Asian automakers set to top half of US car sales, Cox says

Asian automakers are expected to account for more than half of US new vehicle sales in the third quarter for the second quarter in a row, Cox Automotive senior economist Charlie Chesbrough said.

Chesbrough said Asian brands are approaching record-high US market share, while General Motors, Ford and Stellantis’s FCA US unit are expected to fall to a little more than 36 percent of the market, their lowest share on record.

Cox Automotive said GM remains the overall US sales leader, but Toyota is gaining. It said GM’s market share fell from 17.4 percent in 2025 to 16.7 percent in the first nine months of this year, while Toyota rose from 15.2 percent to 15.6 percent. In the third quarter, GM sales fell 5.5 percent to 670,974 vehicles, while Toyota sales rose 0.6 percent to 633,223.

Cox also said Ford remained in third place ahead of Hyundai-Kia, despite Ford’s market share and sales falling while the South Korean group’s rose.

The competition could widen if Chinese automakers enter the US market. President Donald Trump said in mid-September that he was open to Chinese cars on American roads if their manufacturers opened factories in the United States and hired American workers.

Auto industry groups urged Trump to keep the door shut to Chinese automakers seeking to sell, import or manufacture vehicles in the United States. The Alliance for Automotive Innovation also called on congressional leaders to impose a permanent ban on Chinese cars, citing what it described as risks from connected vehicle hardware and software.

Peter Nagle of Mobility Global estimated that Chinese makers including BYD, Geely and SAIC could sell up to 1.7 million cars in the United States, or about 11 percent of the market, by 2038, according to Bloomberg.