GM, Ford, Honda in a quagmire. Tesla now like GM & Ford. Stellantis & Nissan try to exit a death spiral. Toyota gains. Hyundai-Kia rocks from record to record.
By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.
What marked new vehicle sales in March this year was the huge spike in March last year when people – misled by the media about massive price increases on new vehicles due to the tariffs – went out and bought 1.59 million new vehicles, the most for any March since 2018. This effort to frontrun the tariffs created a huge outlier.
And March this year is compared to March last year, and sales this year could not reproduce that outlier of March last year, and so year-over-year, sales fell by 11.9%.
But beyond the year-over-year metric, sales at 1.40 million vehicles in March were in the normal range of this unforgiving market where sales have been skittering lower for years – for over two decades actually (deliveries to end-users, Bureau of Economic Analysis today):
The seasonally adjusted annual rate of sales, which accounts for the number of selling days and seasonal factors, jumped to 16.3 million vehicles in March, still down by 8.7% from March 2025, but the second-best March since March 2021, which had been the highest for any March in years, boosted by another wave of stimulus checks and PPP money hailing down on Americans.
Also note the three high months July, August, and September 2025, which was when huge record EV sales pushed up overall vehicle sales. EV sales surged because the federal EV incentives were ending on September 30, and people were frontrunning the end of the incentives. This moved EV sales forward. Predictably, EV sales cratered in the months afterwards but appear to have bottomed out now.
Annual new vehicle sales had peaked in 2000 and 2016 at nearly the same volume, each followed by a long deep plunge and a slow recovery.
The reason new vehicle sales have been in a long-term decline is because automakers, in their infinite wisdom and allegiance to Wall Street, kept jacking up prices to fatten their profit margins, and losing customers in the process.
This started a cycle where some automakers – specifically GM, Ford, and Stellantis among the big ones – decided to increase their dollar-sales and their profit margins by raising prices, accepting that they cannot raise their sales volume, which led to high prices crushing their sales volume.
Other automakers have butted into the equation, particularly Hyundai-Kia, and their sales continued to soar from record to record. So not all automakers are losers in this game.
This is the most important chart to describe the tough US auto market:
As a result… Automakers ended up eating all of the tariffs and reported tens of billions of dollars in earnings warnings because of them, and new vehicle prices didn’t budge, because automakers could not pass on the tariffs because demand was weak after automakers had jacked up their prices by 20% in just two years, and had bumped into that ceiling of consumers refusing to go further, and automakers couldn’t push prices beyond that ceiling without losing sales and market share.
In the fallout from those losses due to eating the tariffs, at least one CEO of a global automaker was forced out: Toyota’s CEO Koji Sato was shuffled to the side effective yesterday, after just three years on the job, and was replaced by CFO Kenta Kon, after Toyota’s profits plunged.
But Toyota’s aggressive prices in the US boosted its sales volume in 2025 and set a new record, while sales at GM, Ford, and Honda were far below their 2015 levels, and Stellantis was in full collapse mode.
Hyundai-Kia, which also ate the tariffs and shifted more production to its plants in the US – and is expanding its plants in the US – to dodge the tariffs, had a huge banner year and all-time record (my annual sales charts for each of the major automakers are here).
Sales by major automaker.
Some automakers, including GM, only report quarterly sales. Tesla doesn’t report US sales at all; it only reports global quarterly sales. All data as reported by each automaker today and yesterday.
#1 General Motors, Q1 sales: -9.7% from the banner Q1 last year, to 626,429 vehicles, all brands combined.
#2 Toyota, Q1 sales: -0.1% year-over-year, to 569,420 vehicles, Toyota and Lexus brands combined. Toyota division sales inched up by 0.3%; Lexus sales fell by 2.5%.
#3 Ford, Q1 sales: -8.8% year-over-year, to 457,315 vehicles, Ford and Lincoln brands combined.
#4 Hyundai-Kia, Q1 sales: +2.5% year-over-year, to 412,403 vehicles, a record first quarter. While others whine about the strong Q1 2025 that they couldn’t overcome, Hyundai-Kia just went out and blew them away.
