In spite of rising prices, interest rates, and inflationary pressures, new vehicle sales remain, as Cox Automotive’s top analysts described, “resilient,” while raising their 2026 forecast to a seasonally adjusted average rate of 16.1 million.
As sales continue to hold ground, market share among manufacturers is shifting as consumers target different vehicles, with Hyundai overtaking Ford to move into the top three for sales in the last quarter.
Driving the news: In its third-quarter sales forecast, Cox Automotive increased its forecast by 300,000 from the mid-year prediction of 15.8 million.
Retail sales are projected to finish at 13.1 million, 2.3% below 2025.
Notably, year-to-date sales are down 1.8% at 12.02 million.
“Just solid and resilient demand,” said Cox Automotive Chief Economist Jeremy Robb. “If we were just to give an economics presentation, and I do a lot of those for people, the data gets pretty negative. But if you just think about the automotive market, the auto market this year has been pretty resilient. New and used sales are both down year-over-year, but they’re not down really that much. I think the new market’s down close to 3% year-over-year.”
Impacts on consumers: Robb noted that after nearly balancing in 2025, the growth in personal expenditures is once again heavily outpacing personal income by around 2%.
Rising fuel prices were a large part of the rise in expenses, with the average price per gallon of gas rising to $4.48 and diesel prices topping $6.50.
Robb explained that increases in car prices, with the average transaction at $50,090, are running below CPI, and auto parts are near it.
“One of the things that’s related to vehicles that’s really driving a lot of added expenses is the cost to repair your car,” Robb said. “That’s probably the number one still rising expense overall.”
Change in demand, sales: Most vehicle segments are down year over year, with the exception of subcompact SUVs, minivans, and mid-size trucks, SUVs, and cars.
“We’re converging in the middle,” said Erin Keating, Executive Analyst for Cox Automotive. “Compact and entry segments are down on the affordability side, but so are the $70,000 and $80,000 trucks and full-size SUVs…Mid-size is still in.”
Minivans are seeing a more than 8% jump in sales year over year, the largest gain of any segment.
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Hyundai moves into third: With sales of 511,421 in the third quarter, Hyundai leapfrogged Ford for third among automakers for the quarter.
Hyundai saw a 4.4% gain from the previous quarter, and sales are up 4.4% for the year.
GM leads all sales to date with 2 million, but sales are down 6.2% year over year, and its share is down 0.8%.
Hyundai stepped into some of the rental fleet sales that Ford pulled back from.
With a 1% growth in sales for the year, Toyota has narrowed the gap between it and GM heading into the final quarter with its 1.88 million units sold.
“We see some of the Asian brands coming forward and really taking the industry by storm,” Keating said. “This is really related to the fact they have full portfolio lineups. They have the passenger cars, they have the subcompact and compact SUVs. They really run the market, and most importantly, they have hybrids….The Detroit 3 have actually had their lowest share in years this year.”
Bottom line: Sales are expected to maintain their pace for the rest of 2026. And though there are some challenges with affordability for some customers and the late arrivals of new inventory, the market is holding up.
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