The next Autocade Year of Cars will have a top 10 table. We looked at sourcing the numbers from Focus2move, as we did for the full-year 2024 table, but their summary (at the time of writing; this page appears to change) did not hold water once we began investigating the rankings themselves based on official sources. Also, when we checked, many Japanese manufacturers had not released their September numbers, so where did they source theirs from?
Unfortunately, it brings into doubt their year-end figures for 2024, which we have cited (with credit, natch). Here is where we sit for 2025, year to date, with estimates asterisked.
| Volkswagen | 6·6 million |
| Toyota | 6·51 million |
| GM | 5·42 million |
| Renault Nissan Mitsubishi | 4·74 million* |
| Hyundai | 4·08 million |
| Stellantis | 3·91 million |
| BYD | 3·26 million |
| Ford | 3·24 million** |
| Geely | 2·95 million |
| Honda | 2·57 million* |
* Nissan, Mitsubishi and Honda have not reported their September figures yet. There’s some sleight-of-hand here: we multiplied their August year to date figures by 1·125. ** Ford, meanwhile, never reported its Q2 global sales as a total. Were they hiding something? We had Q1 and Q3, and Q2 was given an estimated 1,070,000 based on other reports. We’ll admit to these—but it’s better than misrepresenting our figures as absolute gospel.
Out of interest, we did use Google to look for some of these numbers (not a search engine we normally employ, and have not done as a default since 2010). Google’s ‘AI overview’ gave a number for Hyundai and Kia that was 600,000 more than what you see here. It was very confident, citing the figures right down to the unit. However, it was a complete fabrication.
Hyundai and Kia have definitely been hurt by the tariff mess, and the US’s arrest of 400 Korean workers out of xenophobia and racism, whose paperwork was all in order, would not have gone down well for the company. Kia delivered more units than Hyundai within the group. GM has done surprisingly well, getting a home-market boost with trucks and EVs, and some tariff relief from the US Republican administration. Nissan has faltered as the Renault Nissan Mitsubishi alliance weakened. BYD has continued to rise, while Geely appears in the top 10 for the first time.
If we get the September figures before press, and we can figure out Ford’s Q2 total, we will have them in the next annual.