Hyundai-Kia’s annual sales, from my annual report on US auto sales, are on track to blow by Ford in the not-too-distant future to become the #3 in the US, behind GM and Toyota, with Ford dropping to #4:
#5 Honda, Q1 sales: -4.2% year-over-year, to 336,830 vehicles, Honda and Accura brands combined.
#6 Stellantis FCA, Q1 sales: +4% year-over-year, all brands combined, to 305,902, ticking up from the abysmal levels last year. Annual sales in 2025 were down by 44% from the peak in 2015.
#7 Nissan Q1 sales: -7.5% year-over-year, to 247,068 vehicles, Nissan and Infiniti combined. Annual sales in 2025 were down by 42% from the peak in 2017.
Tesla only discloses global sales, not US sales. In Q1, Tesla’s global deliveries rose 6.3% year-over-year to 358,023 vehicles (red line).
- Model 3 and Model Y: +5.6% YoY, to 341,893 vehicles (blue).
- “Other Models” (Cybertruck, Model X, Model S): +25.2% YoY to 16,130 vehicles, clinging to the bottom of the chart (green line).
Tesla is no longer a growing automaker. Q1 sales were well below Q1 2024 (386,810) and Q1 2023 (422,875). It’s just a normal automaker now, with flat to declining sales, like Ford and GM:
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“Hyundai-Kia’s annual sales, from my annual report on US auto sales, are on track to blow by Ford in the not-too-distant future to become the #3 ”
That’s what can be accomplished when a manufacturing company has the smarts, balls, and productivity to be willing to compete on price.
Along with Toyota (for different reasons), Hyundai really exposes just how increasingly outclassed GM and Ford are becoming – having turned themselves into financial game players first (“low, low monthly payments so longer as there is ZIRP and lenders willing to go out to 84 months!”) and actual car makers second.
beware toyota financing
our new son-in-law(in military) had his financing thru toyota credit
they hit him with 6.69% financing AND $6.50 PER DAY CHARGE
after 18 months of $800 he paid off total of $1,500
Couldn’t agree more. I have 80 domestic made trucks and vans I manage (mostly GM). Every single model, for every single year (20-25) has had one or more recalls. Literally received 3 today in mail for 23′ model Transits. That doesn’t even count the numerous ‘phantom’ problems like emissions faults, dying in traffic, battery drain, etc., etc.
If you can’t make a better product like Honda / Toyota then someone is going to come up and crush you on price if it’s the same crap.
Honda overrated
Honda has lots of recalls. You can look them up here, by VIN:
https://owners.honda.com/service-maintenance/recalls/
Toyota has lots of recalls too. they all do.
You just don’t have a fleet of Hondas and Toyotas, and so you don’t see it
I read an article that the car companies for awhile now, cut their R&D short and push new models out even with known and unsolved problems.
The premise being that they are not spending on more R&D, they start getting return through sales, and basically pass part of the R&D buck off to the new vehicle owners.
They can supposedly find faults and glitches much faster and way cheaper through owner/customer complaints than through closed circuit R&D.
Not that I necessarily agree at all with that approach style. Just sayin’
Wolf , thank you for the Article on sales. I am responding to your China feedback. A) the byd cars and Chinese in general will be sold everywhere, the US will fight to keep byd out of US otherwise domestics loose Market share( they’ll still loose more in say latin America, Europe etc) Unfortunately the big 3 shared too much technology and off shored so many specialized parts/software to China that the short term gains they received are now kicking their butt.
B) The US manufacturing and Unions all had a part in lack of efficiency, education for their newer workers and souch more to understand what competitive edge meant in manufacturing, Tarrifs alone won’t fix all this, culture, processes, efficiency and innovation along with education of young people. In All aspects what we see failing for US innovation wise won’t be fixed by AI, we have a culture problem, finger pointing and a failed leadership and I for one blame both sides. Unfortunately sometimes it will take a great recession or worse to get people to wake up. Our vehicles and manufacturing was some of the best ever,! Can it be done again yes Absolutely
The reality that new/er domestic vehicles are pricey junk is painful & expensive. I’ve gone to looking at pre-Covid made cars, particularly low milage ones with maintenance records. Comparatively more than they were, for 4 to 16 year old vehicles, but lots less than new cars! And with what you saved, you can afford to put a new drivetrain in & know they actually run!!!
