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While Canadians flocked to purchase gas-powered vehicles over the summer, electric vehicle sales continued to nosedive, according to new data from Statistics Canada:
Electric vehicle sales dropped 35.2 per cent in June compared to last year. Zero-emission vehicles comprised only 7.9 per cent of total new motor vehicles sold that month, with 14,090 entering the market.
Meanwhile, 177,313 new motor vehicles were sold in Canada in June, up 6.2 per cent from June 2024.
"In dollar terms, sales increased 3.1 per cent during the same period. In June 2025, there were more new motor vehicles sold in every province compared with the same period in 2024," reads the Statistics Canada data.
"Sales of new passenger cars increased 19.5 per cent in June 2025, marking the first gain in this subsector since November 2024. In June 2025, sales of new trucks (+4.3 per cent) were also higher than one year earlier."
Despite dwindling sales, the Carney government remains committed to its electric vehicle mandate of having 60 per cent of all vehicles sold be ZEVs by 2030 and 100 per cent by 2035, banning all motor vehicle sales.
Previously:
- Automobile Sales, Including EVs and Hybrids, Surge in 2024
- Mazda: Americans Want Cheap Gas Cars
- The EV Graveyard
- South Korean EV Battery Makers Reporting Big Losses as EV Demand Slows
(Score: 4, Insightful) by VLM on Tuesday August 26, @06:27PM (4 children)
Can try some numbers. Lets use the numbers from the official toyota website.
A Highlander starting MSRP is $40320 for 25 MPG. A Highlander Hybrid MSRP is $46820 for 35 MPG.
We will make the hilarious assumption that the vastly more complicated hybrid will cost $0 extra to maintain over the life of the car (LOL).
Average gas price is around $3.05 in my state. Varies from day to day, of course. Its still at the high end for the summer vacationers and the upcoming labor day travelers, so realistically its less, but OK we'll pick an intentionally high gas price in honor of inevitable inflation.
(46820 - 40320) = $6500 "hybrid tax". That $6500 will buy 2131 gallons of gas. The non-hybrid will drive 53275 miles on that gas. So I lose money for the first 53K then after 54K or so the hybrid will be cheaper (again, assuming zero dollar cost of hybrid maintenance)
In my state the average driver goes 15K/year so that's 3.5 years before the hybrid will pay for itself. More realistically I drive at most 10K/yr probably much less so it'll be 5+ years.
Another thing to keep in mind is both vehicles have a CVT and CVTs only last 80K, maybe 100K miles before intentionally self-destructing to increase sales. The car breaks even about half way thru the CVT lifespan (optimistically) So either way, we're only talking about "two thousand gallons" or about "six thousand bucks" either saved or not saved before the car meets the crusher, in the grand scheme of things, looking at the environmental damage of manufacturing a car, the hybrid savings is fairly irrelevant. What would be VASTLY more environmentally friendly would be banning CVTs so entire new cars don't have to be manufactured every 100K miles. Cars without CVTs can often go 200K+ and not making an entirely new car saves the environment a lot more than hybrid ever could.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday August 26, @06:37PM (2 children)
Also I assumed 0% interest rates. If you drive few enough miles, I am too lazy to make accurate calculations, but at some point I'd burn few enough gallons of gas that I could pay for it off the investment income (however small) of the $6500 price difference, if I pay cash for the car (thats what I usually do).
Lets say I invest my $6500 hybrid tax. My back of envelope estimate is I'd get somewhat less than 5000 miles of "free" gas to drive in my non-hybrid every year.
Honestly, I don't know if I drive the 15K supposed average for my state. I recall last summer seeing my "around town commuter car" roll over from 50K and here is is almost September and I'm at 54.?K so I may only go 6K this year in my commuter car. If you think about it, 6K/yr is still over 15 miles/day and I'm not even sure how I drive that much... I work at home, my gym's about 2-ish miles away, grocery store is a mile, church is like 3 miles? Even driving my kids around and doing "kid activities" with my kids I still can't account for my 6K.
Another novelty of living the suburban life is my 6K miles/yr lifestyle combined with Toyota's ONLY all EV car that supposedly goes 250 miles/charge means I'd only charge my car every other week. Which is about as often as I seem to go to the gas station with my gas car. I wish I could buy a nice commuter car with a 50 mile battery as that would be cheap and its all I need, but they wouldn't make enough profit so we can only buy incredibly expensive 250 mile batteries.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by fliptop on Tuesday August 26, @09:11PM (1 child)
Interesting you mentioned "hybrid tax" but didn't talk about the fuel tax (in my state about $0.50/gal). Has your state figured out how to tax EVs for the wear and tear on roads/bridges that have to be built and maintained?
What will the future price be? Even if they can equate a gallon of fuel to x amp-hours of use and charge the same per "gallon", will there be a firmware update for your smart meter that indicates when the EV is charging to calculate it?
Too many uncertainties for me.
Additionally, all EVs I've ever worked on have similar setups for suspension and steering as ICE so the maintenance is still there, and parts for them are expensive. I put front pads and rotors on a Prius last week and it had the same hydraulic caliper setup as every ICE vehicle I've ever worked on.
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday August 26, @09:22PM
Interesting theory: If road damage scales with some high polynomial exponent of vehicle weight, they can rely on electric taxes and property taxes. If you have enough property to have enough solr panels to run a large OTR truck 8+ hours per day for hundreds of miles, you are paying enough property tax to make up for the lack of gas tax LOL.
But no I was going for a first approximation where the environmental damage of building a car that uses a transmission design that self destructs in 100K miles is really bad if it'll take 50K miles just to break even on the more complicated powertrain.
I imagine to encourage repeated sales, EVs have to have self driving using hundreds of sensors designed to break/wear out at high expense after a couple years. The idea of a 50 year old golf cart is fine if you're a golf course but bad news if you're a car mfgr. They need to find a way to make the vehicle self destruct in a couple years to stay in business and that competes directly with the "Savings" from alternative drivetrains.
(Score: 2) by aafcac on Wednesday August 27, @02:59AM
Around here gas costs roughly $5 a gallon, so probably a lot quicker here, plus you use practically no gas with a hybrid if you're stuck in traffic or you have the option to plug it in. Gas here is expensive, but electricity is usually some of the cheapest in the country due to the dams.