November 11, 2026
| US new-vehicle prices and loans | October 2026 | September 2026 | Change on a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average transaction price | $51,109 | $50,460 | +2.1% |
| Incentives, share of price | 6.8% | 6.7% | +0.3 points |
| Loans over 72 months | 31.1% | 31.8% | +3.4 points |
| Subprime share of loans | 17.9% | 17.4% | +1.8 points |
| Loans with negative equity | 58.7% | 57.8% | +4.9 points |
| Average contract rate | 11.46% | 11.22% | not published |
Source: Kelley Blue Book (prices, incentives) and the Dealertrack Credit Availability Index (loans), both Cox Automotive, November 10, 2026. September loan figures are GCBC’s arithmetic from Cox’s October levels and stated monthly changes.
A record built on what people bought
New-vehicle buyers paid a record average of $51,109 in October, according to Kelley Blue Book, but prices did not run hot. The rise from a year earlier, 2.1%, was below the 3.6% long-run average for an October. Kelley Blue Book credits the record in part to both price increases and strong sales of expensive midsize and full-size SUVs and full-size pickups.
October’s record says as much about who is still buying the expensive ones, and on what terms, as about what a typical new car costs. Loan terms across the market have turned riskier since the summer. When GCBC last read the auto credit data in August, the subprime share of loans had fallen four months running. In October it rose for a third month in a row, and loan rates climbed to their highest since March. The rate at which auto loans go seriously delinquent has not moved yet.
The mix behind the average
Erin Keating, an executive analyst at Cox Automotive, put it plainly: “The average is telling us as much about product mix as it is about affordability.” Three of the five biggest segments sold well below the average, she noted, and vehicles priced from about $28,000 to $38,000 gained 9.6% in volume from a year earlier. Midsize SUVs overtook compact SUVs as the largest segment, while full-size pickups averaged $67,912.
Kelley Blue Book’s incentive figures show restrained discounting behind that mix. Incentives rose slightly, to 6.8% of the transaction price from 6.7% in September, but stay below their long-term average, which the company reads as automakers and dealers not pushing hard for sales. Cox’s lending report, for its part, says loan structure “continued to carry much of the pressure in October.”
Lenders are writing more subprime paper again
Cox’s Dealertrack Credit Availability Index rose to 107.1 in October from a revised 107 in September, its highest since April 2015. The index treats a larger subprime share as easier access to credit, and that share was the largest single reason for the gain. It reached 17.9%, up half a point from September and from 16.1% a year earlier, and the rise from September came in every lender type and every sales channel.
The approval rate edged up 0.2 point from September to 73.9% in October, which looks looser than it is. Cox says the rise mostly reflected the exit of a near-prime lender with a low approval rate, and approvals fell in most channels. Negative equity rose as well, up 0.9 point from September to 58.7% of loans, the most since March, though Cox says that increase was concentrated in used-vehicle loans.
Long loans eased a little in October. Loans running longer than six years made up 31.1% of the month’s loans, down from September’s record and the first monthly fall since March. The share has now held at or above 31% for five months, against 27.7% a year earlier.
The cost of stretching is rising
The average contract rate rose 0.24 point from September to 11.46% as the five-year Treasury yield rose to its highest since June 2007. Contract rates rose faster than Treasury yields, so lenders’ spread widened, though it remains about a point narrower than a year ago. Cox notes that long terms and rolled-in negative equity can make a purchase easier to fit into a budget up front, at a higher total cost, and that October’s higher rates add to that cost. If contract rates keep climbing, the company writes, higher payments “may limit how much further loan structures and credit mix can stretch.”
The debt has not cracked yet
Americans owed $1.734 trillion on auto loans at the end of September, up $79 billion in a year, according to the quarterly household debt report from the New York Fed. Lenders originated $208 billion of new auto loans in the quarter, a pace the Fed says remained high.
In the Fed’s figures, serious late payments have not followed the risk. The share of auto balances moving into serious delinquency, 90 days or more late, was 3.02% at an annual rate against 2.99% a year earlier, a rate the Fed says remained flat. The early stage is moving, with transitions into early delinquency still ticking up for auto loans. Timing explains part of the gap: a loan written in October cannot fall 90 days behind until well into the winter, so it cannot enter the Fed’s serious-delinquency count before the first quarter of 2027.
What to watch
Cox publishes November’s Dealertrack index around December 10. A fourth straight rise in the subprime share alongside another higher contract rate would suggest lenders are still widening the pool as money gets dearer; a falling subprime share while rates keep rising would suggest the stretch has reached the limit Cox describes. Two dealer groups, Group 1 and Lithia, had already reported lower finance and insurance profit per car for the third quarter than a year earlier, in a quarter that ended before October’s rate rise. The New York Fed’s fourth-quarter report, due early next year, will show whether the early-delinquency uptick has reached the serious stage, above 3.02%.
