New vehicle transaction prices are higher than ever, and that’s proving a boon for automakers that can still deliver affordable options to the market. One of them is Honda, whose Accord sedan, a popular nameplate in a segment thought to be dying, saw sales in January jump 31.8%.
Accord sales numbers for January totaled 12,739 units, making the midsize sedan Honda’s third most popular model behind the CR-V and Civic. Honda credited the jump to strong demand for the Accord’s less expensive non-hybrid trims. The 2026 Accord starts at just $28,395 for the gas model and $33,795 for the hybrid.
New vehicle prices have been on a tear since the pandemic, when automakers were able to sharply increase MSRPs thanks to tight inventory levels caused by supply chain disruptions. Prices never really backed down once inventories returned to normal, and as a result, average transaction prices for new vehicles have continued climbing to new records. Data from last December showed the average price sits at $50,326.
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That’s led to some major shifts in who’s buying new cars. Data from Cox Automotive shows buyers earning less than $100,000 a year accounted for just 37% of new car buyers in 2025, down from 50% as recently as 2020. At the same time, the share of buyers with incomes above $200,000 grew from 18% to 29%. Economists describe this as a “K-shaped” economy, where higher earners continue to pull ahead while lower-income households fall behind.
Automakers, as a result, have dropped many affordable models like small cars and basic, stripped-out trims from their lineups. At the same time, they’ve added more SUVs and electrified models, which typically carry higher MSRPs. Honda is one automaker that has bucked the trend.
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The Japanese brand continues to offer both gas and hybrid versions of core models and last month told CarBuzz it is committed to building higher volumes of the more affordable trims. In the case of the Accord, that means more entry-level LX and SE gas models should be on dealer lots than pricey Sport-L and Touring hybrids.
Interestingly, the Accord’s main rival, the Toyota Camry, has gone in the other direction. Toyota made a hybrid powertrain standard on the Camry starting with the 2025 model year, though the automaker has managed to keep the starting price of the 2026 Camry at a sharp $29,100. It consistently outsells the Accord, and this was the case for January, with the Toyota sedan managing 21,764 sales.
Sources: Honda, Cox Automotive
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