The Camry has outsold the Accord by 115,163 cars so far this year

Through September, Toyota sold 260,684 Camrys in the United States and Honda sold 145,521 Accords, which leaves the Camry ahead by 115,163 cars for the first nine months of 2026. September alone widened the distance by a further 8,843: the Camry sold 25,350 that month against 16,507 for the Accord.

Nine months of Camry and Accord sales

The total is a January-through-September tally of United States sales, a gap in cars sold and not a difference in market share.

Karl Furlong, senior editor at Autoblog, put the gap in context in his October 5 comparison of the two sedans. The Camry’s lead stood at 124,749 cars at the same point in 2025, according to the comparison, so the margin has narrowed by roughly 9,600 even though the Camry itself is selling more than it did then.

The Accord’s faster growth

Honda’s pace explains the narrowing. According to American Honda’s October 1 sales release, the Accord sold 16,507 in September, up 27.7 percent from September 2025, and is up 32.7 percent for the year to date. The release’s headline, “best September since 2020 and best Q3 sales results since 2019,” covers the whole Honda lineup and not the Accord alone, but the sedan is one of the lines carrying it.

Lance Woelfer, Honda’s vice president of auto sales, credited “a winning formula focused on affordability, record sales of hybrid models and a commitment to offer” a balanced lineup of passenger cars and light trucks. Hybrids made up 44 percent of Accord sales in the third quarter, according to the release; Autoblog describes the same 44 percent as a September figure.

The monthly picture tells a similar story at a smaller scale. Autoblog has the Camry’s September up 3.4 percent, to 25,350, which implies about 24,500 in September 2025, while the Accord’s 27.7 percent jump implies a September 2025 base near 12,900. In September the Camry sold about 54 percent more cars than the Accord, down from roughly 90 percent more a year earlier, and the monthly deficit shrank from about 11,600 cars to 8,843. Those prior-year volumes are back-calculated from the reported growth rates, so they are approximations and not published figures.

Percentage growth on a smaller base moves faster, and the arithmetic shows it. The Accord’s 2025 volume through September works out to roughly 109,700 cars on the reported 32.7 percent growth, and the Camry’s to roughly 234,400. A 32.7 percent gain on the Accord’s 2025 volume added roughly 36,000 cars, while the Camry’s smaller percentage gain on a much larger base still added more than 25,000.

Camry’s hybrid-only lineup and pricing

One caution on the Camry’s own growth rate: Autoblog reports year-to-date growth of 11.2 percent, while Good Car Bad Car’s table shows 10.7 percent for the same 260,684 total, so the rate depends on which tally of the 2025 base is used. The volume itself is not in dispute across the two, which is why the gap is stated here only as a difference in units and no Camry growth percentage is relied on.

Autoblog notes that Toyota now sells only hybrid Camrys, whereas Honda still offers a gasoline-only Accord alongside the hybrid. It lists the Camry’s starting price at $29,600 and the Accord’s at $28,395. SlashGear’s July report had the Camry as Toyota’s best-selling model of 2026 at 179,044 at that point, ahead of the RAV4 at 153,955 and the Tacoma at 143,848, and cited a standard hybrid rated at 51 miles per gallon combined. The same report put the Honda Accord hybrid at $33,795, which is the comparison that matters for buyers, since the hybrid is the only Camry on sale, and it noted the Corolla ranked fourth among Toyotas at 131,403 through that point.

Toyota’s own September and third-quarter sales release does not break out model volumes, so the Camry totals above rest on Autoblog and Good Car Bad Car. It reports 201,306 vehicles sold by Toyota Motor North America in September, up 8.4 percent, and 633,223 in the third quarter, up 0.6 percent. Andrew Gilleland, senior vice president of Toyota’s Automotive Operations Group, said in it that customers want choices, from affordability to electrification.

The Kia K5 and the rest of the field

Autoblog says both sedans substantially outsell competitors such as the Kia K5, which has sold 58,681 through September. That is less than half the Accord’s volume and under a quarter of the Camry’s, and Good Car Bad Car’s table lists the K5 up 11.6 percent for the year, a pace well below the Accord’s.

Both automakers report monthly, so the 115,163 figure will move when the October results arrive.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.

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