General Motors announced earlier this week that it sold 9.03 million vehicles in 2011, making it the world’s largest automaker by volume. However, Volkswagen is disputing GM’s final count, claiming the Detroit automaker included sales of automakers it doesn’t even fully own.
VW’s issue with GM’s 2011 sales tally is that it includes sales of Chinese automakers SAIC Motor Corp. and Wuling Motors Co. Although GM has stakes it both companies, it doesn’t hold a majority in either. In fact, some analysts exclude SAIC and Wuling vehicles sales form GM’s global sales count.
Wulling accounted for 1.2 million of GM’s 9.03 million sales, meaning VW could in fact be the world’s largest automaker. VW sold 8.16 million vehicles last year, and that figure excludes sales of its majority-owned MAN and Scania truck ventures. MAN and Scania are expected to report 2011 sales within the next few weeks.
Although VW seems to be pretty worked up over the issue, GM isn’t taking the matter too seriously.
“Our goal is to be the best, not necessarily the biggest,” said Jim Cain, a spokesman for GM told The Wall Street Journal. “If we had announced plans on world domination, we probably would have been quibbling with the sales of our competitors and that’s as far removed from focusing on the customers as you can get.”
Toyota, which formerly topped the global sales charts, hasn’t released its 2011 sales figures, but it’s estimated the Japanese automaker sold about 7.91 million vehicles last year.
