Report: EV sales in Canada are up – 2,779 new plug-ins registered in 2015, thanks largely to Quebec

A recent report from Fleetcarma breaks down plug-ins sales in Canada by looking at car registrations. The report shows that the plug-in market in Canada is largely dominated by only 3 models: Chevrolet Volt, Nissan Leaf and Tesla Model S.

Quebec is the leading province for plug-in sales in Canada with 45% of the total market even though the province represents only 23% of Canada’s population.

The chart follows closely the distribution of the population in Canada with the exception of Quebec. Quebec and Ontario, the 2 leading provinces, have been offering EV incentives for years, which come in the form of tax rebates ranging from $5,000 to $8,000. British Columbia, the third largest province in Canada and also the third best market for EVs, recently reinstated their plug-in incentive program.

These statistics show that incentives are still an important part of the EV market. Even though the 3 leading provinces are the only ones with EV incentives and they also are the 3 largest by population, Alberta comes in way behind in fourth place with only 15% of BC’s sales, even though Alberta is only 20% less populated than BC.

Tesla’s sales in Canada are significantly up since the beginning of the year:

While Chevy Volt sales are down, presumably because people are waiting for the 2016 version, and Nissan’s Leaf is following a similar pattern as last year, Tesla increased its sales of the Model S early in the year and is now carrying EV sales in the country: