EV sales fell over 50 per cent in Quebec in Q1 2025 “significantly impacting the national total,” says Statistics Canada

Canada saw just 37,229 zero-emission vehicles registered — 8.7 per cent of all new vehicle registrations — in Q1 2025, according to a new Statistics Canada report.

It’s a “significant” 54 per cent drop from the 81,216 ZEVs registered in the previous quarter, but there are reasons behind the numbers.

The decline, says StatsCan, is largely attributed to Quebec pausing its EV purchase subsidies from February 1 – March 31, 2025. It’s a sentiment echoed in the recently released Q1 2025 S&P Global EV report, which pegs EV sales in Canada for Q1 2025 at a slightly higher 9.7 per cent.

“Historically, Quebec has led in new ZEV registrations, accounting for over half (54.4 per cent) of Canada’s new ZEV registrations in 2024,” reads the StatsCan quarterly report.

“New registrations for ZEVs in the first quarter of 2025 also decreased compared with the same period one year earlier in British Columbia (-11.5 per cent), while Ontario experienced an increase of 8.9 per cent.”

Other provinces to show an increase in ZEV adoption in Q1 2025 compared to last year include Manitoba (+52.6 per cent), New Brunswick (+41.9 per cent), Nova Scotia (+33.2 per cent) and Saskatchewan (+12.8 per cent).

According to StatsCan, BEVs saw the largest increase of any vehicle category in Q1 2025, a 54.1 per cent increase over Q1 2024. (Sales of strictly gasoline-powered vehicles declined by 0.4 per cent over the same period.)

(Note: StatsCan classifies BEVs and PHEVs as “zero-emission vehicles.” This grouping does not reflect Electric Autonomy’s policy, which considers only non-combustion engine vehicles as zero-emission. However, where statistics refer to ZEVs, we have adhered to StatsCan’s definition for consistency.)

BEVs hit hardest

On a unit-by-unit basis, the drop in ZEV registrations is felt the most in the battery-electric vehicle category.

In Q4 2024, 61,802 BEVs were registered in Canada. In Q1 2025, there were only 26,401 new registrations — a 57 per cent difference.

Meanwhile, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles saw a slightly more modest 44 per cent slip from 19,414 units in Q4 2024 to 10,828 in Q1 2025, says StatsCan.

At a provincial level (again on a unit-by-unit basis), Quebec’s fall in ZEV registrations left it as the second highest adopting province in Q1 2025 (11,552 units), slotting in between British Columbia (in third with 8,924 units) and Ontario (in first position with 12,006 units).

Electric vans

Almost all light-duty vehicle classes saw a decline in Q1 2025 from Q4 2024, with multi-purpose vehicles experiencing the largest drop.

However, electric vans saw a modest increase going from 638 units in Q4 2024 to 829 in Q1 2025.