Volkswagen has overtaken Toyota to become the world's largest car manufacturer, thanks largely to a merger with Porsche AG.
The German car maker has produced 4.4 million automobiles so far this year, outstripping its Japanese rival which has seen four million cars roll off production lines since January.
But, Volkswagen reached this milestone by taking over Porsche and Porsche became the tenth brand in the Volkswagen familys. Hence, the combined entity VW-Porsche built 4.4 million cars to date this year and stripped Toyota of its first place as the largest auto maker.
The change may not be permanent as the Japanese behemoth has the capacity to make 10 million vehicles a year and due to a slowing global economy it has decided to half its production this year.
General Motors was once the world's largest car maker for 80 years until it filed for bankruptcy and Toyota emerged as the number one car maker in 2009. Moreover, this is not for the first time that Volkswagen has achieved a major milestone; last year it overtook Ford Motors to conquer the third position in global sales.
While Toyota went on to benefit from US government's cash-for-clunkers programme, the German auto major benefited even more from similar programmes in operation in Europe. In China, Volkswagen shot past Toyota as the Chinese government attempted to boost demand by cutting back taxes on car sales.
Labels: Ford-Motors, General-Motors, Porsche, Toyota, Volkswagen











1 Comments:
What happened to the Beetle launch? Isn't it supposed to be launch today?
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