2025: The VDA forecasts a small increase in car and truck sales worldwide, in Germany, Europe, and China with the fastest growth in the USA. China remains the largest car market and electric car producer by far.

The VDA predicts that worldwide car sales will increase in 2025 by around 2% to just over 80 million passenger vehicles. The forecast sees the Chinese market at 23.2 million cars, as 10 million larger than Europe and 7 million larger than the USA. Heavy commercial vehicle sales will grow fastest in the USA. China was the largest car producer in 2024 followed by the USA, Japan, and India. China was also be far the largest producer of electric cars followed by Germany, the USA, and South Korea.
Worldwide Car Sales Forecast for 2025

The Verbandes der Automobilindustrie (VDA — Association of the Automotive Industry (in Germany) predicts that worldwide car and light passenger vehicle sales will increase by 2% in 2025 to 80.4 million vehicles. The VDA also expects that global car sales in 2024 will increase by 3% to 78.5 million vehicles. The new car market thus finally exceeded pre-pandemic levels.

For 2025, the outlook for worldwide car sales is positive but only a small 1% increase in global car sales is predicted. China will remain by far the largest single-country car market although sales should increase only moderately to 23.2 million vehicles.
Growth in car sales in the USA and Europe is expected to be around 2% with the European market remaining well below pre-pandemic levels.
Worldwide Heavy Commercial Vehicle and Bus Sales Forecast for 2025

The VDA predicts that global sales of heavy commercial vehicles (over 16t) will increase. In the USA, such sales will increase by 7% to 257,000 vehicles while the Chinese market will grow by 3% to 929,000 vehicles. In Europe, the market for commercial vehicles will contract by 2% to 301,000 vehicles.
Worldwide Car and Electric Car Production in 2024

China was by far the largest producer of cars in the world in 2024 and should easily maintain the leading position in 2025. China was also by far the largest producer of electric vehicles (BEV and PHEV) followed by Germany. The share of electric vehicles produced in China and Germany was significantly higher than in the USA, South Korea, or Japan.
Electric car sales in Europe in 2024 contracted but a 67% increase in BEV sales is predicted for Europe in 2025 and 75% for Germany in 2025.