Hyundai Overtakes Honda As America’s Fifth Largest Automaker

Surging volumes and a lag in Japanese output helped Hyundai surpass Honda as America’s fifth largest automaker in 2011, selling 522 more units (from both Hyundai and Kia combined) than Honda did through September.

Analysts cite Honda’s inventory disruption due to Japan’s natural disasters in March as a leading cause of the change in rankings. While Honda was crippled by a lack of parts inventory and forced to disrupt their normal production schedule, Hyundai carried on virtually unaffected.

While Honda’s new Civic and CR-V may help narrow the (currently) small gap, there are still 3 more months of sales results to be analyzed and we won’t truly know the full story until January 1, 2012.