GM Retakes Crown as #1 World Automaker

General Motors is the number one automaker in the world in regards to sales again, and Toyota dropped to the number three position behind Volkswagen. However, not everything is rosy for GM. Toyota's drop in sales was mostly due to the earthquake and tsunami in Japan last summer and floods in Thailand that disrupted its worldwide supply chain. Toyota is working on a real comeback. 

GM sold 9.026 million vehicles in 2011 compared to 7.9 million vehicles from Toyota. GM's resurgence comes just three years after it declared bankruptcy and had to be bailed out by the US government. 

However, Toyota has been rebuilding since this summer, and it is ramping up production in Brazil and China. At the North American International Auto Show, Toyota announced a new, smaller Prius and plans to test a full electric iQ and Rav4 in the US. Its Lexus luxury brand has just put the new generation GS on sale, and it plans to refresh many of its vehicles over the course of the next few years. 

Reuters says that Toyota has been slower to expand into South America and Brazil than competitors like GM, Nissan and Hyundai, but it is now working to fix that. 

Source: Reuters