Hyundai is set to outsell Ford for the first time, 511,421 to 504,172 in Cox's third-quarter forecast

Hyundai is on course to outsell Ford in the U.S. in a quarter for the first time, according to a Cox Automotive forecast released Thursday and reported by CNBC. Cox expects Hyundai's July-September sales to rise 6.5% to 511,421 vehicles, while Ford's fall 7.1% to 504,172. That would make Hyundai the third-largest seller in the U.S., behind General Motors and Toyota.

Cox also raised its full-year forecast by about 2% to 16.1 million new vehicles. It presented the outlook in its Q3 2026 sales forecast update.

The number behind the number: a 70,000-car swing

The forecast puts Hyundai ahead by 7,249 vehicles, a narrow margin. The year-over-year percentages tell a bigger story. Working backward from Cox's growth rates, Hyundai sold about 480,000 vehicles in the third quarter of 2025 and Ford about 543,000. Ford was ahead by roughly 62,500 a year ago. If the forecast holds, that turns into a deficit of 7,249, a swing of close to 70,000 vehicles in twelve months.

The same math shows Toyota catching GM. Cox expects GM to fall 5.2% to 671,706 and Toyota to rise 2.2% to 642,707. That implies GM led by about 79,700 vehicles in last year's third quarter. This quarter's forecast gap is 29,000. For the full year, CNBC reported, Toyota trails GM by fewer than 121,100 units.

Prior-year figures above are Chronicle estimates backed out of Cox's percentage changes, not reported sales.

Why: hybrids and gasoline at $4.48

Cox gave two reasons. Ford is still dealing with F-Series pickup production problems after two supplier fires last year. More broadly, Ford and GM have few hybrids, the part of the market that is growing as gasoline averages $4.48 a gallon, according to AAA figures cited by CNBC. GM sells a hybrid only in its Corvette. Ford's hybrids are the Maverick and the F-150. "If you don't have vehicles to catch [consumers] where they are, then there are other manufacturers that likely would step into the gap," Cox analyst Erin Keating said on a media call, as quoted by CNBC.

The stocks did not rally on the forecast. At 12:57 PM ET, Ford was down 1.0% at $12.82, GM down 2.6% at $81.63 and Toyota's U.S. shares down 1.6%, according to Nasdaq quotes. It was a weak day for automakers overall.

Who it actually hits

Ford and GM dealers feel it first. Their lots are weighted toward trucks and big SUVs, the vehicles Cox says high fuel prices are hurting. Independent repair shops feel it more slowly: every quarter in which hybrids take a bigger share of new sales adds hybrid systems to the cars coming in for service in a few years.

224,738 independent auto repair shops are listed on CheckThisBiz, a directory of 7,704,724 independent US businesses, including 26,287 in CA, 22,628 in TX, 14,123 in FL. Chains and franchises are excluded from that count, so these are the owner-operated businesses that actually apply for funding.

For those shops, the forecast is a sign of where their future work is heading. Our auto repair playbook covers the operating side of running one.

Sources: CNBC; Cox Automotive; Nasdaq.com; CheckThisBiz. Cox's figures are forecasts, not reported sales. This is market information, not investment advice.