December to remember

As we enter the month of December, let’s take some stock of the current status of the automotive industry and look ahead to how the rest of the year will likely play out.

It’s at the front of my mind because the only real live television I watch during the year is college football, and I’m a fan of The Ohio State University Buckeyes. I also think that college football has some of the best advertising, from the Dr. Pepper Fansville stuff to the Nissan Heisman House. Eddie George (now head coach at BGSU) channels the late Woody Hayes in this one about avoiding Michigan. Hayes famously wouldn’t even fill up the team bus in Michigan one evening, barely making it to a station in Toledo.

But this isn’t a football newsletter, unless I make a drastic pivot.

Over the weekend, I noticed that Toyota is running another Toyotathon sales event. One item of particular notice was that Toyota is discounting some models of the Tacoma. The Tacoma is traditionally a strong seller that doesn’t need incentives to move the metal.

Could this be a sign that the economy is really starting to slow? While sales on Black Friday were higher, volume was lower. That means most of the gains were because of increased prices due to tariffs, and not more people spending money.

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I predict that the last month of the year will see some auto sales, driven by stronger incentives than we’ve seen in previous months. As the economy continues to slow, it’ll be more difficult to draw in new car buyers who might have a perfectly acceptable mode of transportation already in their driveway.

I’d also predict that more of that incentive spend will be on EVs, to move metal that is currently languishing on dealership lots. People who could buy before the end of the tax incentive, and I predicted then that the next few months would be slower than normal as a result. I don’t expect that to change at all.

Tariffs will also impact the pricing of new vehicles, and the recent jump in memory prices will have some impact as well. If anyone wants to help me start a NAND flash business, I’m game.

I expect automakers to lean more on fleet sales to goose the numbers, which has an added benefit for the rental companies because they have a built-in customer base with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The Honda CR-V and new Toyota RAV4 should continue to do well — perhaps even better — if people have to start downsizing to save on a payment. Value-focused utilities, like the Ford Maverick, will likely also experience strong sales. I’m not sure if Nissan should try to keep the Versa around, but smaller cars like the Sentra, Civic, and Corolla will also be popular as the economy continues to slow.

For EVs, the cheap ones will be the ones that continue to sell. The Leaf is still a great value. Hyundai has very competitive pricing on its more mainstream EVs. The premium end might experience the most pain, not because the rich can’t afford EVs, but because the rich are still spoiled for choice.

Also in EVs, I think there’ll be some culling of the herd. While I’d hate to see the Lightning go away — I think it’s the best EV truck — I’m not sure if Ford plans to keep it around. I know of at least one automaker that cancelled a late-year reveal of an EV because of the current state of everything, and I’m sure there are others. To be honest, I’m surprised Jeep went ahead and debuted the Recon.

The biggest worry I’ve seen so far this month is from Mercedes-Benz. Today, there is reporting that the company is going to focus more on volume. While that can be appealing in the short term, especially with vehicles like the CLA that I like a lot, Mercedes has tried this strategy before, and it didn’t work long-term.

(Fun fact: While attempting to Google the link to Ars Technica for my write-up of the CLA, I discovered that some massive agency on behalf of an OnlyFans creator used the DMCA to take down my review because they claimed copyright ownership of the Mercedes-Benz press photos. Fun times.)

Perhaps, and in defense of this new strategy, there are reasons to believe it might actually work. As I said, I like the CLA, and based on some rough calculations, the CLA is one of the best range-per-dollar EVs you can buy in 2026.

The long story short is this: December might be remembered not for a bunch of sales, but for the further slide into recession.