Hybrid-heavy versions of the Toyota Camry, Honda Accord, Corolla and Civic are powering a US sedan sales rebound without knocking SUVs off the throne.
Toyota and Honda just posted numbers that do not fit the narrative anyone had written about sedans. The Toyota Camry moved 260,684 units through the first nine months of 2026, up 11.2 percent, while the Honda Accord jumped 32.7 percent to 145,520 sales over the same stretch.
SUVs and trucks still move the most metal in America. American Honda as a whole just logged its best third quarter since 2019, and the strength is not buried in one segment.
2026 Toyota Camry Nightshade Edition
No sedan sold more copies than the Camry this year. Toyota‘s third-quarter sales reached 633,223 vehicles overall, up 0.6 percent year over year, with electrified models accounting for 363,367 of them, a 28.5 percent jump, according to Toyota Motor North America.
The Corolla backed up the Camry’s run with 195,141 sales, an 8.4 percent increase, and hybrid demand did a lot of the lifting. Corolla hybrid sales hit 13,003 units in the third quarter alone, nearly 36 percent above the same period a year earlier.
Toyota’s hybrid momentum was not confined to one nameplate. The brand’s overall US hybrid sales climbed 29 percent in the third quarter, a trend that lines up with the kind of growth tracked in last year’s Corolla and Camry sales, except this time the gains are even steeper.
2026 Honda Accord Touring
The Accord‘s 32.7 percent surge is the standout number of the quarter, and it was not a one-month blip. Honda sold 16,507 Accords in September alone, a 27.7 percent jump, while the Honda Civic reached 17,724 units that month, up 8.4 percent.
Hybrids explain a big chunk of that growth. Honda said hybrid versions made up 44 percent of Accord sales and 35 percent of Civic sales in September, figures that come from American Honda’s September and third-quarter sales release.
American Honda’s total US sales rose 9.3 percent in the third quarter, and the company reported selling just over 80,000 hybrid vehicles in that span in the United States. The brand’s sedans, hatchbacks and sports cars rose 15.6 percent year over year, while its SUVs and trucks grew just 0.3 percent.
That gap helps flip the usual script. However, Honda’s crossovers are not struggling as the CR-V lineup keeps selling well, but the passenger-car side is growing faster than anything with a tailgate.
2025 Mazda3
Hyundai’s Elantra gained about 18 percent on a year-to-date basis even as it nears the end of its current generation, and Mazda3 sales jumped 42.3 percent over the same January-to-September window. The resurgence has climbed upmarket too, with BMW 3 Series sales up about 51 percent and the Lexus IS up 51.7 percent year to date.
Not every brand is riding the wave. Nissan’s Sentra and outgoing Altima are both down for the year, even as the brand’s SUVs and trucks improved. That split stands out against the gains logged elsewhere on this year’s list of best-selling cars.
Price is doing a lot of the persuading. A Civic or Accord can still be had for less than $30,000, often several thousand dollars below a comparable compact SUV, and hybrid versions of both return more than 48 mpg combined without requiring a buyer to go fully electric.
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Toyota and Honda
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