Well well well: More evidence that people still want to buy new cars, they just don’t want to pay an arm, a leg, and their firstborn for them. Kia just set an all-time monthly sales record in August with 83,798 cars sold, putting the budget-ish Korean brand on track to hit record annual sales for the fourth year in a row.

As the overall market has been under pressure this year, and continued high gas prices have reordered household budgets, Kia’s success seems to come down to mainly two things: price and hybrids. Kia has a total of seven models that still start under $30,000, and every one except the Niro Hybrid saw sales increase over last August—but even that one is still pacing ahead of 2025 year-to-date. Meanwhile, its cumulative hybrid sales in August practically doubled (+99%) over last year, with the Sportage Hybrid up 40%, the Sorento Hybrid up 22%, and the Carnival Hybrid up 15%.

And as some car companies have observed, sedans may be down, but they’re certainly not out. The K4 and K5 together moved over 20,000 units (though K4 hatchback sales weren’t broken out), together outselling the Seltos and Sorento crossovers. The middle-ground Sportage is still Kia’s top selling model with 18,723 sold, but the K4 is actually beating the Telluride, which many people would tell you is the model most responsible for Kia’s mindshare this decade, in both August and 2026 YTD sales.

Also keep in mind that neither the K4 or K5 are offered with hybrid powertrains in America; if Kia makes that happen, as buyers have been asking, it would definitely unlock a higher ceiling.

Another thing to keep an eye on: no surprise that Kia’s full EV sales are all down, because last August is when buyers were rushing to grab one before the federal tax credit expired. But the EV9 is still tracking well on the year, and the sub-$30K EV3 is just going on sale now. It could very well be that even in this environment, a brand like Kia can still make EVs work by following the K-shaped market with the pricey EV9 and the cheapo EV3. That would leave the EV6 in no-man’s land, which might be why its sales are down significantly.

The full breakdown by model is below. It is worth noting that Kia still trails Hyundai and stalwarts like Honda and Toyota, and most brands have moved away from monthly reports, so we won’t see the full picture until the end of the quarter. But at this point, Kia is handily outselling Mazda and Subaru.

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