USA First Half 2026: Ram Pickup, Toyota Camry impress, Honda CR-V “real” #1, market off -2.7%

Ram Pickup sales are up 19.1% year-on-year over H1.

The U.S. new light vehicle market is down -2.7% year-on-year over the First Half of 2026 to 7,934,650 units. Forecasts for the second half of the year aren’t more optimistic, and many analysts predict a negative market over the Full Year 2026. Hybrids are up 9% year-on-year over the period and help contain the market YoY loss. General Motors (-6.8%) falls faster than the market to 1.335 million sales, but retains its OEM crown above Toyota Motor (+0.5%). Ford Motor (-9.6%) struggles but Hyundai-Kia (+3%), American Honda (+2.4%) and Stellantis (+4.9%) are all up. 

Brand-wise, Toyota (+1.5%) sails off and extends its lead over Ford (-9.7%) from 5,200 units over H1 2025 to 122,715 now. Chevrolet (-5.8%) stays in third place above Honda (+2.5%), Nissan (+0.4%) and Hyundai (+2.6%). Kia (+3.4%) posts the biggest year-on-year gain in the Top 10. Below, GMC (-0.2%), Jeep (-1.4%) and Subaru (-4.5%) skid. Just outside the Top 10, Ram (+15.4%) rallies back up, with BMW (+4.7%) also in great shape at #14. Chrysler (+15.3%) also makes itself noticed further down. Tesla dominates the EV market with 52.3% share ahead of Chevrolet at 6.1%, Hyundai at 5.8%, and Toyota and Cadillac both at 4.7%. 

The Honda CR-V outsells the Ford F-150 and Chevrolet Silverado 1500.

The Ford F-Series (-13.3%) suffers in the models pole position and sees its advantage over the #2, the Chevrolet Silverado (-4%) thaw from 128,810 units to 85,245. The Honda CR-V (+6.4%) steps up one spot to #3, becoming the country’s best-selling SUV and dislodging long-term leader the Toyota RAV4 (-35.7%) down to #8 over the period. But, when splitting F-Series sales into F-150 (209,311) and Silverado sales into Silverado 1500 (194,807), the Honda CR-V spectacularly becomes the best-selling model in the USA. The Ram Pickup (+19.1%) sports the biggest YoY uptick in the Top 10. A sign that more frugal sedans are on the way back in these high petrol prices times, the Toyota Camry is up 15.3% and three spots to #5 over the period. Below the GMC Sierra (+0.9%), the Tesla Model Y (+5.9%) is up two ranks to #7. The Toyota Tacoma (+9.9%) overtakes the Chevrolet Equinox (-10.8%) to #9.

We also have separate data for California over H1. Out of 864,868 registrations in the state, 22.1% were hybrids and 15.9% were BEVs. A year ago in H1 2025 the shares were 19.2% and 19.5% respectively. This is the first time since 2021 that hybrids outsell BEVs in the state. Back then it was 10% vs. 7.8%. However BEVs are already recovering, holding 17.8% in Q2 vs. 13.8% in Q1 just as hybrids were at 23.2% in Q2 vs. 20.9% in Q1. The Tesla Model Y topped the Californian charts in H1 with 54,327 units above the Toyota Camry at 33,523. Toyota topped the brands ranking at 19% share ahead of Honda at 10.9% and Tesla at 9%.

Previous post: USA June/Q2 2026: Hybrids spur market up 7.9%, Nissan and Stellantis recover

One year ago: USA First Half 2025: General Motors (+11.8%) solid as H2 outlook gets stormy

Full H1 2026 Top 15 OEMs, Top 48 All brands and Top 314 All models below.