National Auto Sales Numbers For All Automakers In 2023

Strong sales in December 2023 led to an overall sales increase of 13% for 2023 versus total sales in 2022.  Increased dealer inventories certainly aided in the increase, and automaker incentive spending also fueled the increase.

Most brands were up in 2023, with the biggest increase surprisingly coming from Buick, which tallied an increase of 61% in 2023 over 2022.  Next was Acura, which also showed a big increase in 2023 of 42%.

Not everyone was a winner, however.  Lincoln, Alfa Romeo, Fiat, Jeep, and Ram were all down in 2023.  Fiat lost the most in 2023, down 34% to just 605 sales over the entire year.

Once the smoke cleared, total sales reached just over 15,144,000 vehicles not including many of the electric-only automakers like Tesla, that does not report actual sales, they only estimate them for some reason.  The same happens with Lucid, Karma, Polestar, and Rivian.  I will not include any of these automakers in the sales rankings until they begin to report actual sales.  Still, without the EV makers, 2023 was the best year in the auto industry since 2019.

As a sidenote, Tesla estimated they sold 670,000 vehicles, Rivian 47,200, Polestar 9,770, and Karma 216.

Looking at the totals from the parent companies in the business of making cars, GM ended the year in first place, topping Toyota, which was a surprise.  Following Toyota was Ford in third place.  Slipping into fourth place was Hyundai.  Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis have been on a major roll.  It was enough to push Stellantis (formerly Chrysler) from the usual 4^th place to 5^th position.

All in all, 2023 was a good year for the auto industry, especially considering the chip shortage hurt many automakers through the first nine months of the year, then a crippling strike seriously hurt the Detroit 3 starting in September and continuing through most of the 4^th quarter.

Consumers felt the pain of higher interest rates but offset that with transaction prices falling $1,274 for 2023 over 2022, and 2023 brought incentives averaging $2,645-up from the average in 2022 of $1,346, so almost double.

Here are your winners and losers for the full-year of 2023 and how each fared versus 2022:

2023 U.S. Auto Sales By Brand

Photo Credit: CarPro.