Can You Guess the Most Popular Car in Your State?
Alex Healey
Oct 14, 2021 · 4 min read
There are about 60 major car brands operating in the States, with hundreds of models available between them. In 2020 alone, there were 34 new models released into the U.S. market, and it was considered a quiet year!
You wouldn’t know it from walking down the street though, with just a handful of models dominating sales. In fact, if you look at the most popular car in every individual state, there are only 10 different cars on the list.
Read on to learn why there is such little variation in the cars we choose to drive, discover which car is the most popular in your state, and find out which states offer the cheapest car insurance.
Not every state has the same taste in cars.
How to find the most popular car in each state
The team at Insurify reviewed millions of car insurance applications for the raw data, and then ranked the cars by the number of states in which that vehicle holds the top spot.
As the average age of cars on America’s roads is 12 years, this methodology, a study of the cars being insured today, is more indicative of sales over the last decade rather than the last year.
The results are not at all surprising. Honda sedans are prevalent in the coastal states, while Ford’s F-Series Pickups dominate middle America.
Of the 10 cars identified, three are pickup trucks. Pickups are desirable due to practicality—millions of Americans rely on them for work, and in the case of Ford’s F-Series, constant innovation and unrivalled name recognition.
All 10 cars have a sticker price well below the national average, suggesting affordability is also a major consideration.
This explains the enduring popularity of Japanese sedans, with Toyotas and Hondas offering great value for money.
The most popular car by state
Here are the full results from Insurify’s study. Are you surprised by the most popular car in your state?
- Ford F-Series Pickup (most popular in): Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, Wyoming
- Honda Accord: Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Virginia
- Honda Civic: Arizona, California, Illinois, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Washington, Wisconsin
- Nissan Altima: Alabama, Delaware, District of Columbia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee
- Toyota Corolla: Florida, Vermont
- Chevrolet Silverado: Maine, South Dakota
- Chevrolet Malibu: Indiana
- Chevrolet Impala: Minnesota
- Toyota Tacoma: Hawaii
- Honda CR-V: Technically, the CR-V is not the most popular car in any state, but it came second literally everywhere and gets an honorable mention because of it.
Eagle-eyed readers might notice that Delaware appears twice on the list, with the Honda Accord and Nissan Altima tied for first place in ‘The First State.’
Which states have cheapest insurance?
Another reason for so few different models being the most popular car across individual states could be due to insurance costs.
Every state has different insurance requirements, but insurance companies generally evaluate risk in the same way.
As a result, a very reliable model, like a Honda or Ford, will be cheaper to insure. Popularity also helps bring down insurance costs, due to the relative ease of procuring replacement parts following an accident.
The five states with the cheapest average car insurance are Maine, New Hampshire, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Idaho.
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