VW-Porsche has temporarily overtaken Toyota as the world’s largest automaker. After its merger with Porsche, the German giant posted an output of 4.4 million units so far this year. Toyota on the other hand has produced 400,000 cars less to post a total output of 4 million units since January 2009.
Auto industry analysts IHS Global Insight are reporting that Volkswagen is benefiting from programs in Germany, the UK and China which are meant to help spur car sales. However, Toyota put on the brakes on production during the automotive crisis that hit the industry late last year. This forced the Japanese automaker to cut production substantially to almost half from 2.1 million units to 1.1 million.
After the collapse of GM, Toyota became the world’s largest automaker, producing 9.24 million units in 2008. It is expected to only make about 7 million for 2009. But Toyota will eventually regain its spot as the world’s largest automaker because the Japanese automaker has a production capacity to manufacture about 10 million vehicles a year, far more than VW-Porsche. So once the crisis has passed, expect Toyota to take top spot again.
Source: WorldCarFans