“Compete on price” – you think that the Koreans make what American workers make?
First to market with an ICEwagen with no IC for <$10K might take over the world……
It’ll take over the world, just not the US.
I saw a BYD in Houston the other day (Mexican plates). Pretty nice car.
How long it will have to be *Mexican* plates will really tell the tale.
Basically the US makers (and therefore the US gvt) are absolutely scared to death of BYD (and similar Chinese companies’) ultra low price points – primarily because they show just how grossly inflated the traditional auto makers have allowed their price points to become/how grossly uncompetitive their manufacturing processes have become.
It won’t take too long for the modern US consumer to find out that he/she are *forbidden* from buying cars (BYD, etc) that Europeans/Mexicans/mostly everybody else can buy – at 60% off US prices.
Then, political hell is likely to bust loose.
BYD et al, are sort of the hard central paradox of reshoring – the US needs to do *something* to resurrect/*temporarily* shield its domestic industrial capacity – which was allowed to decay/rot away for 25 years.
*But* intl competitors (BYD et al) are *already* on the top of their manufacturing game – meaning that US consumers paying for reshoring are going to maybe have to (at least temporarily) pay 2.5 times than other people with access to BYD.
That is the horror show brought to the US through the terrible, terrible decay in domestic manufacturing capability.
Are you paid by the Chinese propaganda machine to post this? The Chinese government set out decades ago to destroy Western manufacturing. And they did it in various ways, including through forced technology transfer and investment and theft of intellectual property from Western companies in China when companies tried to get access to China, then through subsidizing their own industries, with many companies being state-controlled, and then pushing to the next level with their production and infrastructure, always subsidized by the government. Now that US companies shifted much of their production to China, and have trouble producing in the US, the Chinese government is pushing for the next step to destroy US manufacturing where it still exists, such as in the auto industry. China has done this systematically industry by industry. See solar panels, rare earths, etc. People — including all Presidents until Trump 1 — have been completely bought by this Chinese doctrine. Trump 1 was the first to see it and do something about it (with tariffs), too late. Biden also saw it and tried to do something about it (with incentives and subsidies) too late; and Trump 2 is now trying to do something about it, too late. It’s people like you who are largely responsible for this catastrophic development.
The scoreboard reads
Wolf 100
Cas127 0
Yes, remember, ” that giant sucking sound,is your manufacturing leaving the country”, that was 50 years ago.
@Dave: I’m old but I was thinking it can’t be 50 years since Ross Perot was telling us about “that giant sucking sound” (I Googled and it was 34 years ago). P.S. I know many prople with German & Japanese cars older than 20 years. I wonder how many Chinese cars will still be on the road after 20 years?
This is how China operates. How they destroyed Nortel Canada.
BYD is terrifying but economical. While North America is desperate for starter-price vehicles, in enters BYD.
As my cyber friend said, do you trust plugging in your phone in their “Apple Carplay” USB when you refuse to use public USB charging stations?
And worse, are companies comfortable with this technology sitting in their parking lots, potentially harvesting data?
https://globalnews.ca/news/7275588/inside-the-chinese-military-attack-on-nortel/
President Reagan, the champion of Conservative Capitalism said and policies enforced going from a manufacturing to a service economy. Since the old adage that 90% of millionaires (Federal Reserve inflation now billionaires 1000x) made their money in real estate, the other 10% must want free factories or perhaps with cars we will be living in them so those oligarchs are going into “real estate.”
ApartmentInvestor,
It’s the belief that the Chinese are incapable of doing anything that amazes me most. Firstly, if this were true, Western businesses would have been even more reluctant to shift production. But mostly, they have played a long-game and beat us because people like you don’t think they can. I got news for you buddy, they already have.
When Americans wake up and realize we can’t import our way to a better nation, that we have millions of people who manage paycheck to paycheck who could all benefit from higher production wages- and learn a few skills as well. When we aren’t dependent on a foreign nation for basic medical products, when we realize that other nations want what we had and are willing to pay dirty.
