America fell out of love with the sedan. Detroit wants to bring it back.
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. From tail-finned land yachts of the 1960s to hulking family haulers in the 1980s and then the 1990s bestseller Ford Taurus, driving for Americans meant driving a sedan. Then SUVs and trucks won over drivers’ hearts and garages.
Ford axed its sedan lineup in 2018. Chrysler-parent Stellantis essentially scrubbed its showrooms of passenger cars. The last General Motors mass-market sedan rolled off the line at its Kansas City, Kan., plant in November 2024—a cherry red Chevy Malibu.
But today drivers want lower prices and the automakers are considering the once-unthinkable: bringing back sedans. “I would kill to have a hybrid-electric sedan," General Motors President Mark Reuss said during a recent company town hall. “We’re working on how to do that." Across town, executives at Ford are studying if a new assembly line set to go up in Kentucky next year could build not just small electric pickups, but sedans as well.
Dealers for years have peppered the automaker with pleas to bring back the Fusion sedan, which the company stopped making five years ago. “The sedan market is very vibrant," Ford CEO Jim Farley remarked to reporters on the sidelines of the Detroit auto show last month. “It’s not that there isn’t a market there.
It’s just we couldn’t find a way to compete and be profitable." Stellantis, too, wants another go. Chrysler is working on a small car that would cost less than $30,000—one that will “be beautiful and fun to drive and aspirational," Chrysler CEO Chris Feuell said at an event last year. Cars face a national affordability crisis.
Simply put, they’re getting too expensive for many people. The average price of a new vehicle now tops $50,000. Some of that increase is due to new
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