Hyundai’s having a great 2026 so far this year. Last month, it had its best August sales in the U.S. in the brand’s history, building on top of the brand’s best first half sales. Things are looking so good, that the industry analysts at Cox Automotive are expecting the Hyundai group as a whole to have a truly fantastic third quarter, which wraps up at the end of this month.
Cox predicts that Hyundai will have actually outsold Ford in America for the third quarter, and that’s just the start of the interesting sales data.
2026 Hyundai TucsonHyundai
Hyundai May Win The Battle, But Not Quite The War This Year
From July through September, Cox is estimating that Hyundai will have sold 511,421 cars. That will be an improvement of 6.5% compared to the same quarter last year, when Hyundai sold 480,174 cars. That boost wouldn’t normally be enough to beat Ford, but Ford has had a comparatively poor quarter. Cox expects sales to be down 7.1% from the third quarter of last year, dropping from 542,983 cars to just 504,172.
Now it’s not all bad news for Ford. When it comes to sales for the whole year to the end of the third quarter, Cox is still expecting Ford to be ahead overall with 1,505,134 cars to Hyundai’s 1,431,804. It’s probably still a cold comfort for Ford, though, since the predicted year-to-date sales are still a drop of 8.8% and nearly 150,000 cars. Hyundai’s, on the other hand, represent an improvement of 4.3% and around 60,000 sales.
2021 Ford bronco SportFord
Are There Any Other Notable Sales Numbers?
While Hyundai and Ford seem to be in the tightest battle for sales supremacy, there’s another high-profile one where the gaps are tightening. General Motors still remains the best-selling automaker in the U.S., and it should stay that way for the quarter and for the year so far. However, just like with Ford and Hyundai, GM’s sales are dropping while Toyota’s are rising. So Toyota is getting closer than ever to challenging GM for America’s bestseller overall.
2026 Toyota RAV4 front 3/4Jared Rosenholtz/CarBuzz/Valnet
At the end of the third-quarter, Cox estimates GM will have sold 671,706 cars to bring its total to 2,007,180, representing drops of 5.2% and 6.2% respectively. Toyota’s quarterly sales will likely hit 642,707, bringing its total so far to 1,886,096. Those are improvements of 2.2% and 1.1% respectively. Even more concerning for GM, is the fact that Toyota hasn’t been at full strength this year. RAV4 sales plummeted at the start of the year due to production issues, greatly diminishing Toyota’s gains for the year.
Among other interesting sales statistics, a couple of automakers that have had a rocky couple of years seem to be having a relatively stable year. Stellantis sales for the year so far are projected to be up by 2.8%, and Nissan-Mitsubishi is almost dead even with last year with an increase of 0.1%. Volkswagen, though, will be down by about 7.1%, so it’s not doing great.
2021 Dodge Durango SRT HellcatStellantis
The worst performer by far for 2026 is Tesla. The automaker’s sales for the quarter are down a whopping 31% compared to the same quarter last year, and total sales are going to be down by 18.9%. In fact, Tesla was ahead of VW last year with 451,160 sales, and it has fallen behind VW, even with VW’s sales slump, with Tesla racking up less than 400,000 sales for the year total.
North America-spec 2027 Tesla Model Y L front three-quarter viewTesla
CarBuzz Insight – Why This Matters:
Clearly, the American automakers need to make some changes if they want to keep their positions for American sales. As for what they may need to do, they should probably take some pages from the rivals at their heels. Toyota and Hyundai both have lineups with plenty of small, affordable vehicles, as well as lots of hybrid options. As gas prices rise and people have more difficulty affording new vehicles, demand will be going up for those.
The question is: can GM and Ford get similar products out the door before they lose out to Toyota and Hyundai?
Source: Cox Automotive via Jalopnik
