October 2026 US Car Sales: Hyundai, Kia Hit Records — Hybrids Carried the Month While Ford's Hybrid Deliveries Fell 21%
Korean brands posted October records on the back of hybrids, Toyota stayed on top, and Ford was the outlier.
October was a better month for the US new-car market than most forecasts expected. Industry sales rose 1.33% from October 2025, helped by one extra selling day, and the strongest results came from brands that sell a lot of hybrids. Hyundai and Kia both set October sales records, Toyota had its best October, and Ford was the one big name that slipped.
Kia and Hyundai: records, and a hybrid story
Kia sold 80,008 vehicles in the US, up 16% and a record for the brand in an October (one ranking list shows 80,075; InsideEVs and CarPro's text both give 80,008). Year to date Kia stands at 747,394 vehicles. Its hybrid sales rose 114%, and Headlight.news credits the new Telluride hybrid for much of that jump.
Hyundai sold 73,452 vehicles, up about 5% and another October record, bringing its year-to-date total to 770,916, up 3%. Hybrids made up 29% of its sales, the highest hybrid mix the brand has ever reported, and the Santa Fe Hybrid and Palisade Hybrid each set October records of their own. Hyundai says hybrid sales grew 20% year over year.
Toyota and Honda: bigger volume, same direction
Toyota's namesake brand sold 188,392 vehicles, up 5.7%, its best October. Toyota and Lexus electrified sales, which are almost all hybrids, rose 35% to 126,054, about 57% of volume. Honda sold 109,162 vehicles, up 9.1%; American Honda, which includes Acura, sold 119,953. Honda's electrified sales rose 11% to 33,760, nearly all hybrids, and Headlight.news says the CR-V Hybrid and Accord Hybrid made up 27% of Honda's US demand.
Ford goes the other way
Ford sold 165,474 vehicles, down 0.4%, and its hybrid deliveries fell 21%. Reports tie that mainly to the discontinued Escape and Lincoln Corsair. In a month when rivals grew their hybrid volumes, Ford's gap in affordable hybrids was visible in the numbers.
EVs: a weak comparison year, a modest recovery
Battery-electric vehicles were 7.0% of new-vehicle sales in October, up about half a point from September but still more than a point below a year ago. Year-over-year gains for individual models need context: October 2025 was weak because the federal EV tax credit had just expired. Against that low base, Hyundai's Ioniq 5 sold 1,981 (up 21%), Kia's EV9 1,406 (up 111%), and the EV6 803 (up 58%). The new Kia EV3, which starts at $31,385 including destination, sold 976 units while still ramping up.
What shoppers are paying
The average transaction price was $52,370 in October according to Cloud Theory, and J.D. Power puts incentives up 13% year over year at an average of $3,304 per vehicle. Cox Automotive's Erin Keating expects 16.1 million sales for 2026, against 16.2 million in 2025, so the year is ending nearly flat in volume while the mix keeps tilting toward hybrids.
For buyers the practical takeaway is that hybrid availability now shapes who is winning. The brands with deep hybrid lineups, Toyota, Honda, Hyundai and Kia, grew in October, while the one with a shrinking hybrid lineup did not.
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