Toyota world’s top car seller

Toyota overtook Volkswagen when it came to global sales of new vehicles in 2020.

The Japanese marque has regained pole position for the first time in five years with the Covid-19 pandemic hitting its German rival harder.

Toyota reports its group-wide registrations tumbled by 11.3 per cent to 9.528 million vehicles in 2020. That compares with a 15.2 per cent drop at Volkswagen to 9.305m.

While many car manufacturers have suffered from coronavirus lockdowns preventing consumers from visiting showrooms and forcing factories to limit or halt output, Toyota appears to have weathered the storm better.

This is, in part, due to the Japanese market and Asian region in general being less affected by the outbreak than Europe and the US, reports Reuters.

A Toyota spokeswoman says: “Our focus is not on what our ranking may be, but on serving our customers.”

As demand for cars rebounds – especially in China – Toyota, Volkswagen and other marques are scrambling to tap growing demand for electric vehicles with Toyota reporting the ratio of such models it sold last year growing to 23 per cent of total registrations from 20 per cent in 2019.