Wolf, I don’t disagree with a thing you wrote but I will say… what China achieved was done by the arrogance of believing they would never develop and by sheer greed- because there were plenty of businesspeople and leaders warning us that doing what we did would achieve the dire results we now face.
Since Wolf isn’t allowing replies to his post below. Wolf seems to absolve Western capitalists in his “evil China” unilaterally destroying Western productive capacity rant. Western capitalists were fully complicit in this. They don’t give one patriotic shit about whether production is domestic or not. Chinese state capitalism simply aided and abetted this.
1. “Since Wolf isn’t allowing replies to his post below.”
you people never cease to amaze me with your eagerness to fill in what you don’t know with a stupid conspiracy theory. The system here uses 4-deep nested comments to maintain readability on mobile devices, as should be OBVIOUS when you look at the comments. So: the original comment + reply to original + reply to 1st reply + reply to 2nd reply. After that, there is no more reply button, and you choose the last comment above that still has a reply button, and you reply to it, which puts the comment in the lineup below. Make sure to add the name of the commenter you’re replying to for clarity.
2. “Western capitalists were fully complicit in this. They don’t give one patriotic shit about whether production is domestic or not. Chinese state capitalism simply aided and abetted this.”
I totally agree, and I have always said this. They did it eagerly to get access to China’s market for their China-made products because it boosted their revenues and earnings and stock prices; to get access to cheap Chinese labor for US-sold products; and to get the benefits in the US tax code for doing it with their US-sold products. Which is why tariffs are needed to change the math for these companies to where at least some of that production is moved to the US. The Chinese system was set up specifically to accomplish this to then dominate manufacturing in the world. China knew exactly how to manipulate Wall Street benightedness and corporate short-termism. That Chinese plan has been in place for 30+ years. And it worked for them. Which is why tariffs are needed.
Stellantis in collapse mode, but poor VW only about 1/4 of even that level.
Volkswagen sales increased last year by 7% in USA. But, the first quarter of 2026 is not going so well.
Great information. Would love to see BMW 388,000? and Mercedes 300,000? included
🤣 that’s sales for the whole entire year 2025, not Q1.
In Q1, BMW of North America sold 84,231 vehicles, way too small to figure into my lineup. The smallest entry in my lineup is Nissan with 247,068 in Q1.
Nissan has gone from quality vehicles to garbage.
I had a 2 door Pathfinder SE back in the day,was a excellent vehicle and reliable as hell.
As a contractor have a lot of folks I know who bought there 2500-35– vans,garbage in many ways.
The few folks I know who bought their newer pickups have the same complaints and reviews show many folks feel the same about cars.
I feel tis like they almost purposefully committed suicide.
I would love to see Toyota Hiluxs here,the .50 cal. or rocket launcher option would be a bonus!i
Nissan has made Horrendous mistakes. Starting with ignoring all their auto cvt transmission issues from their customers. Stellantis, er what’s left of Chrysler is living the same thing, ignoring customer facts , complaints and actual figures. Nissan could be back they have a new CEO , even sold plants and well they got more models coming. I believe post Goshn , their culture was in shambles that guy controlled everything. As to their trucks boy have they screwed up , they ruined a descent cummins diesel , the V8 was never properly updated. How is frontier competitive but they couldn’t replicate the looks and power to at least a half ton truck is beyond me. Hyundai is the new darling they just keep growing All their brands, personally I like the Genesis brand and will consider a model.
As much as people don’t like to admit it, I believe that the number of vehicles sold overall has not trended up because vehicles really do last longer than they used to. Yes, there are likely more drivers each year than the last, but vehicles lasting longer negates the additional drivers.
I’ve lived in the rustiest part of the rust belt all my life and the vehicles we own now are in incredible shape for their age compared to the stuff I owned even 20 years ago.
You’re right, people don’t like to admit it. They like to get mad that all the high tech features they demand, sometimes break, and cost more money when they do break. I think it’s really cool that the car will even go so far as to tell you what is wrong with it nowadays but nobody seems to give much credit for that
And they’re driving less than they did 20 years ago too.
