Zero-emission vehicles accounted for just 8.7 per cent of all new vehicle registrations in the first quarter of 2025, the lowest level since 2023.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
The market share for electric vehicles tumbled in the first quarter of the year to the lowest level since early 2023, new numbers show, raising doubts about the federal government’s aggressive targets for battery-powered vehicles.
Zero-emission vehicles accounted for just 8.7 per cent of all new vehicle registrations in the first quarter, down sharply from 18.3 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2024, according to Statistics Canada.
A decision by the Quebec government to temporarily suspend its subsidies for battery-powered vehicles in February and March drove the decline. The province, which accounted for more than half of all EV sales last year, said strong demand depleted the available money for the rebate program.
The provincial subsidy resumed on April 1.
But even without Quebec’s cuts in the picture, the market share for EVs in the rest of Canada fell to 7.6 per cent, back to where it stood two years ago.
Those levels are a far cry from the federal government’s requirement that one in five new vehicles sold next year must be battery-powered. That target rises to 60 per cent in 2030 and 100 per cent in 2035.
This week the head of GM Canada urged Ottawa to scrap its rules around minimum EV sales because they are impossible for any traditional automaker to meet.
“When these mandates came into play, there was an understanding that there would be some investment in infrastructure as well as consumer incentives to help with the affordability,” Kristian Aquilina, president of GM Canada, said during an event hosted by The Globe and Mail in Toronto on Monday. “Some of those haven’t [happened] or have stopped.”
Ottawa abruptly paused its own federal rebate program for EVs in January when its funding ran out. That program is still on hiatus.
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