Cars and Drivers

The World's Most Searched Car Brands

Douglas A. McIntyre

Published: January 22, 2022 10:15 am

Success in the car industry comes in several forms. One is total sales. Recently, globally, this position has been held by Volkswagen or Toyota, depending on the year. Another measure is profits. Some modest-sized companies like Porsche have high margins because of the price premium their vehicles carry. Yet another yardstick is quality. The top of this list is usually held by premium brands which include Mercedes and BMW.

Confused.com has picked another way to measure the car industry and car brand success. The study is titled “The world’s top 20 most searched for car brands.”

The premise of the study is that global annual online searches should be considered as a way to measure brand success. The methodology involved the use of Google Keyword Planner. In one month, the search results of 250 brands were ranked by volume. The monthly number was multiplied by 12 to get a one-year figure, which is not a terribly good way to set a proxy for an entire year. For purposes of comparison, the study also reviewed the value of car exports from the world’s largest counties, although this was not used as a part of the means to determine the list.

What is, by almost all measures, a small car company, Tesla, had the most searches at 11.1 million. Tesla delivered 308,600 vehicles in the fourth quarter, a fraction of what companies like Toyota and VW do. However, as the world’s premier EV maker, Tesla is considered the car company of the future. It has a market capitalization of $947 billion. That compares to GM’s at $77 billion. GM sold 7 million cars a year before the pandemic.

Tesla was followed by Volkswagen which posted 9,140,000 searches and Toyota with virtually the same number .BMW had 7,480,000 which tied it with South Korea’s Hyundai. Audi, a division of VW, had 6,120,000. Honda has the same number of searches at Audi.

Click here to read The Fastest-Selling Car In America Right Now