It’s been a great year for Honda and Toyota’s big sedans. The Accord and Camry are having the kind of year they haven’t seen in more than a decade. Toyota even had a little stumble in August, but it’s not anywhere near enough to dim the sedan’s surging sales.
In fact, the lights are shining so bright that many of the SUVs and crossovers intended to replace sedans are now getting beat by these two.
Accord And Camry Are On A Roll
11 Generations Of AccordHonda
Honda dealers sold 18,691 Accord sedans in August, 19% more than they managed in the same month last year. For the full year, Accord sales are up an astounding 34%. That’s 129,014 sedans in the US, and it puts Honda on pace to easily surpass the 200,000 mark for yearly sales. That’s a number it hasn’t seen since 2021, after cracking the 300,000 sales mark for decades.
Toyota Camry sales dropped 9.7% last month, but don’t be fooled by the misstep. The total was a still-impressive 25,754 units. For the full year so far, Camry sales are 12% higher than last year, with 235,334. If it maintains that pace, it should break through 350,000. Toyota hasn’t seen that number since 2017, the year the RAV4 pushed ahead of the iconic sedan. In fact, Camry consistently outsold RAV4 earlier this year, and still leads in year-to-date sales. And it’s “down” month in August still beat notable family SUVs like the Ford Explorer.
Will 2026’s Sales Charts Look Like 2016?
2026 Toyota Camry AWDToyota
So far this year, Toyota is on pace to see the Camry flip places with the RAV4 and retake its historic spot as the company’s bestseller in the US. Production changeover to the new-generation RAV has sales down 32% for the year, though it may finally be starting to turn the corner.
Where could the sedans find themselves in the rankings at the end of the year? The Accord is already back in the top 25. At the halfway point in the year, it was in 20th place, which is probably delivering a sigh of relief at Honda after it fell out of the top 25 last year. It is just 700 units shy of the Kia Sportage crossover, an SUV that is having a record year. It’s also ahead of the Subaru Crosstrek, an SUV that is fighting Forester to be Subaru’s best-selling model.
The Camry could end up near the top of the list, possibly even making the top five. That would be a huge achievement. At the halfway point of the year, it was ahead of the GMC Sierra pickup as well as the Tesla Model Y, all vehicles that have outsold it in recent years.
Other popular vehicles you’ll find under the Camry? How about the Ford Explorer, another vehicle that was once at the top of the charts but is now well out of the top 10. Or the Nissan Rogue, Chevrolet Equinox, and Hyundai Tucson. For a segment that many automakers decided to either cut back significantly or abandon, Toyota and Honda are definitely proving why that was a big mistake.
CarBuzz Insight – Why This Matters:
1997 Toyota Camry side angle in redToyota
Gas is expensive. Trucks and SUVs are expensive, and they generally use a lot of gas. Sedan buyers can save on both counts. The answer is to give up the all-wheel drive and outsized footprint of a crossover and return to a sedan. Especially when that sedan, like all new Camrys and most Accords, is a hybrid.
Until record-high vehicle prices and fuel prices start to fade, expect to see traditional sedans continuing to gain ground over SUVs. Reports suggest that new vehicle costs have already pushed one million potential buyers out of the market completely, and it’s not clear how many are going to new cars instead of crossovers. The results suggest that number is significant.
Once Q3 sales drop in early October, we should get an even clearer picture of whether the sedan resurgence is just a blip, or truly a trend that’s here to stay.
