While the Canadian auto industry lacked predictable outcomes and produced its volume in new corners of the market, 2024 nevertheless represented a very real return to normal in one key metric.
The sales figures.
In Canada, 1.86 million new vehicles were sold in 2024. After a four-year span in which availability cratered and the supply chain all but collapsed – a span during which demand initially fell off a cliff before quickly surging ahead of a period of elevated prices and jacked-up interest rates – 2024’s overall volume was basically what the industry could typically expect.
During the decade prior to the onset of 2020’s pandemic, Canada’s auto industry averaged 1.82 million auto sales per year.
Auto sales volume may be back to normal; the sources of that volume have definitely changed. As recently as 2017, only 0.4% of the new vehicles sold in Canada were electric. Spurred by incentives, mandates, and broader selection, that figure jumped past 10% in 2024. Passenger cars, meanwhile, were a fading force in 2017 – the industry’s best year ever for total sales – but still produced over 30% of all sales. Passenger car market share wasn’t even half that strong in 2024.
Yet many of the market’s individual leaders remain the same. Canada’s best-selling auto brand in 2017 is still Canada’s best-selling auto brand. Canada’s best-selling truck in 2017 is still Canada’s best-selling truck. Canada’s best-selling car and Canada’s best-selling SUV in 2017 are still Canada’s best-selling car and SUV. In fact, when Canada’s auto market reached 2.04 million vehicle sales in 2017, the five best-selling auto brands were Ford, Toyota, Honda, Chevrolet, and Nissan. Only one of those brands is missing from the top five this year, as we’ve listed below along with the five best-selling pickups, five best-selling cars, and five-best-selling SUVs in Canada in 2024.
Canada’s 5 best-selling auto brands in 2024
5. Honda: 123,711, up 10%
Honda’s list of year-over-year improvements in 2024 stemmed from most members of the brand’s lineup: Civic, CR-V, HR-V, Odyssey, Pilot, and Ridgeline. The HR-V, Honda’s smallest utility vehicle, reported the largest gains at 27%. The Canadian-built Civic and CR-V, meanwhile, produced 70% of the brand’s Canadian volume.
4. Hyundai: 131,715, up 14%
Sixty-thousand sales of the Kona and Tucson propelled Hyundai to a five-year high and its best-ever year for retail volume in Canada. Hyundai sold 25,334 electric vehicles in 2024 along with 3,584 plug-in hybrids and 16,241 conventional hybrids. This so-called electrified branch of the lineup produced more than one-third of the brand’s sales.
3. Chevrolet: 154,107, up 14%
Bolstered by 25,987 EV sales – an 84% year-over-year increase – as well as strong growth from the entry-level Trax and midsize Colorado pickup, Chevrolet led GM Canada’s quartet by generating just over half of the automaker’s sales. Corvette aside, Chevrolet is very nearly out of the passenger car business – total Q4 sales of the Camaro, Malibu, and Bolt only hit 872 units.
2. Toyota: 209,230, up 7%
The summer months were not particularly kind to Toyota. After the year began with a 36% Q1 increase and a much more modest 10% Q2 improvement, sales between July and September slipped 9% despite industry-wide improvement. Toyota’s availability improved through the autumn and the brand ended with multiple annual records, most notably with the RAV4 and Tundra. With Lexus included, 2024 ended with 238,933 vehicles, the best year ever for the automaker.
1. Ford: 278,579, up 19%
Bolstered by big growth from the best-selling F-Series along with best-ever years from the Bronco Sport, Maverick, and Transit, Ford opened up an even bigger gap between the Blue Oval and second-ranked Toyota. Not since 2009 has Ford failed to grab the No.1 position among auto brands in Canada.
Canada’s 5 best-selling pickups in 2024
5. Chevrolet Colorado/GMC Canyon: 14,919, up 52%
Canadian sales of small and midsize pickups barely budged in 2024, rising just 1% for a gain of only 711 units. Don’t blame General Motors, which posted huge gains with its new iterations of the Colorado (8,138 sales) and Canyon (6,781 sales.) While the Toyota Tacoma, Nissan Frontier, Jeep Gladiator, and Hyundai Santa Cruz tumbled, GM’s trucks were joined on the positive side of the ledger by a 94% Ford Ranger uptick.
4. Toyota Tundra: 16,098, up 20%
Offsetting at least some of the midsize Tacoma’s losses – Toyota’s smaller truck fell 35% in 2024 – was an annual record from the third-generation Tundra. Full-size Toyota truck sales remain small by the standards of the Detroit players. Yet in most contexts, these are legit numbers, particularly when paired with another 159,528 Tundra sales south of the border.
3. Ram P/U: 56,992, down 24%
There have been worse years for the Ram truck lineup, but not in quite a while. The last time Ram pickup sales were this low was in 2010, a period you may recall for its disastrous economic climate and overall Chrysler Group upheaval. As recently as 2019, Ram truck sales climbed as high as 96,763. Undeniably, the demise of the more affordable Ram Classic stings – that model alone fell 44% in 2024, a loss of nearly 15,000 sales. But the newer Ram DT style took a 21% tumble, as well.
