Honda sold 110,730 CR-Vs in the United States during the third quarter of 2026, a record for the quarter and 16.6% more than in the same quarter a year earlier. Toyota’s RAV4, the CR-V’s main rival, tells a different story over a longer stretch: 253,664 sold from January through September, down 29.2% from the same nine months of last year. Two numbers on two different clocks, and the gap between them is where this comparison gets slippery.
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Putting the figures side by side invites a conclusion that neither company’s books actually support. One is a three-month total, the other a nine-month total, and only one of them comes with a record attached. Reading them correctly means keeping track of which period each number covers, which brand reports in which rhythm, and what else moved in the same stretch, including a Hyundai Tucson that also posted a record quarter and a Toyota brand whose overall sales barely changed while its best-known SUV fell sharply.
Honda’s CR-V quarter: a record on thin supply
American Honda’s own sales release puts CR-V third-quarter sales at 110,730 units, up 16.6%, with September alone at 34,788, up 21.9%. The release says the model “overcame very low supply of 17 days” to post record quarterly and record September sales. That is Honda’s own description of its inventory position, and it matters for reading the record: the release attributes the result to a very lean supply of the model, which means the quarter was set while dealers had little stock to sell. The release does not say how many more CR-Vs might have moved with fuller lots, and no outside figure fills that gap.
The brand picture around it is solid but not spectacular. Honda division sales reached 358,388 in the quarter, up 9.3%, and Acura added 33,953, up 9.9%, for an American Honda total of 392,341. Lance Woelfer, the company’s vice president of auto sales, said in the release that Honda and Acura “were able to buck industry trends and increase both sales and market share.” The CR-V is therefore carrying a large share of a good quarter rather than rescuing a weak one.
Toyota’s RAV4 and the year-to-date trap
The 29.2% figure belongs to the RAV4’s year to date, not to its third quarter. According to Autoblog’s comparison of the three automakers’ reports, Toyota publishes model sales by month and by calendar year to date rather than by quarter, so no official RAV4 third-quarter number exists to set against the CR-V’s. What the same comparison does show is that the RAV4 sold 34,192 in September, down 6.6% from a year earlier, a far milder drop than the nine-month slide of 253,664 units.
Toyota’s September and third-quarter release reports the Toyota division at 540,167 vehicles for the quarter, up 0.5%, and the wider Toyota Motor North America total at 633,223, up 0.6%. The model-level tables sit in a separate downloadable September sales file. Andrew Gilleland, senior vice president of automotive operations at Toyota Motor North America, said in the release that “customers want choices.”
A 29.2% drop in the brand’s best-known SUV, set against a brand that is up 0.5% for the quarter, means volume went somewhere else. The same Autoblog tally splits the RAV4’s nine-month total into 200,209 hybrids, 32,228 plug-in hybrids and roughly 21,200 other units, and it reports Toyota’s third-quarter electrified sales at 325,227, about 60% of the brand.
Hyundai’s Tucson and the price gap
A third compact SUV complicates any simple Honda-beats-Toyota reading. Autoblog’s table credits the Hyundai Tucson with 64,075 sales in the third quarter, up 23% and a quarterly record, and 181,687 year to date, up 10%. Hyundai’s September and third-quarter release is the company-side record for the Tucson and Hyundai brand figures Autoblog cites, including the brand’s 246,896 sales for the quarter, up 3%, a quarterly record. Genesis is excluded from that brand total, just as Acura is left out of Honda’s 358,388 and Lexus out of Toyota’s 540,167.
Shoppers pay different amounts for these vehicles. Before destination charges, the advertised base prices are $29,700 for the Tucson SE, $30,920 for the CR-V LX and $31,900 for the RAV4 LE. The comparison is not clean, because the RAV4 LE is a 226-horsepower hybrid rated 47 mpg city and 40 highway, while the Tucson SE and CR-V LX are gasoline models with 187 and 190 horsepower.
In short, the CR-V figure spans three months, the RAV4 figure spans nine, and only Honda’s carries a record.
The fair reading, then, is narrower than the comparison suggests, and it fits in a few sentences. The CR-V had its best third quarter on record, the Tucson had its own, and the RAV4 has sold far fewer units through nine months than it did a year ago even as Toyota’s total stayed level. None of those statements says which model leads the segment, because the three companies do not report on one common calendar. A quarter-for-quarter RAV4 number would settle it, and Toyota does not publish one.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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