Toyota has dethroned Volkswagen, getting ahead of its competitors in global sales. After revealing its sales figures for the first three quarters of the year, the Japanese carmaker was confirmed to be on the top of the industry.
A few weeks ago, Volkswagen was caught using a defeat device to cheat emission tests, which greatly affected the German carmaker's sales. Approximately 11 million vehicles were reported to house the defeat device during emission tests.
With nine months in, Toyota has sold about 7.5 million vehicles. Compared to its competitors, Volkswagen came up in second despite the issues surrounding the firm and sold about 7.43 million vehicles. General Motors came in third with a 7.2 million figure.
"Toyota will be the No. 1 for this year. VW may be facing sales difficulties due to the scandal toward next year in Europe and the U.S., and I don't see the Chinese market coming back anytime soon," auto analyst at Advanced Research Japan Koji Endo told Bloomberg.
To analyze the events, Volkswagen was ahead of Toyota for the first six months of the year. Then Volkswagen's emission test scandal surfaced sometime in September. To sum it up, the German carmaker seems to have incurred a harmful blow from the entire hubbub.
Regarding Toyota and General Motors' case, the Japanese carmaker took the top spot from the American brand in 2008 and stayed there every year. But in 2011, GM was able to return to the pinnacle when Japan was hit by a tsunami, which interrupted Toyota's production.
Toyota will be going strong in the foreseeable future, as the car manufacturer intends to roll out self-driving cars by 2020, saying that it has been testing the technology since 1990. Also, Toyota's team up with the "Back to the Future" franchise to release a hydrogen-fueled Mirai FCV and the 2016 Tacoma seems to help its standing in the market even more.
To further strengthen its hold of the top spot, Toyota is now getting ready to deliver a redesigned Prius hatchback and an improved Land Cruiser soon and intends to hire about 1,400 more workers to speed up their production.
Toyota's plans seem like it will increase Japan's exports significantly, and they will guarantee a long time on the top of the automotive world for the carmaker.
