Toyota is the largest US automaker as of Q3.
The US automotive sales race is heating up and General Motors may not be the country’s full-year sales leader by January 2022. This would be The General’s first loss of the crown in 90 years, and Toyota could become the new king.
Toyota Motor North America had moved 1,857.884 vehicles in the third quarter 2021. GM, on the other hand, delivered 1,777,483 vehicles in the same time period. Although 80,401 cars doesn’t seem like a huge lead, it gives Toyota an advantage going into the last months of the year.
If you are a regular follower of the auto industry, you will see that GM is falling behind Toyota in terms of deliveries. This is due to a shortage in microchips. The demand for new cars remains high, but production is limited by supply constraints. Both companies have seen an increase in sales year-over-year. Toyota’s volume is 27.3 percent higher than GM’s, while GM’s is 0.1 percent lower.
An Automotive News still puts GM’s sales into perspective, noting that it is currently on track to have one of the lowest sales years since 1950s.
Japan may have actually helped the automaker to weather the current chip shortage. According to Automotive News, Bob Carter, Executive Vice President of Sales at Toyota Motor North America, “What we learned is that we needed more inventory of slow moving parts — and chips were one the commodities we identified early,” said Carter.
It will be a thrilling race to the finish, particularly since Toyota will have the first Tundras on the market by the end of the year. GM has decades of experience so don’t count them out.