By far, China led the ranking of the world’s largest vehicle producers in 2022, followed by the United States and Japan.

From 2021 to 2022, China increased its production from 26.1 to 27 million units.

According to statistics from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, China’s automobile production and sales in 2022 reached 27.02 million and 26.86 million units, up 3.4 and 2.1% year-on-year respectively.

While passenger vehicle production and sales were 23.84 million and 23.56 million, up 11.2 and 9.5% y-o-y, commercial vehicle production and sales were 3.18 million and 3.3 million, down 31.9 and 31.2% y-o-y, in that order.

From the perspective of industry development characteristics: first, new energy vehicles continued to show explosive growth.

SAIC Motors refers that annual sales of new energy vehicles reached 6.887 million in 2022, with a year-on-year increase of 93.4%, and the market penetration rate reached 25.6%; among them, the performance of plug-in hybrid products was particularly outstanding, with a year-on-year growth of more than 1.5 times.

Vehicle producers

Ranked second in the rankings, the United States produced 10.1 million units in 2022 (both light and heavy), up from 9.2 million units in 2021.

Next was Japan, with 7.8 million vehicles produced and no year-on-year change, according to OICA statistics.

The fourth and fifth positions were obtained by India and South Korea. India went from 4.4 to 5.5 million units and South Korea went from 3.5 to 3.8 million units.

Germany achieved sixth place, with production rising from 3.3 to 3.7 million vehicles, while Mexico took seventh place, growing from 3.1 to 3.5 million vehicles.

The following countries were, in decreasing order: Brazil (advanced from 2.2 to 2.4 million units), Spain (from 2.1 to 2.2 million) and Thailand (from 1.7 to 1.9 million).

The industry has faced challenges such as the Covid-19 pandemic, the trade war between the United States and China, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the shortage of semiconductors.