2. GMC Sierra/Chevrolet Silverado: 111,990, down 1%
With 59,912 Ram-beating sales from the GMC Sierra – plus another 52,078 from the Chevrolet Silverado – there’s no doubt which automaker earned more pickup truck market share in 2024. Despite the 1% year-over-year decline, GM’s share of the sector actually ticked up by one-tenth of a point. Not included in this Sierra/Silverado tally are sales of their separate but similarly named electric trucks, the Sierra EV and Silverado EV, with 276 and 1,938 sales, respectively, in 2024.
1. Ford F-Series: 133,857, up 9%
Nothing else exerts this kind of force on the Canadian market. In Canada, 36% of the pickups sold in 2024 were Ford F-Series trucks; 42% of the full-size trucks. Ford says this marks the 59th consecutive year of Canadian truck sales leadership for the F-Series, which is largely responsible for powering the Ford brand to No.1 status, as well. Very nearly half of all Ford sales are F-Series pickups.
Canada’s 5 best-selling cars in 2024
5. Volkswagen Jetta: 11,769, up 44%
In a much improved year for Volkswagen Canada – sales jumped 28% to the highest level ever for VW – the Jetta was a pivotal force. In fact, Volkswagen had some notable achievements with less common models, too: the end of the manual shifter prompted the Golf R to report its best year ever, for example. The Jetta, of course, is the lone remaining sedan at a brand that now produces over three-quarters of its sales with SUVs.
4. Tesla Model 3
Tesla doesn’t report model-specific or market-specific sales figures. Yet we knew that even by the end of August, based on rebate-eligible Model 3s alone (thanks to data from the federal government), Tesla was selling roughly 1,200 Model 3s per month, an average that would put Tesla at nearly 15,000 Model 3s for the year.
3. Hyundai Elantra: 20,427, down 0.2%
Although the Hyundai brand surged in 2024, climbing 14% to a five-year high, Elantra sales were flat in 2024. Gone are the days when the Elantra steered the ship at Hyundai Canada. The sedan produced roughly one out of every six Hyundai sales in 2024, down from 4 out of every 10 Hyundais a decade ago.
2. Toyota Corolla: 25,988, down 8%
The Corolla bids farewell to its brief fling with the top spot, falling back to the second position in 2024 after two years as Canada’s best-selling car. While its top competitor surged forward with improved sales in 2024, the Corolla moved in the opposite direction. This is still a very important product for Toyota Canada – better than 1 out of every 10 Toyotas sold in Canada are Corollas.
1. Honda Civic: 31,774, up 14%
If you were born in the late 1990s, the only car you’ve ever known to be Canada’s favourite was the Honda Civic. Or so it was until 2022, when Toyota’s Corolla broke through with the first of two victories. Honda bounced back, however, in 2024, with a 5,786-unit margin of victory. The Civic isn’t generating anywhere near the kind of volume it did when the Civic achieved peak popularity – 2008 volume was more than double what it is now. But for many Canadians, when it comes to choosing a car, the Civic is still the automatic choice.
Canada’s 5 best-selling SUVs/crossovers in 2024
5. Hyundai Kona: 30,020, up 34%
The Hyundai Kona, Canada’s favourite subcompact utility vehicle, barely squeaked into the top 5 courtesy of a scant 183-unit lead over the next-best-selling SUV. That SUV? Hyundai’s own Tucson, which jumped 14% to 29,837 units. Hyundai’s utility vehicle family actually generated more than 100,000 sales in 2024 – just under 30% of them were Konas, including 9,179 electric Konas.
4. Ford Escape: 30,996, up 59%
Not since 2015 has the Ford Escape claimed the top spot on Canada’s SUV leaderboard. And during that nine-year span, the Escape fell from grace. Ford sold 47,726 Escapes in Canada in 2015; only 19,546 in 2023. The Escape isn’t back, but 2024 does mark a return to form for the once-dominant Blue Oval SUV, especially when one factors in that Ford also sold 18,924 Bronco Sports in 2024.
3. Nissan Rogue: 32,737, up 23%
For all of Nissan’s global struggles and its recent decision to come under Honda’s wing, the brand is pumping out huge sales numbers in Canada. South of the border, Rogue sales slid 9% in 2024. In Canada, the Rogue jumped by more than 6,000 units, a 23% gain, to fend off a podium challenge from the resurgent Ford Escape.
2. Honda CR-V: 55,363, up 6%
In the largest and most competitive sector in Canada, the Canadian-made Honda CR-V is not even close to being the best seller in its category. Yet the CR-V is also nowhere close to surrendering its second-place position despite the far more impressive year-over-year growth of many of its competitors. The CR-V cleared the third-place Rogue by more than 22,000 sales in 2024. Coincidentally, the CR-V was more than 22,000 sales shy of catching the first-place Toyota RAV4.
1. Toyota RAV4: 77,556, up 4%
The year 2024 marked the ninth consecutive year of SUV sales leadership for the RAV4, Toyota’s best-selling model. The RAV4 actually accounts for almost 40% of the brand’s Canadian volume. 2024’s 77,556-unit tally was the best ever for the RAV4, which actually generated 12,392 of its sales via the RAV4 Prime plug-in hybrid. Toyota capped the year off with a massive December – RAV4 sales jumped 68% during the final month of the year.
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