(Ottawa) Never before have so many new electric vehicles hit the road in Canada as in the past year, but this growth is far from comparable to what is happening in Europe.
Posted at 4:25 p.m.
According to Statistics Canada, more than 65,000 new all-electric or plug-in hybrid cars were registered in the first nine months of 2021, up from 38,000 in 2020.
There were also more new electric vehicle registrations in just nine months last year than in a full year before.
But electric vehicles in Canada still accounted for only 5% of passenger car registrations, well below the federal government’s goal of one in two new registrations by 2030.
Moreover, the growth rate in Canada is well below what we see on the other side of the Atlantic.
Two years ago, the market share of new electric vehicles in Canada was 3%, tied with France, Germany and the United Kingdom. But last year, these vehicles accounted for around 17% of new registrations in the UK and France, and more than 25% in Germany.
The Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers’ Association is lobbying the federal government, before the next budget, to triple the amount of rebates for the purchase of electric vehicles offered to Canadian consumers.
On the other hand, the association asks Ottawa to abandon the idea of introducing quotas which would oblige dealers to sell a minimum number of electric cars, under penalty of royalties.
Such quotas have already existed in Quebec since 2018; British Columbia followed suit in 2020.