Toyota is once again the world's largest manufacturer, with more sales

Knowing the Japanese, it was not going to take long after GM took the lead among the world’s largest automotive groups a few months ago. The Japanese manufacturer had dropped to third place, overtaken by Volkswagen, while the Nissan-Renault group came close to relegating Toyota to fourth place.

Toyota is back in great style and takes the lead so far in this fiscal year, adding up to 2.49 million vehicles sold, including passenger cars and trucks, slightly more than GM, which closed with 2.28 million. Although Volkswagen at times seems capable of becoming the greatest force in the automotive world, it has now fallen to third place with 2.16 million.

The temporary decline was undoubtedly due to the difficulties caused by the tsunami that hit Japan last year, plus some reliability problems inflated by negative and biased advertising campaigns. Who now remembers the famous unintended acceleration of the Toyota Prius and some Lexus?

The forecasts for this fiscal year, which runs from March 2012 to March 2013, are that Toyota will exceed 8 million vehicles sold, with approximately 8.7 million combined together with its two subsidiaries, Daihatsu Motor Co. and Hino Motors Ltd.