World's Largest Automakers Of 2011 (Projected): The Race Gets A Little Tighter
In June, we made a projection of who will be where on the podium of the world’s largest automakers by the end of 2011. Now that half year results of most majors are in, we can have another look. Suddenly, the race gets tighter, and it could remain interesting till the end.
H1 10H1 11GrowthGM4.344.738.9%VW3.614.1815.8%Toyota4.363.38-22.5%
GM leads with 4.73 million units made in the first six months of 2011, followed by Volkswagen with 4.18 million and Toyota with 3.38 million.
Toyota has been hit badly by the effects of the March 11 tsunami and is down 22.5 percent. GM is up, by 8.9 percent. Most impressive is Volkswagen’s growth with 15.8 percent.
All data are global data which have been pulled from official financial and press releases of the respective companies. To comply with OICA, numbers are production numbers if available. Percentages have been calculated. If percentages do not agree with press releases, tough. We prefer to do our own math instead of cribbing numbers from a communiqué.
Now on to how the end result could look like. This is how we projected the numbers: For Volkswagen and GM, we raised the 2010 results as reported to OICA by the growth rate the carmaker registered in the first half of 2011. For Toyota, we took the official projection for the end of 2011. The 2010 OICA numbers were taken as the year-end number of 2010 instead of the numbers reported in the year end reports, because we want to replicate the OICA methodology as closely as possible.
And this is how this admittedly crude projector projects.
20102011GrowthGM8.489.238.9%VW7.348.5015.8%Toyota8.568.04-6.0%
As you can see, the race now looks a little tighter than in June, when the contenders were more than a million apart. Why is that so? GM’s global growth has slackened. Volkswagen has kept its double-digit pace. Toyota has big plans for the second half of 2011.
Still, with GM a (projected) 730,000 in front of Volkswagen and Toyota a (projected) 460,000 behind VW, the race looks pretty much a done deal. But it’s far from decided. GM seems safe. But if VW doesn’t keep up its strong pace, and Toyota finishes a few more Prii prior to year’s end, Volkswagen will have to try again next year.
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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Al Ra For those who don't know, GM can now compete. For decades the playing field was much in favor of the Japanese. The Japanese build factories decades ago in the USA and had huge advantages. They did not have to pay a single retiree...for they had none (over 1million for GM), CAFE fell right in their hands because they built only small cars where the domestic made trucks and had to average the gas mileage with those gas guzzling trucks..... it made it impossible to compete. Basically what I'm saying is our Government almost killed the domestic car builders.. Today with the new CAFE just proposed recently, trucks will not be averaged like they were in the past. The domestic are fine with that but the competition is really lobbying against this. They want to keep their unfair advantage. What really bothers me, there are many on the Internet writing anti-GM and don't have a clue what went on in decades past and only know that GM stole their money. If the government had not helped, even as bad as it is now, we probably be worst now then the Great Depression. Buy American! GM and Ford now make world class vehicles.
Then there's this: http://dailycaller.com/2011/08/05/will-obama-dump-his-gm-stock-at-this-price/