South Africa ranked in Top 10 of most improved vehicle-building nations

Despite a challenging two years, South Africa’s automotive industry has ranked within the top ten best-performing vehicle assembly countries for 2021.

According to a new survey by UK-based insurance firm, goshorty.com.uk, South Africa placed seventh on the list of countries that shows the biggest increase in vehicle production compared to 2020, surprisingly ahead of Brazil, Portugal and Austria.

Out of the 499 087 vehicles manufactured on local soil twelve months ago, 259 820 were commercial vehicles – a figure that places South Africa fourth behind Brazil (540 402), India (768 017) and unsurprisingly, Thailand (1 091 015) on the list of most improved commercial vehicle manufacturing nations.

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At the other end of the scale, Slovenia rated as the country with the worst vehicle output of the year with a 32% decrease to 95 797, followed by Canada (1 115 002: -19%), Uzbekistan (241 649: -15%), Germany (3 096 165: -12%) and Serbia (21 109: -9%).

Somewhat predictably, China kept its place as the country where most vehicles are produced with 26 082 220 units, ahead of the United States (9 167 214), Japan (7,846,955), India (4 399 112) and South Korea (3 462 404).

In terms of a country’s employment based on the automotive industry, Slovenia ranked first with 16.2% ahead of Romania (15.2%) and the Czech Republic (13.8%), while Greece and Cyprus were found to be the countries least dependent on the automotive with 0.5%, along with Croatia (0.9%).

Countries with the highest increases in vehicle production:

Biggest car producers in the world

Additional findings of the survey can be found at goshorty.co.uk.