#World'sLargestCarmakers

September Production and Full Year Forecast9M ’129M ’11YoYProj ’12Toyota7,681,8915,583,32837.6%10,243,000GM7,054,0006,948,0001.5%9,405,000Volkswagen6,710,0006,110,0009.8%8,947,000Black: Company data. Toyota, GM: Production. VW: Deliveries. Forecast by TTAC

With GM’s third quarter release also and finally came the long-awaited global production numbers for the first nine months. We need production, because the race for the world’s largest automaker is decided by how many cars are made, not by how many are sold.

“Volkswagen is on course to bump General Motors into the world no.3 ranking this year,” writes Reuters. That’s not all. Volkswagen “aims to sell a world-leading 10 million vehicles by 2018, up from the 8.36 million recorded last year, and push past Toyota.”

The car that is supposed to lead Volkswagen to world domination is an also-ran in the U.S., but it is one of the world’s most sold cars. It is the Golf, and its seventh generation will be revealed tonight in Berlin at the Neue Nationalgalerie, the Mies van der Rohe designed temple of modern art.