California (USA) 9 months 2012: 3 Toyotas + 3 Hondas in Top 6!

The Toyota Prius is the best-selling car in California

* See the Top 15 best-selling models by clicking on the title! Many thanks to René *

* Discover Each segment’s Top 5 best-sellers by clicking on the title! *

Thanks to a tip from René I can now share with you the best-sellers in California, America’s largest state in terms of population and potentially also of new car sales. We already know the US new car market is on fire in 2012 with registrations up 14.5% year-on-year after 9 months to 10,899,949 units. Well the Californian new car market does even better: it is up a huge 38% year-on-year in September to 165,422 registrations and 26% year-to-date at 1,245,700 – meaning California captures 11% of the US market and is larger than Italy or Australia. Similarly to the Puerto Rican models ranking we explored a few of days ago, the best-selling models in California are Japanese.

Honda Civic

Whereas in the overall US ranking the Ford F-Series is by far the #1 vehicle, in California it only ranks #7 with just 1.5% market share, but is still the favourite US model. This means the Top 6 best-sellers are 100% Japanese! The Toyota Prius is the most popular car in the State with 46,380 sales and 3.7% share, followed by the Honda Civic at 43,143 and 3.5% and the Honda Accord at 39,027 and 3.1%.

The Toyota Tacoma is #11 in California vs. #29 in the overall US ranking

The Toyota Camry, #2 overall in the US, ranks 4th in California at 37,888 units ahead of the Toyota Corolla/Matrix at 29,743 sales, making it 3 Toyotas in the Top 5. With the Honda CR-V at #6 and 22,475 sales, there are 3 Hondas in the Top 6. Below the Ford F-Series, there is one more Japanese model in the Top 10 – the Nissan Altima at #8, one Korean – the Hyundai Sonata at #9 and one German – the VW Jetta at #10, but no American model until the #15 spot (Chevrolet Silverado).

Scion tC

Notice also the Toyota Tacoma at an excellent 11th spot and 2nd best-selling pick-up truck in the state after the F-Series, the BMW 3 Series up to #13 vs. #49 overall and the Mercedes C-Class up to #16 vs. #61. Further down, the Mercedes E-Class sells 11,369 units (or 25% of its overall US sales), the Honda Fit 7,735 (20%), the BMW 5 Series 7,487 (20% also), the Fiat 500 6,336 (19%), the Lexus IS 5,443 (26%), the Scion tC 3,764 (21%) and the Porsche 911 1,515 (23%).

Previous US post: USA 9 months 2012: Discover the Top 277 All-models ranking!

Full 9 months 2012 Top 15 and each segment’s Top 5 Ranking Tables below.