Electric vehicle adoption in Canada grew significantly last year according to a new report.
There are now close to 50,000 plug-in vehicles in the country and sales grew 68% in 2017.
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While government efforts to accelerate the adoption of electric vehicles have been mostly at the provincial level in Canada, it’s apparently about to change.
The federal government has announced that they are developing a new “national strategy to increase the number of zero-emission vehicles (ZEVS) on Canadian roads”.
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Electric vehicle sales keep increasing at an impressive pace in Canada to a point that they are now representing a meaningful percentage of overall car sales.
During the first quarter 2017, electric vehicle deliveries reached a record high of 1,474 units (BEVs and PHEVs) – up 68% over the same period last year.
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After a long wait and some confusion with pricing, Tesla finally started to deliver the Tesla Model X Signature series in Canada this week. The first few vehicles were delivered in Vancouver, British Columbia.
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During the Model 3 unveiling event in March, Tesla CEO Elon Musk made an important announcement curcial to the success of the Model 3: the expansion of its two networks of charging stations. He said that Tesla will double the number of Superchargers to 7,000 units and quadruple the number of Destination chargers to 15,000 units within the next 2 years.
We reported last month that the company already started expanding the Supercharger with permits or started construction at 11 new locations (~90 new Superchargers) since the unveiling event. Now Tesla announced an expansion in Canada with 5 new locations – all in eastern Canada.
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The Canadian Federal government, led by the newly elected Liberal party, unveiled its first budget this week and it confirmed a significant deficit for the next two years (~$29 billion) attached to important tax cuts for the middle class and families.
As for EVs, if you were hoping for a federal tax credit for electric vehicles, you will be disappointed, but the government is still throwing a few bones to EV enthusiasts.
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After revealing European prices last week, today Tesla confirmed its Canadian Model X pricing and reservation holders can now access Tesla’s design studio to configure their vehicle.
If you reserved the vehicle a few years ago when the Canadian dollar was still holding its ground against the USD, you better be seated when scrolling through the Model X’s pricing because it starts at $122,700 for a base 70D model and can get as high as $208,300 for a fully-equipped P90DL.
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Update: A reddit user hopped over to the new Tesla location, and it looks like the company already has a sign up. See the bottom of the post for the image.
According to a report from New York real estate news site The Real Deal, a Tesla store will be the anchor for a new office conversion in Red Hook, New York City. Sources for the site say that the Palo Alto company signed a lease for a new space of roughly 40,000 square feet that will serve as an office, a service center, and a showroom for the company’s many EV offerings…
Tesla quietly updated its Canadian online design studio and appears to have discontinued several major options for the Model S in the country, namely all 85 kWh battery pack options.
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During the weekend, Tesla quietly increased the price of the Model S in Canada by an average of 2%, presumably to adjust for the weak Canadian currency – $1 CAD = $0.75 USD at the moment.
The less expensive version of the Model S, the 70 kWh rear wheel drive, now starts at $89,100 before incentives and destination fees. A fully equipped P90D now costs $173,800 before any incentives.
Here are the Canadian prices for the different Model S drivetrain configurations from Tesla’s design studio:
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According to Polk/IHS, Tesla has passed Nissan to become the best selling Electric car in Canada for the 2013 year. It moved from selling 20% of Canada’s Electric Cars in 2012 to 43% of the cars in 2013.
Consumer research shows that within its release year, the Model S captured a staggering 20% of the electric vehicle market share. Over the course of the next year (2013), it more than doubled to 43%, outselling all other OEMs. It is important to note that with such tremendous gains, Tesla did not necessarily conquest customers from other electric vehicle OEMs, but instead, brought new customers from outside the electric vehicle market to grow the current EV customer base. After all, the current EV competition includes the Nissan Leaf, Mitsubishi Imiev, Smart Fortwo, Ford focus EV, Toyota Rav4 EV and the Chevrolet Spark.
