If you’re familiar with the auto industry in the US, or even if you just look at last years sales data, it’s pretty clear that there are quite a few brands that should be discontinued. A couple people might be sad, but for the most part, the cost savings of doing so would strengthen the financials of the leftover automakers. Let’s discuss!

Mitsubishi

This is the most obvious one – if you look at your local Mitsubishi dealership (if you can even find one), you’ll notice something – it’s basically a used car lot with a handful of new amorphous blobs that are about as unremarkable as it gets.

Keeping in mind that there are about 350 Mitsubishi dealers in the US. Given that they sold less than 100,000 new vehicles in 2025, that’s 23 new Mitsubishis per month per dealership. Combine that with the fact that these vehicles are heavily incentivized and discounted and you have a losing strategy.

Yes, Mitsubishi supposedly has a new portfolio of vehicles coming to the US in the coming years… but what’s the point? Just give up on the US automotive industry! Your four remaining loyal customers can just go buy a Nissan, given that’s the same car with a different logo. Oh, and there are over 1,000 Nissan dealerships that could easily serve those customers if a warranty issue crops up. Outside of warranty, let’s face it, Mitsubishi customers probably aren’t going to take their car to the dealer for service anyway.

Mitsubishi is a huge conglomerate that sells tons of cars in places like Southeast Asia and makes all sorts of other stuff in the US and globally. They’ll be fine if they leave the US consumer automotive sector.

Infiniti

Anyone that knows me knows I’m not a big Nissan fan, as their vehicles are generally not very reliable long term. But despite CVT failures and other common issues, Nissans are very popular as they offer a lot of tech and features for the price.

But as Nissan customers move up financially, they don’t graduate to Infiniti – they aspire to buy well known classier brands like Lexus, BMW, Cadillac, or Rivian. All of which make quality vehicles.

Oh, and in a world where Lexus has at least six high quality hybrid options, Infiniti has…. zero.

Lexus moved over 370,000 vehicles in 2025. Infiniti? Not even 53,000.

Chrysler

Chrysler sells exactly one vehicle… a minivan that hasn’t changed much since 2017 in three flavors, the Pacifica (the one that normal people buy), the now discontinued plug-in hybrid version, and the Voyager, a base trim flavor destined for fleet sales.

So, let’s just ditch the entire brand and if you really want to continue to sell the Pacifica, give it more than a simple refresh and sell it as a Dodge Caravan like the old days. After all, Dodge basically invented the entire minivan segment.

When it comes to sales numbers, you don’t even need to compare Chrysler to any competitors – you can simply compare it to itself. In 2015, Chrysler sold 200,000 more vehicles than it did in 2025.

If we do compare Chrysler’s only vehicle to other minivans, while sales numbers for the Pacifica are actually similar to its most popular competitor, the Toyota Sienna, at around 100,000 units per year, who buys them makes a big difference. We don’t have exact data, but it’s estimated that over 30% of sales of Chrysler vehicles in 2025 were to fleets at a discount, while Toyota sells practically every Sienna they can make to retail customers at full price.

Oh, and the other benefit of discontinuing the Chrysler brand is that the names of their dealers will be less ridiculous. This might not matter to me or you, but imagine being the person that works at a Chrysler dealer that has to say “Thank you for calling Example Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram, how can I help you?”

PS: While you’re at it, Stellantis, can you PLEASE fold Ram back into Dodge? because “Thank you for calling Example Dodge Jeep, how can I help you?” is even more efficient.

Fiat

The EV industry isn’t as doom and gloom as the media might make you think, but when your only vehicle is an overpriced, tiny electric car with awful range, why even bother? Given that this vehicle has already been discontinued (well, they “paused production”, which means about the same thing).

Despite enthusiasts claiming they want small, fun cars, they simply don’t sell. Especially when they’re a lousy EV. So let’s just move on – Fiat’s 1,300 US car sales in 2025 are nothing more than a rounding error to the dealers that sell them that also sell other Stellantis products.

Genesis

If you look at sales numbers, you might think that they are doing very well. Compared to five years ago, sales of Genesis vehicles are up 400%. But, 400% of not much still isn’t much. Remember that Lexus sold over 370,000 vehicles in 2025, most of which they sold at full price. Genesis managed about 80,000 vehicles, most of them heavily discounted.

Moving on to discuss the actual product, we should understand that most auto reviewers actually have generally positive stuff to say about these vehicles. They have come a long way and are generally pretty nice. But just like Infiniti, nice is not good enough when you don’t have the brand recognition of Lexus or BMW.

Oh, and given that they don’t have any hybrids, do they at least do well in fully electric cars? Well, not really. The only way they can sell any of their already unprofitable EVs is massive incentives. And if it’s a Korean EV you want, remember that Genesis is part of the Hyundai and Kia family, and they both sell their own versions of those vehicles, with much more success. If we add Hyundai and Kia’s 2025 EV sales, it’s about 100,000 units. Genesis sold less than 4,000 EVs. Lol!

Polestar

Most people have never even heard of Polestar, let alone seen one on the road. Even here in the San Francisco Bay Area – probably the hottest EV market in the world – I can go weeks without spotting a single Polestar.

In 2025, Polestar moved about 4,000 vehicles. Even the pointless flop that is the Dodge Charger EV sold almost double that!