Vehicles last longer, but the population has also increased from 240 million in 1985 to 340 million in 2025.
Very true on the population numbers, I believe car sales should have increased more , unfortunately affordable keeps getting worse. The Technology is more expensive to fix when things break, longevity and durability is slightly better not enough to equate the increase in price. Try finding a descent mid power car with sat a 23500 price a descent sedan midsize. Yup it’s not happening, younger people I’m not sure I can’t figure out the 20s generation their all headed to own nothing scenario because everything expensive, marriage rates dropping and birthrates too so it will get interesting.
@The Big Guy I’m also a “big car guy” in CA where we never had cars rust out like on the east coast and I think (other than better rust protection) the main reason that cars “last longer” is that due to the higher cost of replacing them more people are fixing them (all cars can last forever if you keep fixing them). If an old pickup needed a tranny in 1980 more people junked ithem since you could get a NEW Toyota or Chevy for a little over $5K. Today it is tough to fund a new truck for under $40K so more people are fixing them. My 15 year old Carrera S Cabrio had a sticker price of just over 100K. I was just at the dealer and saw a new one with a sticker price of just over $200K.
We had our second best March ever. Still lots of drunken sailors out there!
Tesla is different in that it is valued at more than all other car makers combined. So if Toyota is valued at approximately $25K per car produced, and Mercedes is valued at $29K per car produced, then Tesla is valued at $1 Million per car produced.
Truly mind-blowing isn’t it?? When does it end haha . The world just waiting on those robots or AI or whatever while they lose their ass on every Cybertruck sold
Yes, Tesla investors are retarded. Don’t get me started on Nvidia investors.
At least NVDA has a product that’s in high demand.
Investing in a guaranteed gov’t handout for the last 10 years or more is far from retarded. It’s insider trading.
Tesla value isn’t based on automotive sales. It is well known and well documented that they get their value from the gov’t carbon credit system. Maybe Tesla will see a decline when every other manufacturer has full EV line ups, but they won’t collapse unless all ICE vehicles are abolished. Don’t count on that happening anytime soon, the power grid won’t get you there.
I want to short Tesslur ssoooooo bad but by god the stock just can’t be stopped.
My heart goes out to the people that can stick with it
It’s down 16% the last 6mos, and has a lot more to fall once infestors wake up to the fact it’s just a car company with a stale product line.
Robo-whatevers are a pipe dream, but some people love living in market fantasy land.
Next Shoe To Drop
“infestors” 🤣❤️👍
Tesla is a good short. But the market can stay crazy longer than you can stay solvent. There are two triple inverse ETFs, obviously a dangerous proposition. I own SMST. I lost money earlier but I more than made it back recently. I am still holding it, but generally triple short inverse ETFs should be a very short term hold. Option decay takes the to zero eventually.
Tesla value is based on the delusion of its investors. Trump eliminated emission credits (technically, he eliminated the penalties for not complying with emissions caps). That pure profit line is gone.
Its car sales, as Wolf notes, are now like the rest of the market: stagnant at best, declining somewhat at worst.
Its autopilot is many years behind Waymo, and indeed, even regular car companies are surpassing them. I was surprised to find that even my Kia has a pretty decent adaptive cruise control.
Its battery business is a commodity business, in which the primary competitive advantage is held by the actual battery makers, not the repackagers like Tesla. Perhaps Tesla has some brand value in the consumer market, but in the utility scale market which is where the majority of deployments now are, no one cares about the Tesla name, only who can bid the most capacity for least price.
Fwiw, I still give Tesla major props for essentially starting the modern EV market. But Musk has frittered away his early mover advantage with his other distractions, and now, the market has largely caught up to it. It didn’t disrupt other automakers; they evolved pretty fast, and now, threaten to disrupt Tesla, not the other way around.
Their one remaining advantage, their supercharger network, is also rapidly being eclipsed by standardized charging networks that work across brands. After that I’m not sure what Tesla investors are betting on, unless it’s dancing clowns pretending to be robots :)
Tesla – ya mean that after all the g-mint promotion and subsidies of this Johnny-Come- Lately, they are declining or flatlining in sales? May as well be kicking a dead donkey.
