Volkswagen Group world's biggest car maker
Scandal-prone brand defies odds, dethrones Toyota as world's top-selling car makerDespite making headlines for all the wrong reasons – chiefly its dieselgate emissions cheating scandal – the Volkswagen Group has become the world's top-selling car company for 2016.
VW has reported global annual sales of 10.31 million vehicles for 2016, overtaking Toyota's annual total of 10.17 million which it reported today, ending the Japanese company's global sales hegemony of recent years.
The Volkswagen Group's vehicle brands include Audi, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, Porsche, SEAT, Škoda and Volkswagen. Combined, these sales overtook those of Toyota, which owns Daihatsu and Lexus.
General Motors (GM) will release its annual global vehicle sales numbers next week, but is unlikely to eclipse the VW Group's numbers. It last held the number one spot in 2011 and in 2015 was third.
The title of world's most popular car maker, 2016, comes in spite of more than 11 million of the Volkswagen Group's vehicles sold over the past few years being affected by dieselgate-related issues, where vehicles were fitted with 'defeat devices' designed to scam laboratory testing.
The software systems allowed many of the Group's car brands to emit far more nitrogen oxides (NOx) than regulations permit.
The result of the deceitful activity has seen the company already pay out billions of dollars in compensation.
Several executives have been arrested in the USA, where the German car maker recently pleaded guilty to several charges, including obstruction of justice and conspiracy. The company has paid out around $6 billion to settle the case.
Just over 60,000 Australian vehicles have been recalled during the dieselgate fallout.
Lawsuits against the company over the emissions cheating scandal continue to grow globally and former Volkswagen Group chairman and CEO Dr Martin Winterkorn has now been implicated, as German prosecutors reveal evidence suggesting he knew about the issue.
Toyota has held the title of world's best-selling car maker for the last four years, but Volkswagen's new-car sales growth of 3.8 per cent was enough to trump Toyota's meagre 0.2 per cent.
In Australia Volkswagen sold 56,571 vehicles in 2016, down around six per cent.
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