Move Over Japan, China Poised To Be World’s Top Car Exporter

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Japan has dominated the auto export market for decades, with Germany and South Korea also pumping out huge numbers of cars for markets outside their own borders. But now China is about to blow right by all three nations to become the biggest exporter on the planet.

Earlier this year we reported that China’s exports had overtaken Japan’s in the first quarter of 2023, and now it looks like China managed to extend that superiority across the entirety of 2023. The China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) says the country exported 4.41 million vehicles between January and November, an increase of 58 percent over the same period in 2022, Nikkei Asia reports. That compares with the 3.99 million units churned out by Japan in the first 11 months of 2023 (up 15 percent).

While China hasn’t yet made serious inroads to the U.S., and is only at the early stages of getting its claws into Europe’s car sales pie, it’s already got its feet under the table in both Mexico and Russia, and access to those markets has helped it explode its export figures.

Related: China Surges Past Japan As World’s Top Car Exporter In Q1 2023

Nikkei writes that China exported an incredible 730,000 vehicles to Russia between January and October, a seven-fold increase on the 2022 number. And though the Mexico figure isn’t quite so impressive at 330,000 units, exports there have risen by 71 percent. Chinese automakers aren’t content to stop at exporting to Mexico, though. Several are trying to set up production bases there that some industry experts think will be used to help Chinese brands access the U.S. without having to pay stiff import duties.

Not all of China’s auto exports carry Chinese branding, however. While BYD is the major force in the country’s automotive export drive, Tesla, Volvo, BMW and Buick all build cars in China that are sold elsewhere.