What a joke. Good riddance!
TSLA is toast.
I’m still trying to figure out why anyone would be interested in owning this company at that multiple.
They’re making money on the options. E.g. sell a weekly call. Wheel or repeat.
Optimus Robots is now why. I would never own Tesla, myself.
I have two kids in their mid 20s. They could afford a car, but they can’t afford the insurance.
@JJG Mind if I ask what the insurance costs? My kids in their 20’s both pay around $2K/year
You don’t just buy a car these days. You buy high payments, high insurance premiums, high cost of fuel, high cost of maintenance and repairs. So a 500 dollar payment for a young buyer could be mean over 1000 dollars a month for owning a vehicle. This has untenable for most young people and it will only get worse. Did I miss anything else.
Nope
@Dave for most people it is hard to get the total cost of owning a car under $1K/month (all in including the depreciation hit you take when you sell). The rock bttom cost is about $500/month (if you buy a used car in the flat spot of the depreciation curve and do all your own maiintenance and don’t drive many miles).
Gotta pay to park at so many places now too. +1 for having a motorcycle that can fit around the gates
So many advantages for 2 wheels !!
So many SPG….smiles per gallon !!
Yep. I listen to the Ramsey show fairly often and it’s insane how many people are absolutely financially ruined by vehicles.
Best bet is to pay cash for a Corolla hybrid, maintain it like an obsessive, and drive it into the ground over the course of the next 20 years.
Have you ever, ever heard a story of a 2006 Prius owner with ANY regrets?
Approximately 68.5 million vehicles that are 20 years old or older are still on the road in the US. This accounts for about 23% of all cars and light trucks in operation, driven by factors like high ownership costs, economic conditions, and better vehicle durability. The average vehicle age in the US is 12.8 years.
Age Distribution: Vehicles from 1999 or older make up about 10% of the total vehicle population.
Ownership Trends: About 69% of Americans are delaying buying a new car due to economic conditions. (Sounds like the housing market affordability crisis)
Tesla’s sales are in awful shape. While sales were up YoY, that was against a very low volume 1Q25 due to the retooling for the refreshed Model Y that came out in Q2. Also, their unsold inventory build is alarming. It remains to be seen how many quarters they can keep this up before the cult fever breaks.
Hyundai Kia feels like mid 80s Honda.
🤣
Hyundai Kia…..cheap wheels to get you from here to there…. That is it…. Nothing else.
PS… I have owned vehicles from the 80’s and they are by far the worst. You can’t even give me a late 70’s to late 80’s vehicle…. It was all wrong on all aspects, across every manufacturer even the fancies like Mercedes and Ferarri.
Junk.
Kia reminds me of Walmart. 10-20 years ago, many upper-middle class people held those names in disdain and wouldn’t be caught dead with either.
Now, many of those people use Walmart+ for delivery orders (which in my opinion is partially due to the partnership with American Express’ platinum card) and have Kia Tellurides.
A word of warning after owning a 2025 Kia Sportage hybrid for 8 months, 2 high pressure fuel pumps and all fuel injectors replaced which were causing oil dilution (gas seeping into the oil) which can damage the engine. Will file a NHTSA complaint.
If you try to buy online and search, Walmart comes up in the search results; it’s just another ecommerce site. I have not been inside a Walmart store in many decades. But I do buy stuff from its ecommerce operation if it’s cheaper there than elsewhere. This has zero to do with “upper-middle class” or whatever shifting down to Walmart, but with Walmart shifting to an ecommerce business model. Ecommerce is the great equalizer.
Walmart+ is specifically a Walmart store delivery business like instacart. They’ll drop groceries at your door that someone had to go and pull off their shelves. It’s no different than going into Walmart and buying groceries.
That’s not what I was talking about. We don’t buy food from Walmart, not even online. Ever. It’s the gazillion nonfood goods they have on their site, including those offered by third-party vendors, that show up in the search.
When we buy food online, which we do, it’s from specialized online-only vendors.
