Quebec doesn’t just incentivize buyers; La Belle Province requires auto manufacturers to meet EV goals
If it rides on four wheels and uses battery-electric power to generate forward progress in this country, the odds are high that it’s in Quebec. Over half the electric vehicles sold in Canada in 2024 – 52% in the first-half of the year – landed in Quebec driveways.
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Of course, Quebec is a large province. But its roughly 9 million residents generate only 25% of the Canadian auto industry’s sales volume, highlighting the dramatic oversampling of BEVs in La Belle Province.
What makes Quebec such a receptive region for electric vehicles? It’s not simply a difference in consumer tastes that caused first-half BEV market share in Quebec to surge to 19% while Saskatchewan’s BEV share hovered just above 1%. Rather, Quebec piles on incentives in order to lure car buyers into electric vehicles. In addition to rebates worth as much as $5,000 from the federal government, the Quebec government presently layers on another $7,000 for fully electric vehicles.
Quebec, however, doesn’t just incentivize buyers.
Quebec’s electrification strategy also requires automakers to play ball by mandating a certain percentage (14% in 2024; 16% in 2025) of large automakers’ Quebec volume to be generated by zero-emission vehicles. Automakers earn credits based on the number of EVs sold. Failure to earn enough credits will force an automaker to buy credits from another automaker that has surplus credits or pay a fee to the provincial government. Either way, it costs an automaker when it’s not selling EVs in Quebec.
Not surprisingly, Quebec’s EV volume has flown to new highs given the fact that rebate reductions were announced at a point in time when OEMs finally increased availability of a broader range of EVs. According to federal data that factors in every single vehicle that’s received a rebate since Natural Resources Canada began handing out discounts in 2019, Quebec electric vehicle sales jumped 80% in the seven-month period following the provincial government’s rebate reduction announcement – the rest of the country’s EV rebate-eligible sales actually decreased by half a percentage point.
This isn’t just a consumer response to the future elimination of rebates – it’s also the result of OEMs responding to Quebec’s mandate structure and shipping more vehicles to the province that requires action.
That’s the lay of the land. Yet the most compelling data points can’t be found in the big electric picture – we want to know exactly what Quebecers are choosing to drive. Using the federal government’s rebate database, we’ve compiled a list of the most popular rebate-eligible battery-electric vehicles in the province that gobbles up EVs like they’re going out of style. Through the first 10 months of 2024, these are the 10 best-selling EVs in Quebec.
10. Chevrolet Blazer EV: 3,412
9. Tesla Model 3: 3,852
8. Kia EV6: 4,128
7. Toyota bZ4x: 4,185
6. Ford Mustang Mach-E: 4,839
5. Volkswagen ID.4: 5,674
4. Hyundai Kona Electric: 6,299
3. Chevrolet Equinox EV: 6,913
2. Hyundai Ioniq 5: 7,037
1. Tesla Model Y: 7,143
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