Toyota now best-selling automaker in the world

Last year, General Motors and Toyota Motor Corporation were near-tied in global sales, but for 2008, Toyota can officially claim the best-selling title. This marks the first time in nearly 80 years that GM was not the largest automaker in the world.

In a tumultuous year for the automotive industry, "winners" were those companies that that were least effected by the overall sales decline. In the end, General Motors suffered more than Toyota this past year.

Just last week, GM closed its official releases with "General Motors Corp., the world's largest automaker, has been the annual global industry sales leader for 77 years."

Industry newspaper Automotive News takes issue with that claim pointing out that in 2007, GM included over 500,000 Wuling brand vehicles in its total sales figures, even though it owned just 34 percent of the Chinese company. Consequently, Automotive News had previously crowned Toyota has number one in global sales.

2008 sales battle
The figures are definitive for 2008. By their own reporting, GM sold 8.35 million vehicles and Toyota sold 8.97 million worldwide. General Motors saw sales growth in Asia Pacific, Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East, but a 21-percent decline in North America brought the corporate giant to its knees—literally, as it asked for federal assistance this past fall.

Toyota was not immune to economic conditions, seeing its sales drop 4 percent worldwide and 14.9 percent in U.S. sales for the year. In December, Toyota sales across its brands were down 36.7 percent from the year prior in America and the company is expected to post an annual loss—unheard of for this manufacturing juggernaut. 

Sales are not the final measure of a corporation's vitality. This is particularly true now for the auto industry, as companies seek to rapidly realign their production, distribution, and product plans to changing retail conditions. Both GM and Toyota have been making dramatic adjustments to better orient their production toward more affordable and efficient vehicles, though as gas prices have dropped around $2 gallon, they face challenges that move more quickly than they can.

How they stack up in tests
A more meaningful measure for consumers than sales figures is our automaker report cards. Published annually in the April Autos Issue of Consumer Reports, we tally the performance for each corporation—not brand. In April 2008, General Motors products had an average overall test score of 61 (of 100 potential points), whereby Toyota had 75 points.

In total, we found GM vehicles had below-average reliability based on our then most-recent reliability survey of almost 1.3 million vehicles. Toyota provided above-average reliability based on owner responses.

Just 30 percent of tested GM models met our stringent criteria to be recommended, where as 73 percent of tested Toyotas are recommended. We will provide updated report cards with our April 2009 issue. (Read our recent Detroit Report Card.)

Bottom line
General Motors may have lost this year's sales battle, but the war rages on. As GM executives struggle to right-size their business, we see promise in their future products. The most recent GM vehicles we have tested show marked improvements over their predecessors, and we expect this trend to continue. For example, the recently redesigned models such as the Cadillac CTS, Chevrolet Malibu, and SUVs (Buick Enclave, Chevrolet Traverse, GMC Acadia, and Saturn Outlook) all compete well with the best in their class. On the other hand, Toyota has had a couple stumbles in the past couple of years, with modest less-than-stellar test scores and reliability reports on some models.

When shopping for a new car, do your research and buy a good, safe, reliable, and fuel-efficient model that best suits your needs and budget--leave the sales-figure competition to the mucky mucks. For them, it is profit not sales that matters most. But for the average motorist, it is what is in your driveway that is most important.

—Jeff Bartlett
 
Read our car buying guide and browse the New Car Preview to see what is coming down the road.