What Is the Best Car Maker? See Comparison

The best car manufacturer is, naturally, the one that made the beast vibrating under your jeans back pocket. But if we were to try to find the best car maker in the world, what would it be? And what does ‘the best car maker’ even mean?

In this article, we’ll find out what criteria we could use to choose the best car maker. And, of course, the outcome of our quest.

Enter the car brand you think is the best in the field below and you may be pleasantly surprised at the end of the story.

How to choose the best car maker?

Choosing the best car manufacturer is like choosing which of your siblings or children you like best. You might have your favorite, but you’ll soon realise that others don’t agree with you if you start yelling about it over dinner.

That’s why we need some criteria to decide the best car in the world. We award points to the best in each category and the highest scorer wins the coveted All Good Great Best Car in the World award.

Our categories are:

• Safety
• Sales
• Reliability
• Market cap
• Design

Best car maker for safety: Škoda

In terms of safety, we use the Euro NCAP safety tests and the best performing cars as the yardstick. The tests assess safety from four angles: adult passenger, child passenger, pedestrian and safety features.

The latest results, for 2021, rewarded the best in each car category:

• Mercedes EQ EQS
• Nissan Qashqai
• Škoda Enyaq iV
• Toyota Yaris Cross
• Škoda Fabia

We award 3 points per mention for this section:

World’s best-selling car maker: Toyota

The best brand of car is certainly more popular than the worst brand. Interpreted in this way, we can give points simply for the fact that a car is sold and bought more than the others. This article is not about finding the best-driving car, for example, but about finding the best car maker – whatever that means.

According to Statista, the top five best-selling car brands in 2021 were:

• Toyota Corolla
• Toyota RAV4
• Ford F-series
• Honda CR-V
• Toyota Camry

We give 5 points to the best-selling car and one less for each next-ranking car (4,3,2,1). So Toyota scores a whopping 5 + 4 + 1 = 10 points in this category.

Most reliable car brand: Lexus

It’s nice to sit in a car, but it’s even nicer when it’s moving. That’s why our third category is car reliability. We use Consumer Reports’ list of the most reliable cars of 2022 as our source.

The top five cars for reliability are:

• Lexus GX
• Kia Niro EV
• Toyota Prius Prime
• Toyota Prius
• Cadillac XT5

The winner again gets 5 points and the others according to their ranking (4, 3, 2, 1). Lexus is considered a separate car brand for the purposes of this article, even though it is owned by Toyota.

The most valuable car maker on the stock market: Tesla

The stock market looks at and analyses all the information in the world and, with its invisible hand, determines the valuation of companies. So let’s also include the market capitalization of companies. At the time of writing, in October 2022, the top five companies by market value are:

• Tesla ($700 billion)
• Toyota ($190 billion)
• BYD (Chinese car manufacturer, $89 billion)
• Porsche ($89 billion, a subsidiary of Volkswagen)
• Volkswagen ($76 billion)

Winner gets 5 points and others according to their ranking (4,3,2,1). Of course, the Volkswagen group includes many car brands, such as Škoda, but let’s give a point to Volkswagen because it is the name of the group.

Best design for a car: Toyota, Ferrari and Polestar

Beauty is in the viewer’s bank statement. But beauty cannot be ignored when looking for the best car. These points are awarded on the basis of the annual Car Design Awards. The jury will judge the best concept car, the best car in production and the best design language. In 2022, the winners were:

• Toyota Compact Cruiser EV
• Ferrari 296 GTB
• Polestar

Because more beauty is needed in the world, all winners in this series will each be awarded 4 points.

What is the best car maker in the world? The results are clear

Choosing the best car brand was supposed to be a difficult, almost impossible task. But the results are clear and the winner stands out from the crowd.

We can unanimously and definitively declare that the best car brand in the world is: Toyota.

Toyota was the only car brand to score points across the board. It excelled in safety, reliability, sales and design.

Here is the final scoreboard:

• Toyota (26)
• Škoda (6)
• Lexus (5)
• Tesla (5)
• Kia (4)
• Ferrari (4)
• Polestar (4)
• Mercedes-Benz (3)
• Nissan (3)
• Ford (3)
• BYD (3)
• Honda (2)
• Porsche (2)
• Cadillac (1)
• Volkswagen (1)

If you feel that the world’s best car award went to the wrong brand, take comfort in the fact that we both know that the real best car is Volvo.