photo by Dianna “Mick” McDougall
Detroit-based General Motors has been the top-selling automaker in the US in every single year since 1931. But even Cadillacs lose their shine after a while.
Japan’s Toyota dethroned GM as the No. 1 automaker in the country in 2021, marking the first time on record that a foreign car manufacturer has topped the list.
Run the numbers:
- Japan sold 2.3 million vehicles in 2021, up 10% from the year before.
- GM sold 2.2 million, down 13% from 2021.
What happened: All automakers have had to navigate that nasty chip shortage during the pandemic, but Toyota managed to do it better than GM thanks to a bigger stockpile of chips it had set aside.
- And even if GM recaptures the title next year, 2021’s results still show that the US auto winds have forever shifted. “The dominance of the US automakers of the US market is just over,” University of Michigan biz professor Erik Gordon told the NYT.
No car manufacturer suffered from a lack of demand in 2021—limited production capacity is primarily to blame for the bottleneck. Average new vehicle prices surged 20% last month to a record $45,700 according to J.D. Power, which reflects ravenous consumer appetite for cars paired with a supply crunch.
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