World 1st quarter 2015: Toyota keeps worldwide crown, just

Toyota unveiled the Levin HEV at Auto Shanghai this week.

According to Bloomberg and Automotive News, Toyota was still the largest carmaker in the world during the first 3 months of 2015 in spite of sales down 2.5% year-on-year to 2.52 million vehicles. Reversely both VW Group (2.49 million) and General Motors (2.42 million) saw deliveries improve over the period. This means the Top 3 carmakers in the world all fit within a mere 100,000 units at this stage and confirms the race to the top of the sales charts will be intense all the way through 2015. Volkswagen now expects to grow at a slower pace during the remainder of the year however, due to stagnant sales in China where it missed the budget SUV craze. Toyota for its part is counterbalancing declining sales at home in Japan by ending a 3 year-expansion freeze, green lighting new factories in China and Mexico that will add 300,000 annual units of capacity.