US Automotive — Airgo SoS Sector Report

Travel & Transport · 64 brands · trailing 12 months · US market

Updated October 2026 · data through 4 Oct 2026

This is the living Share of Search picture for the US Automotive sector — each brand's slice of total search interest, the leading indicator of where market share is heading. It tracks 64 brands over the trailing twelve months and refreshes every month. Ford currently leads with 11.3% average Share of Search in a competitive field.

Share of search over time

Five years of weekly Share of Search for the current leaders. Ford sets the pace, with its nearest challenger Toyota 1.0 points back. Click any brand in the legend to isolate it, hover for the exact weekly reading, or drag the slider beneath the chart to zoom into a single period.

The last 12 months of weekly Share of Search per brand — the current value, the shape of the year, and the gap to the brand's own 12-month average.

Current standings (last 12m)

Ford holds 11.3% of sector search, with 16 brands clearing the 2% mark. Toggle between the twelve-month average and the latest month to see who is over- or under-indexing right now.

Year-over-year movers (last 12m)

Versus Oct 2025, Tesla has gained the most ground (+0.66pp), while Jeep has given up the most (-2.32pp). The split between green and red is the clearest read on where attention is migrating within the sector.

Market concentration (last 5y)

Over the last five years the Automotive sector's concentration has held broadly steady. It currently averages an HHI of 512 (competitive), with the top three brands holding 30.1% of search interest between them.

Growth–share momentum map (last 12m)

Each dot is a brand, placed by its average Share of Search (horizontal) against its average week-over-week momentum (vertical). The four quadrants separate the leaders pulling away from the vulnerable incumbents and the rising challengers. Tesla is both large and growing (top-right); Jeep is an established name losing momentum (bottom-right); Ferrari is a smaller challenger on the rise (top-left). Hover any point for its exact figures.

Seasonality by month (5y average)

Each cell is a brand's average Share of Search in that calendar month over the last five years, indexed to the brand's own average (100). Warm cells are a brand's hot months, cool cells its quiet ones. The strongest seasonal peak belongs to Toyota in January (index 127); the deepest trough is Nissan in September (index 86).

The two charts below are a separate signal: how large language models describe this category and its brands, surveyed weekly across Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google. They sit alongside Share of Search as a second, AI-channel lens — not blended into it.

AI-rated category drivers (this week)

What large language models say matters most when discussing automotive brands, blended across Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google models surveyed weekly. "Price and Affordability" currently ranks highest, at 11 of roughly 100 points allocated across every driver the models consider.

AI Recommendation Potential – LLM brand scores over time

Each brand's AI-rated composite score — its cross-provider score on every driver, weighted by that driver's importance the same week — tracked from the start of AI Recommendation Potential tracking. Toyota currently leads at 85. This is a distinct AI-channel signal — how models describe the category — not a search-behavior metric, which is why it's shown as its own chart rather than blended into Share of Search above.

Notable search spikes (last 6m)

The largest statistically unusual jumps or drops in a brand's weekly Share of Search over the last 6 months, each paired with the most likely cause. A spike is flagged when a brand's search interest moves several standard deviations from its recent norm; the magnitude is the size of that move against the brand's own baseline. Direction shows whether interest rose or fell.

Brand correlations (last 12m)

How brands' weekly Share of Search moved relative to one another over the last 12 months. A positive correlation means two brands rise and fall together — a shared audience, consideration set, or category-level demand. A negative correlation means that when one gains search attention the other tends to lose it — a sign of direct substitutes competing for the same interest.

Move together — strongest positive

These brands tend to rise and fall in tandem, pointing to a shared audience or a category-level wave lifting them at the same time.

Move apart — strongest negative

When one of these brands gains search share the other tends to give it up — the clearest read on direct substitutes. Note that Share of Search is a slice of a fixed 100%, so a little negative correlation is structural (strongest between the largest brands); similarly sized pairs are the more telling substitution signals.

Economic factors (last 3y)

How the sector's overall search interest tracks key macroeconomic indicators. A positive r means search tends to rise as the indicator rises; a negative r means search rises as the indicator falls. A strong correlation can reflect genuine economic sensitivity or simply a shared long-run trend, so weigh the direction against a plausible mechanism.

Methodology: Share of Search is GTAB-normalised Google Trends data, each brand expressed as a percentage of total sector search interest. 64 Automotive brands, US market; standings, movers and momentum cover the trailing 12 months, with five years of history shown for the trend and concentration charts. Updated monthly. AI-rated driver importance and brand scores come from a separate weekly 3-provider (Anthropic/OpenAI/Google) LLM survey and measure AI-channel perception, not search behavior. © 2026 New Classic Consulting LLC.