The decline of the midsize sedan: Why there will soon be just five nameplates in U.S.
The once-hypercompetitive midsize car segment has shrunk rapidly, falling victim to innovations in vehicle packaging and changing consumer tastes.
The midsize sedan was once the quintessential family car — and one of the most competitive segments in the U.S.
Not today. When the nation’s No. 3-selling midsize sedan, the Chevrolet Malibu, ends production this year and the Subaru Legacy is discontinued after the 2025 model, there will be just five mainstream midsize sedans available in the U.S. — all Asian imports:
Toyota Camry
Honda Accord
Nissan Altima
Kia K5
Hyundai Sonata
Toyota, which has stuck with a widely diversified product portfolio while others exited car segments, says its top-selling Camry is not going anywhere. Dave Christ, head of the Toyota brand in North America, recently told Automotive News: “We still believe that it’s worth investing in passenger cars, and we’re going to stay committed to it.”
The Automotive News Research & Data Center has tracked U.S. sales of every midsize sedan nameplate since 2009. As recently as 2012, midsize sedans commanded 16.7 percent of the U.S. market, or 2,424,213 vehicles. In 2023, share fell to 5.7 percent, or 884,949.
While that is just a small slice of the industry’s long history, our data does yield some clues. So what happened? The answer is multifaceted.
The Great Recession: Under extreme financial duress, General Motors unwound Saturn, Pontiac and Oldsmobile as part of its 2009 government-supervised bankruptcy reorganization, which meant the end of multiple nameplates. Ford Motor Co., which also felt pressure from the recession, ended Mercury in 2011, opting to focus on Ford and Lincoln.
The crossover is today’s “family car”: Taking a cue from the growing popularity of body-on-frame SUVs, automakers modified their unibody car platforms to give consumers more headroom, more cargo space and a higher seating position — often at a relatively low additional cost when compared with their increased profitability. Compact crossovers — not their midsize counterparts — have supplanted family sedans. Today, only about 1 out of 5 U.S. light-vehicle sales is a car — as opposed to a crossover, SUV, van or pickup.
Consolidation of product portfolios: Automakers cut slow-selling mainstream car nameplates of all sizes as crossover sales grew. Brands that dropped midsize sedans in the U.S. since 2010 are Chrysler, Dodge, Mazda, Mercury, Mitsubishi, Suzuki and Volkswagen.
Product planning resources and capital investments diverted to electrification in crossovers and luxury segments: While cars make up a good chunk of electric vehicle sales — see the compact Tesla Model 3 — luxury brands are electrifying their portfolios and mainstream brands have begun rolling out electric crossovers to match consumer tastes for their combustion counterparts.
