Hybrids lift Toyota, Honda and Korean brands as GM and Ford slip in Q3 sales

Third-quarter U.S. sales reports released Oct. 1 and 2 split the industry along a clear line. Automakers with deep hybrid lineups grew, while General Motors and Ford, whose hybrid lineups are limited, lost ground.

GM remained the country's top-selling automaker with 670,974 vehicles, but that was 5.5% fewer than in the third quarter of 2025. Toyota Motor North America sold 633,223, up 0.6%, and 363,367 of those, or 57.4%, were electrified models, a category that includes hybrids, plug-in hybrids and EVs. American Honda climbed 9.3% to 392,341 and sold a record of more than 106,000 hybrids.

Hyundai Motor America posted its best third quarter ever at 246,896 sales, up 3%, with hybrid sales up 35%. Kia America grew faster, selling 236,659 vehicles for the best quarter in its history, an 8% gain.

Where the hybrids are

Toyota's namesake division hit a 61% electrified mix, its best ever, and Toyota and Lexus now offer 32 electrified models between them. Honda's CR-V sold 110,730 units in the quarter, up 16.6%. At Hyundai, the Tucson set a quarterly record with a 23% gain, and the Elantra and Sonata rose 18% and 34%.

"We've got really high demand for hybrids," Lance Woelfer, head of American Honda's U.S. sales, told CNBC. Fuel prices are part of the story: CNBC put the AAA national average at $4.41 a gallon. Cox Automotive says hybrids reached a record 16.3% share of new-vehicle sales in the second quarter, up from 13% a year earlier.

Ford has hybrids of its own. Maverick Hybrid sales jumped 59.6% to a third-quarter record of 27,793. But the company's total fell 6.6% to 509,764, which Ford attributed to the planned phase-out of the Ford Escape and Lincoln Corsair. Excluding those two models, Ford said its volume was essentially unchanged against an industry decline of about 1%. It held third place by a slim margin: CNBC counted 507,395 light-duty Fords against 506,200 vehicles from Hyundai, Kia and Genesis combined.

GM's EV slide

GM's decline came largely from electric vehicles, which faced a brutal comparison with last year's rush to buy before the federal EV tax credit expired on Sept. 30, 2025. Equinox EV sales fell 92.4% to 1,905. GM said sales of its gas-powered vehicles were roughly level, and its cheapest models grew: the Chevrolet Trailblazer rose 51%, the Buick Envista 18.4% and the Chevrolet Trax 16.3%. As CNBC noted, GM's only hybrid is the Corvette.

"Our business is performing very well, the launch of our next-generation full-size pickup trucks is on track, and we are making investments in new vehicles, innovative technologies, and our U.S. manufacturing footprint to drive our next phase of growth." — Duncan Aldred, president of GM North America

Elsewhere, Stellantis was flat at 324,277 as a 29% jump at Ram offset a roughly 20% drop at Jeep, and Nissan Group rose 1.4% to 226,474.

What it means for shoppers

A week before the reports, Cox Automotive forecast that Detroit brands would finish the quarter with just over 36% of the market, the lowest share on record, while Asian brands topped 50% for a second straight quarter. Cox senior economist Charlie Chesbrough tied the shift to buyers moving toward hybrids and passenger cars, "segments where Asian manufacturers maintain significant advantages."

Strong demand cuts both ways for buyers. Cox says supply problems have reduced Toyota RAV4 sales by about 100,000 units this year, Toyota says its incentives are among the lowest of any full-line automaker, and dealers in Cox's third-quarter sentiment survey reported feeling less pressure to cut prices. Shoppers set on a popular hybrid may find little room to negotiate and should be ready to widen their search across brands. Cox also raised its full-year 2026 forecast to 16.1 million new-vehicle sales, up from 15.8 million.