Global car markets are undergoing potentially transformative changes. Car sales reached a high point in 2017 and have bounced back from a pandemic-related drop due to sales of electric and hybrid cars; sales of conventional cars have continued to fall. Growth has shifted to emerging economies including China since the turn of the century, with around half of all sales now in these regions.

Global car production has grown unevenly since the pandemic. China’s car output reached a record 27 million in 2024, 30% higher than in 2019, while India’s output grew 30% to almost 5 million cars. US production approached 2019 levels in 2024, whereas production in the European Union and Japan remained under pre-pandemic levels, due to lower domestic sales and exports.

Exports from the four largest car-producing regions represent 20% of global car production. Electric cars now account for over 15% of global car trade, up from less than 4% in 2019. China overtook the European Union to become the world’s largest car exporter in 2024, exporting 20% of output, up from about 3% in 2019.

The global market for cars amounts to around USD 2.9 trillion per year, making it one of the largest markets for a single product. The car industry accounts for around 6% of gross value added by manufacturing, or around 1% of global GDP in 2024. The European Union, Japan, Korea, China and the United States account for around 80% of the value added in global car manufacturing. 

The car industry adds value in other sectors, such as steel, for which it represents over 10% of demand in advanced economies. In the European Union, for each EUR 1 million in motor vehicle sales in 2022, an average of EUR 1.4 million more was generated across the economy to support production. If direct and indirect value addition from car manufacturing are combined, the contribution to global GDP is around 3%. Irrespective of where a car is produced and the share of imports, more value tends to be generated downstream than upstream.

Over 10 million people worldwide are directly employed in the car industry, more than ever before. Job distribution differs depending on output and level of automation. The industry also supports jobs upstream, and in service and retail.

Car manufacturing remains rooted in regional industrial clusters, such as Detroit, Nagoya or Shanghai. While the former 2 each have 1 battery factory, Shanghai has 26, with a capacity of about 200 GWh – more than 5% of the global total.