, followed by Skoda, up 8.2%. Volkswagen passenger cars were up 5.1%. Audi, down 3.4% for the quarter and Porsche, down 7.9% continue to disappoint.
In Korea, Hyundai Group is treading water, up a scant 0.3% for the quarter. Its Hyundai brand was down 0.7% worldwide in Q1, while Kia could increase its quarterly sales by 0.3%
At current trajectories, Toyota Group most likely will end the year with sales in slight excess of 10 million, followed by Volkswagen at least 1 million units behind. Hyundai Group, separated by another million or so units, will bring up the rear.
And now a word about context. Toyota, Volkswagen, Hyundai might be the unassailably largest automakers of this world, but the largest OEM by bullshit production remains Tesla. The world is so fixated on Tesla that I am pretty much the only one who is tracking the world’s largest automakers on a consistent basis. Tesla’s perceived size is so overblown that nobody blinked when Elon Musk declared in 2020 that Tesla aspired to sell 20 million vehicles by the end of the decade, double the sales of Toyota. 5 years into the decade, Tesla is still a relative nobody when it comes to unit sales.
Caveat: All sales data as reported by the respective automaker. Note that “sales” can be an elastic term, some OEMs report hard registrations, some “sales to wholesale,” which can mean cars placed on dealer lots, or transferred to the OEM’s sales organization. Methods may differ from region to region. Some report “deliveries,” which can be nothing more than cars moved out of the factory door, some report hard registrations tabulated by government entities. Even those numbers can be skewed by “self-registrations” performed by dealers and OEMs alike.