Agreed, I’m not saying it’s that upper-middle class people are trading down, but willing to order from Walmart period just like Amazon. There was a period of time when those people (at least in my anecdotal experience) wouldn’t buy from Walmart.com OR shop at a Walmart store because they felt the name represented something they didn’t want to be associated with. Kind of silly, but a lot of consumer preferences are.
I don’t buy groceries from them online, but I price compare other stuff to Amazon and order from whichever is cheaper. I find they both deliver at about the same speed.
Another place I use Walmart+ is the 10 cents off at Exxon/Mobil. With gas prices where they are in the last month, every little bit counts!
I usually buy brand name goods at the grocery store.
To save money I purchase off-brand labels.
Does that translate to off label brands “upping” their quality?
No it does not.
Kia / Hyundai were purchased because of the price point. Period.
From what I see, ALL vehicles have major quality issues and recalls the past 6 years.
I don’t know I agree they were purchased because of the price point. My Hyundai was about the same as I would have paid for a similar Toyota, but I liked some of its features more.
Was in a Honda dealership on Tuesday for a number of hours getting the old lady’s car worked on. Depressing is what I would call it. Little to no foot traffic. The sales people just sat at their desks staring at their phones. I took 3 trips to the lot just to look around and not one salesperson came out to greet me. It looked to me like they had given up.
One thing I did notice is the wacky way they were doing the pricing. Sticker would say $33,900, but the vehicle was red tag priced $35,500 with $3000 off. I don’t know what kind of game this was but I couldn’t see too many falling for that.
That gimmick is popping up everywhere now. Fake original prices with a sale sticker listed at MSRP.
I know guys that worked at Honda stores. They said they start negotiations over MSRP and come down to MSRP so you get to feel good that you got to play the game.
Buyers moving to Hyundai, with the Pallisade that has a third row seat that eats kids. If people think the car quality drives sales they would be mistaken.
The global economy is in the dumps and all we get to show for it is junk praised as gold. If they spent less money on Super Bowl ads they could reduce prices or spend money on better quality goods.
You maybe in the bottom part of that global economy. Some of us are seeing record years personally and business wise.
It’s a terrible system but you need to profit while you can.
Then again this week in Aspen I was quite amazed at the new prices.
Self awareness of a door knob.
Are you in financial services or some industry that caters to the top 5%?
I am not talking about myself, I was commenting on the article. The article shows the volume of sales are flowing to the cheaper brands.
Luxury cars have been unphased because rich people never experience problems with purchasing a car. They don’t even show up in the data because they are the SMALLEST market.
Now if you were being sarcastic, please use /s.
Anecdotal, but we have two Toyotas and they have been reaching out nonstop to buy our cars back.
Interesting to me because last time we saw this kind of activity was just after the pandemic before the massive inflation spike was realized.
Or is this fairly normal?
🤔
Maybe a factor is the fact that if you take even reasonable care of your car, you can expect 200,000 plus miles since about 2000. We buy all single owner Japanese cars with 80,000 plus miles, change the oil and just drive them, mostly fix them ourselves with YouTube videos.
Mind boggling that with as many more people as there are in the US, and how wealthy we are, new vehicle sales are where they were 40 YEARS AGO!
My Russian friend, who owns a wrecking yard smiled at me one day and said – “Nice to see you will never know the shame of a car payment.”
Like most things today, peoples expectations are far higher today. As much as these recalls seemingly make these cars appear unreliable, I remember when I used to spend weekends under the hood fixing my 60s/70s cars. Heads had to be done at 60,000 miles. Carburetors needed to be rebuilt on a regular basis and points and plugs were a regular replacement item. Not many cars got past 100,000 miles before they were scrapped. And let’s not forget how badly they rusted out.
Honda/Toyota et al drove quality improvements and technology like electronic ignition and fuel injection improved reliability.
Up until about 2020, the modern car was vastly superior to the pre-1990s cars from both a reliability and value basis. Since Covid, the nanny technology and valuations have gotten out of hand and I am in no hurry to trade up.
@BobG remember few cars had five digit odometers until the 1990s so that 1965 car that you bought in 1975 with 55K more often than not had 155K (so you you were doing the heads at 160K).
Lol. In my experience, if that was the case, that would be the 2nd or 3rd head job, esp. with Fords.
