New Vehicle Sales Reach Highest Point Since Start of Pandemic
Despite concerns over the impact of tariffs on Canadian vehicle sales, the second quarter of 2025 marked the highest number of new quarterly registrations since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Statistics Canada announced this week.
The numbers show that Canadians registered 541,566 new motor vehicles in the second quarter, up 5.9% from the second quarter of 2024.
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Interestingly, all vehicle types saw an increase in new registrations in the second quarter compared with the previous year. As we wrote in a previous story, minivans (+29%) recorded the largest increase, followed by SUVs/crossovers (+6.8%), pickups (+2.5%) and passenger cars (+1.0%).
EVs Continue to Fall
Now, where powertrain types are concerned, Statistics Canada reports that new registrations for hybrid vehicles increased a whopping 60.7% in the second quarter compared with the same period one year earlier, continuing their trend of solid year-over-year growth. Diesel-powered vehicles (+15.8%) and gasoline-powered vehicles (+5.6%) also posted gains.
On the flip side, as we saw in the months of March and April, battery electric vehicles maintained their downward trend. Data for the second quarter reveal a 39.2% drop in new registrations. It’s the same thing with plug-in hybrid vehicles, down 2.2% when compared with the previous year.
Overall, sales of zero-emission vehicles (ZEV) took a huge hit following the termination of the federal government’s incentive program. But even in Quebec, where the Roulez vert rebate program was reinstated on April 1 after a two-month suspension, new ZEV registrations fell 38.1% year-over-year. British Columbia, which axed its Go Electric program after May 15, saw a decrease of 27.6% in the second quarter of 2025 compared with the previous year.
Prince Edward Island (-30.6%), Ontario (-18.6%), Nova Scotia (-14.1%), Saskatchewan (-11.3%) and Manitoba (-4.6%) experienced second-quarter decreases in new ZEV registrations, as well.
ZEVs still accounted for 8.6% of all new vehicle registrations in Canada, a similar share to the previous quarter (8.7%), but a stark difference with the fourth quarter of 2024 (18.3%) when the federal rebate was still available and scores of Quebec drivers made a move before the provincial rebate for EVs would drop from $7,000 to $4,000.