Toyota beat Volkswagen again to win the championship, but Volkswagen's counterattack may be coming

According to automotive news, Toyota Motor Group recently said that the group's total car sales in 2021 will be 10.5 million units, an increase of 10.1% year-on-year. This makes Toyota the world's largest automaker for the second consecutive year and further widens the gap with "old rival" Volkswagen.

However, shortly after the news of the "successful defending champion" was announced, another piece of news put a question mark on Toyota's market performance this year. On February 7, Toyota announced that it would sell 148,800 new vehicles in the Chinese market in January 2022, down 21.5% year-on-year. So far, Toyota has not identified specific reasons for the decline in sales in China in January.

The Sino-US market grew twice

Automotive News reported that from a global perspective, Toyota achieved sales growth in major auto markets in 2021, especially in China and North America, which is one of the important factors for the company to sit in the top position in global sales.

Toyota's four major automotive markets sold 2.681 million units in North America, 1.944 million units in Greater China, 1.476 million units in Japan, and 1.037 million units in Europe.

In the U.S. market, Toyota sold about 2.3 million vehicles in 2021, an increase of more than 10%, successfully surpassing General Motors to become the largest selling automaker in the U.S. market. This is the first overseas automaker to achieve this achievement in the nearly 120-year history of the U.S. auto industry. Foreign media called it a milestone moment, but also laid the foundation for Toyota to win the global sales championship.

In addition, Toyota's sales in the Chinese market also set a new record. In the past 2021, Toyota's sales in China increased by 8.2% year-on-year to 1.944 million units, achieving year-on-year growth for nine consecutive years and a record high. It is worth mentioning that although Toyota still dominates the Japanese domestic market, sales have declined. In 2021, Toyota sold 2.109 million units in the Japanese home market, down 2.2% from 2020.

2022 is a test

Although Toyota has achieved good results in sales in 2021, it is still under the pressure of supply chain shortages. Since entering 2022, due to the spread of the new crown pneumonia epidemic and the shortage of parts supply, Toyota expects new vehicle production in February to be about 150,000 units less than the production plan, and the global production will be around 700,000 units.

In japan, Toyota has adjusted its production plans. On January 18 of this year, Toyota Motor Motor announced that it will suspend production tasks at eight plants and 11 production lines in Japan, including the Motomachi Plant in Aichi Prefecture, in February this year. In addition, in the Chinese market, due to the impact of the new crown pneumonia epidemic in Tianjin, Toyota's Tianjin joint venture plant was shut down for 12 days.

In addition, "Toyota, which cannot be broken", is also facing the challenge of quality and reputation in the Chinese market. According to statistics, Japanese brands have recalled a total of 1.5328 million vehicles in China in 2021, of which Toyota alone has recalled nearly 1.3 million vehicles, covering almost all of its popular models. In more than a dozen recalls, many models have involved quality problems with key parts.

In addition, according to the Detroit Times, some toyota models in the United States have also increased organic oil and emulsified, and more than 40,000 problem vehicle recalls have been launched in response to this phenomenon.

The key to Volkswagen's turnaround

According to Forbes, Volkswagen Group's global sales in 2021 fell 4.5% year-on-year to 8.882 million units, the lowest in a decade, losing to rival Toyota. But Forbes believes that Toyota's competition in the auto market in the next few years will be difficult to continue to sit firmly in the top spot. If Volkswagen can regain the first place in the future, it will largely depend on the sales of electric vehicles.

In 2021, Volkswagen's electric vehicle sales reached 452,900 units, an increase of 96% compared with 2020, and the proportion of electric vehicle sales rose from 2.5% in 2020 to 5.1% in 2021.

In the European market, Volkswagen's overall sales last year were 3.519 million units, down 2.7% year-on-year, but sales of electric vehicles reached 310,000 units, up 61.9% year-on-year, and became one of the leaders in the European electric vehicle market. In the Chinese market, Volkswagen's electric vehicles have also achieved good sales results, with sales reaching 92,700 units in 2021, an increase of 319.5% year-on-year. However, Forbes also pointed out that China, as the world's largest automobile market, will sell 2.444 million electric vehicles in 2021, and Volkswagen's electric vehicle sales in China still have a lot of room for improvement.

According to the 2021 global new energy vehicle brand sales data released by the CleanTechnica website, Volkswagen ranked 4th in last year's new energy vehicle sales list, lagging only behind SAIC-GM-Wuling among traditional car companies, while Toyota ranked 16th, lagging behind Hyundai, Mercedes-Benz and other brands.

Compared with traditional car companies such as Volkswagen and Daimler, Toyota's current layout and achievements in "electrification" are "slower". In fact, Toyota should be regarded as the predecessor in the field of new energy vehicles, and Toyota Prius can also be called the originator of hybrid vehicles. It is precisely because of the chips bet on hybrid vehicles and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, Toyota's "electrification" pace is still slow. In addition, although Toyota's hydrogen-fueled mirai has launched a second-generation model, it is difficult to help Toyota in terms of sales in the next few years due to cost reasons.