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General Motors is set to reclaim its position as the world's highest selling car maker from Toyota - but both companies are losing ground to VW.

GM's sales are down 21.8 per cent in the first six months of this year, compared to Toyota's drop of 26 per cent. As a result, GM is just 11,000 sales behind Toyota up until the end of June.

GM was the world's top selling acr maker for almost 80 years, before losing out last year to Toyota.

VW, meanwhile, limited its sales decline t...Read the full article

Wow, Hyundai-Kia in 4th place. That's fantastic in terms of volume. Either Korean and other Asian markets are doing really well for this company or their ever-improving technology (just look at the outputs of the new Kia 1.6 & 2.2 Diesels)/design/warranties/value are smashing down the automotive snobbery previously directed at these models. I guess their models are making more sense when everyone is out of pocket. Credit to them.

If PSA Peugeot/Citreon and Hyundai/Kia are grouped as one company, then why are Nissan/Renault separated? If they were grouped as 1 company, then they would be in 4th Place just behind VW.

What does it matter?  It's just numbers and as the car companies have recently found out to their detriment it doesn't matter how big you are in the general scheme of things, it's how profitable you are at the end of the day.

This is just the automotive equivalent of how high you can pee up a wall!!

Your point is very valid Teg but in the real world isn't there also a bit of prestige and crowing about being "Number 1"?

Also, is there really snobbery against the Korean car companies? When they came into the market didn't they release some fairly ordinary cars? I would never have considered one of their cars back then .. it takes good product - over time - to develop that "intangible" brand appeal ... beyond mere hard numbers or tenths of second quicker in 0-60mph .. to get people interested, which we have seen with some of them in recent times, and they deserve every success for their efforts to make better cars.