The Government of Canada recently announced new interim zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) sales targets with the goal of reaching 100% ZEV sales by 2035. The first interim target is to reach 20% by 2026 followed by 60% by 2030.
That first target appears within reach as new registration data from Statistics Canada shows that in 2021 5.2% of all new vehicles registered in Canada were zero-emission.
That is an impressive increase from 3.5% in 2020.
Showing the importance of incentives in increasing ZEV adoption, Quebec and British Columbia led the country with 42.8% and 27.7% of all ZEV registrations taking place in those two provinces alone.
Ontario was in third place, meaning 93.4% of new ZEVs were registered in Canada’s three largest provinces.
As you can see Stats Can figures includes plug-in hybrid when calculating ZEV adoption. When considering battery electric vehicles (BEVs), a total of 58,726 were registered in 2021, up from 39,036 in 2020.
However, ZEV registration figures for Q4 show a drop in the number of registrations for most provinces.
The only one to buck the trend was Ontario, which has no provincial incentives but was able to increase ZEV registrations from 5,162 in Q3 to 6,139 in Q4.
These figures should only improve in 2022 as Transport Canada recently expanded the eligibility criteria for the iZEV rebate to include more vehicles including minivans, light-duty pick-up trucks and SUVs.
