Looking at the auto markets of all countries in the world, there is hardly any more complicated situation than in China, where there are almost only domestic cars and imported cars. Due to The poor industrial base and weak foundation in China, it had to exchange "market" for "technology" to allow foreign capital to enter the Chinese market in the form of joint ventures, so China's automobile market has the existence of joint venture cars in addition to domestic cars and imported cars.
Although the mainland's automobile industry has made great progress in both technology and design after decades of development, it is undeniable that the joint venture brand still occupies the bulk of the mainland automobile consumer market, and many consumers will give priority to the joint venture brand model when buying a car, especially when buying the first car in their lives.
Among the joint venture brand formations, there are two car brands that can be said to be "deeply rooted in the hearts of the people", one is Volkswagen, which represents German cars and German automobile craftsmanship, and the other is Toyota, a representative brand of Japanese cars.
As the first joint venture brand to enter China, Volkswagen has made its popularity particularly high through the word of mouth accumulated in the early years, and almost everyone in the mainland speaks of Volkswagen. In recent years, Toyota has also gradually opened its brand by increasing publicity and public relations efforts, and has the ability to compete with the public in the Chinese market.
Although Volkswagen and Toyota are competitors with each other, but on the whole, Volkswagen's sales will still be slightly higher than Toyota's every year, which makes many Toyota fans unable to understand, why do they all say that Toyota is of good quality and fuel saving, volkswagen has more small problems, but volkswagen is more dominant in sales?
Reason 1: Volkswagen attaches more importance to the Chinese market
Volkswagen can be said to be the most important joint venture brand in the Chinese market, first of all, from the time it entered China, it can be seen that as early as 1984, shanghai Volkswagen was established by SONIC Group, and secondly, the sales volume of Volkswagen Group in the world was 10.8 million units, and the Chinese market accounted for 4.3 million units, accounting for more than 40% of them, so that Volkswagen had to take the Chinese market as the first formation, and in the development of models, it will be prioritized according to the love of Chinese consumers to develop. In terms of model competitiveness and pandering, it is more loved by the Chinese people.
If Volkswagen attaches importance to the Chinese market, then in general, toyota does not attach importance to the Chinese market? In fact, it can also be understood in this way, after all, like in the early years, there will be a Japanese car boycott on some sensitive issues, so that Toyota will have concerns when expanding in the Chinese market, unlike Volkswagen's unconcerned expansion, coupled with Toyota's "mark-up" storm in recent years, such as its hot MPV models Senna and Alpha, as well as its luxury brand Lexus, these price increases have been complained by consumers to harvest a wave of Chinese "IQ tax".
Reason two: Production capacity determines the final sales volume
At present, the production capacity gap between Toyota and Volkswagen in China is still huge. To cite a very intuitive data, GAC Toyota currently has three vehicle plants that can produce cars with an annual production capacity of about 800,000 units, while GAC Toyota has a total sales volume of 765,000 units in 2020, almost using up all of its production capacity. Although FAW Toyota is larger, with five plants in Tianjin, Changchun and Chengdu, the annual production capacity is about 950,000 units, just enough to barely meet the sales volume.
In contrast, Volkswagen's "scale" in China is much larger. First of all, SAIC Volkswagen alone has six production bases such as Nanjing, Ningbo, Anding, which does not include the planned factory, with an annual output of nearly 2 million units, while FAW-Volkswagen has seven production bases such as Changchun, Tianjin, Qingdao, Foshan, etc., with an annual output of nearly 3 million units, simply the total production capacity of the north and south Volkswagens in a year has exceeded 5 million units, which is about three times that of Toyota's 1.75 million units, not to mention that Volkswagen also has FAW Audi and SAIC Audi, and the production capacity difference is so huge. Coupled with the difference in the number of stores, Volkswagen's sales channels are wider, and eventually Volkswagen's sales are much higher than Toyota's.
summary:
In the end, from the perspective of car quality, both Toyota and Volkswagen belong to the world's first-line car brands, and they are the world's top in terms of technology and quality, but why has there always been a saying that "Toyota quality is better than Volkswagen"? In fact, this has a lot to do with the car-making concept of the two brands, Volkswagen dares to use the latest technology on its own models, such as turbocharged engines and dual-clutch transmissions, bringing owners a better driving experience at the same time, the failure rate and reliability will naturally be lower.
When Toyota launches models, it often does not pursue any advanced technology too much, but always puts durability and fuel economy first, so in Toyota's models, we can see more naturally aspirated engines and CVT and AT transmissions, although the driving experience is not as good as Volkswagen, but the reliability and fuel consumption are more outstanding.
So as for who is good and who is bad of these two brands, there is indeed no conclusive conclusion, and there is no need to blow one, it can only be said that the two car brands have their own characteristics, no one can replace whom, people who consider buying Volkswagen will naturally not consider Toyota, and people who naturally consider buying Toyota will not consider Volkswagen.
So for you, do you prefer Volkswagen or Toyota? Feel free to leave your comments below.