California is Honda’s stronghold

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The executives at Honda’s U.S. headquarters in Torrance must be really thankful for California consumers.

Through the first half of this year, Honda sold a little more than 600,000 cars in the United States, about the same as last year while the overall market was growing in the low double digits. But the company is rocking in California. Sales are up more than 15% to just over 80,000, according to the California New Car Dealers Assn. But the California market is up only 11%.

Honda sells the best in some of the biggest segments of the California market.

The automaker’s Accord is the top-selling mid-size sedan, accounting for nearly 26% of the market and easily outpacing No. 2 Toyota Camry. The Civic tops the compact car market and the Fit is the top seller in the small, entry-level car segment.

When it comes to sport utility vehicles, Honda’s CRV is almost 24% of the compact SUV market and has a huge lead over Toyota’s RAV4, which is second at 15% of sales. And Honda’s Pilot is narrowly ahead of Toyota’s Highlander in the mid-size SUV segment, among California buyers.

The only area where Honda has a major entrant but doesn’t lead sales is in minivans, where its Odyssey trails the Toyota Sienna.

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-- Jerry Hirsch
Twitter.com/LATimesJerry