Lincoln

Just like Dodge practically created the minivan segment, Lincoln pioneered the luxury full-size SUV segment with the Navigator. But today, they sell less than half as many Navigators as Cadillac sells Escalades.

Next time you go for a drive, let’s play a game… can you spot a single current gen Navigator not owned by some sort of transportation or limo company? I’ll wait. Now, when it comes to Expeditions, Ford moves four times as many of those per year.

And Lincoln’s other models? They don’t even matter. Honestly, I can’t even name them or tell them apart. I think they’re just rebadged Escapes and Explorers?

Total, Lincoln sold about 106,000 vehicles in 2025. That’s less than 5% of Ford’s total US sales. Next!

Buick

Just like Genesis, where the vehicles are actually well reviewed, Buick actually makes some reasonably competitive stuff these days.

But, Buick has only existed as long as it has for one reason: China. While in the US it’s been a “car for old people” brand for a long time, in China, it was an aspirational brand for a lot of people of all ages. But, if you have internet, you’ll know that sales of American cars in China are pretty much nonexistent in this era of cheap Chinese electric cars that offer the software and technology features that Chinese car buyers want that our legacy brands just can’t compete with.

So, if Buick’s most important market is no longer important, let’s put it to rest. If you really want an Envista, go get a Trax. If your favorite car is the Encore GX, go get a Trailblazer. If you’re drooling over an Envision, the Equinox is for you. And, finally, if your heart is set on the Enclave, the Chevy dealer will happily sell you a Traverse.

And if you find a Chevrolet is too mainstream for you, don’t worry… GM offers 3/4 of those vehicles in a GMC version.

If Buick goes bye-bye, almost every Buick buyer will just buy a different brand of GM vehicle, while the 17 or so sales they’ll lose to a competitor won’t matter compared to the cost savings of ditching Buick out of the lineup.

Mini

Gas powered Minis suffer from BMW maintenance costs and awful reliability, while their electric offering is $15,000 more than a Tesla Model 3… with 100 miles less range, half the charging speed, and a terrible round infotainment display that is borderline unusable.

So, it’s no surprise that Minis aren’t exactly flying off dealer lots. In 2025, they sold less than 30,000 cars.

Honorable Mention: Acura

This is a tough one, because Acuras were competitive… a decade ago. But today, a quick look at their lineup demonstrates the problem.

First we have the ADX, a rebadged Honda HR-V with a four cylinder engine that puts out less than 200hp and is combined with a CVT – not exactly the hallmark of a performance, premium, or luxury vehicles.

Then we have the MDX and RDX… which aren’t available in hybrids, which is what mainstream luxury buyers want if they don’t want to go fully electric.

And the ZDX, Acura’s only fully electric offering was nothing more than a rebadged Cadillac Lyriq. The Lyriq is actually a great vehicle – but because Acura loyalists simply don’t want an American car, the ZDX was discontinued after a single model year and even today in 2026 you can find leftover new 2024 models on dealer lots.

I think Acura can turn this one around, that’s why it’s only an honorable mention. Simply slapping Honda’s existing hybrid powertrains into their current vehicles would probably double their sales overnight, and they can go from there.

I feel like we’re missing something… Afeela

Or should I say, Afeela like we need one more entry to this list.

Lousy puns aside, I’m not sure if something that hasn’t even been born yet can even die, but seriously – this joint venture between Honda and Sony to make a tech-forward luxury EV is literally the last thing the US needs at this point. I’m not saying electric cars are bad, in fact, they’re generally awesome, but the thing was destined to fail from day one.

Nobody wants a $100,000 electric sedan that looks like a bar of soap and according to their website only charges at up to 150kW? Yes, that’s right, it has the same charging speed as a $30,000 Chevy Bolt.

But it’s alright, you’ll be able to play games on the built-in Playstation streaming feature… if you’re a passenger, because they only have Level 2 autonomy… the same thing Tesla currently offers for 1/3 of the price. And if I had to bet between the leader in self-driving car technology with over 7 billion miles of driving data or “Sony Honda Mobility” for who will achieve true unsupervised autonomy on personally owned vehicles first… well, just go buy a Tesla. Except even the almighty Tesla has recently announced they are discontinuing the Model S and Model X. If the pioneer and leader in EVs, Tesla, can’t even sell a full size luxury sedan, why do Sony and Honda think they have a chance here?

If Sony and Honda have actually accomplished something in terms of autonomous driving with all the investment in the Afeela, that’s cool – they can use that technology in Hondas. Or offer Playstation integration in some Acura models to help entertain the family on road trips. See, it’s not a complete waste of time. But you know what is? The entire Afeela brand.

In Conclusion

I’ll summarize this article with a table showing the sales numbers of all of these brands and how they’ve declined, which will drive my point home. I threw Toyota in there for comparison purposes so you can see what a successful car brand can do. I hope you found this article interesting, and have a nice day!

Brand	2015	2020	2025
Toyota (included for reference)	2,107,959	1,837,898	2,147,811
Mitsubishi	95,000	87,387	94,752
Infiniti	133,498	79,502	52,846
Chrysler	324,846	110,464	126,381
Fiat	32,742	4,303	1,321
Genesis	N/A	16,384	81,017
Polestar	N/A	1,500	4,078
Lincoln	87,893	105,410	106,868
Buick	223,055	162,741	188,096
Mini	58,030	28,138	27,874
Acura	177,165	136,982	134,751