How’s that EV forecast going there? That F150 Lightning selling strong.
Teslas are selling, up 6% yoy. GM’s EV models are selling. As are others. Rivians are selling, up 20% yoy.
Ford fucked up, as it always does. they thought they could build expensive mediocre EVs for the rich. That sounds good to idiotic Wall Street analysts. But that’s not mass market. Ford is mass market. it needs to build $30,000 EVs that are excellent. It completely failed. Even Farley admitted that. And it’s now working on cheaper models.
But sure, the expiration of the federal EV incentives on Sep 30 created massive frontloading and HUGE record EV sales in Q3, and record market share, as sales were moved from the future into Q3. And then in Oct-Dec and to some extent into this year, there was a hangover from the frontloading in Q3. But that hangover is already fading. Nevertheless, Ford fucked up trying to sell expensive mediocre EVs to the rich.
If Ford had any smarts, they’d buy/import/hornswoggle a bunch of BYD and Xioami electric cars, and slap Ford nameplates and stickers on them, and sell them to unsuspecting American customers. They’d be counting their cash by the bushel….but they won’t do that.
Because they’re dumb…but Farley loves his Xioami electric car!!! LOL
It’s understandable that Kia and Hyundai have the most resilient sales volume. As of December 2025 (per Gemini AI), Hyundai’s average sold vehicle price was approximately $38,000 while Stellantis and GM were over just over $55,000 and Ford exceeded $58,000. Toyota, arguably the most renowned for quality, was significantly LOWER at $45,000. Car prices have gone through the roof and the only way there’s even a market for NEW ones is that car loans (mortgages) have stretched to 7 or 8 years to keep payments “down.” The average used car payment today is literally higher than the mortgage payment was on my first house in 1983. NEW cars have truly become a luxury for only the highest income households, leaving the rest of us to compete for their trades a few years later.
Is there anything particular about Tesla’s that lead many of their drivers to drive like maniacs? I live in a county, suburban Montgomery county, MD where a lot of these upper middle class losers like to speed down residential streets and drive aggressively on commercial streets, changing lanes for no reason, tailgating etc. It’s something I’ve noticed recently and it is not a random coincidence.
I’m surrounded by Teslas and their driving is fairly polite.
But driving back from our hike last Saturday on Mt. Tam, on Hwy 101, I almost got hit by a pickup that changed lanes, from a left lane to one lane to the right, into the spot that our car occupied. This was NOT a Tesla, I swear!
It’s not a “Tesla” driver issue. It’s a distracted driver issue. Here in Texas I see it from every type of car. Cell phone laws in Texas are not that strong, and they are seldom enforced.
Currently teaching my kids driving is a very important task and doesn’t go along with texting or using a cell phone. Do one or the other.
Stellantis and Nissan are dying due to quality problems. Nissan SUVs with belt-drive transmissions often don’t last 100k miles. Jeeps are just financial suicide. No wonder they are declining.
GM/Ford have highly leveraged balance sheets and structurally higher costs, so that they can only turn a profit on luxury trucks, until that market dries up. Drunken sailors will keep these corporate zombies alive until the next recession, when they will be begging again for taxpayer bailouts.
Honda/Toyota are coasting on their quality reputation and doing OK.
Hyundai/Kia sell a disposable vehicle to people who have never watched YouTube videos of mechanics cussing the things and warning people. They are the Temu of cars. But the price is low enough and the payment plans stretched out enough that these are some of the only vehicles the average American can afford any more. Most end up being repo’d from the second owner in year 5 or 6 of their lives, because the CVT went out, they blew a head gasket, or they threw a rod / dropped a valve. Then it’s off to the crusher along with some idiot’s credit.
So basically, the car market is rewarding or punishing quality, except for Kia and Tesla which have their own rationales (cheapness and EV).
At about 30k miles our Kia started burning a quart of 5w/20 synthetic oil per 500 miles. Stuck piston rings they said. 4 or 5 lengthy dealer service trips, but even the best shops can’t fix junk. Pretty junk, but still junk. We dumped it, best case was repeated repair trips forever. No.