Chevrolet Equinox EV 3LT
Find out who’s up, down, and why in our annual look at how the year is shaping up for new vehicle sales
Predictability has gone out the window.
Within the last five years, Canada’s automotive industry moved from a pandemic that cratered — and then spiked — demand directly into a supply chain crunch that led to near non-existent inventory and impressive dealer profits.
Mixed in with rapidly changing automotive tastes, and spurred on to some degree by government intervention, was a sudden withdrawal of government EV incentives and an abrupt shift away from decades of North American automotive free trade.
Bet you didn’t see all of that coming.
The Canadian automotive industry has proven rather resilient throughout the accompanying economic challenges.
Just look at the first-half of 2025 as an example, in which a 4-per cent year-over-year sales increase produced roughly 950,000 sales, very nearly on par with some of the best years the industry has ever known.
Yet analyzing those sales figures doesn’t present the kind of clarity we had come to rely on in the pre-unpredictability era — there are simply too many extenuating circumstances today.
Many automakers still suffer from an inability to meet customer demand, automakers still don’t know how tariffs will (or won’t) impact their prices, and many consumers are acting preemptively to capture incentives or vehicles that may suddenly disappear.
Of course, none of that stands in the way of our annual report card, where every automaker is graded on their performance in 2025’s first-half.
ACURA: B+
The pandemic and post-pandemic era hasn’t proven particularly kind to Honda’s upmarket spin-off, a brand that will turn 40 in 2027. Acura’s bouncing back in 2025, however, with an 18-per cent year-over-year surge courtesy of improved Integra and MDX sales, solid growth from Acura’s best-selling RDX, and the first bundle of sales of the new ADX small crossover. With 6,918 sales through the first six months of the year, however — fewer than 1,200 sales per month — it’s still obvious that Acura doesn’t carry the sway it once did. 20 years ago, in a much smaller market with a much smaller lineup, Acura was selling 1,800 vehicles per month.
AUDI: B+
Surrendering the position it held a year ago as Canada’s top-selling premium marque, Audi is nevertheless reporting sales growth in 2025. Audi’s 16,761 first-half sales, a 7-per cent year-over-year improvement, can be traced back to big leaps forward for Audi’s two long-running SUVs, the Q5 and Q7. Together, the duo produced 8,011 total sales, a 44-per cent jump from last year.
BMW: B
Outpacing the industry with 8-per cent year-over-year growth, BMW’s 16,083 first-half sales trails Audi by only 678 units and Lexus by 2,030. Gone are the days when the 3 Series was responsible for floating BMW’s boat. As recently as 2010, 51 per cent of BMW’s volume was 3 Series-derived. BMW is now much more diversified — even the best-selling X1 now accounts for only 23 per cent of BMW volume.
FORD: DNQ
Ford remains committed to a plan that sees Blue Oval sales figures revealed on an annual basis. It’s decidedly non-transparent and particularly strange given the consistency of Ford’s quarterly updates south of the border. In 2024, Ford Motor Company owned 15 per cent of the market.
GENERAL MOTORS: A+
76,676. That’s not GM Canada’s sales total from the first-half of 2025; that’s just the number of SUVs/crossovers sold between January and June, a 16-per cent year-over-year increase. GM also sold 73,390 pickups, 4,758 vans, and 2,847 passenger cars. These are important figures, because they total an industry-leading 157,671 vehicles, 12-per cent more than GM sold during the first six months of 2024.
GENESIS: B
As a standalone brand, the 8-year-old Genesis brand remains a baby in a world of luxury marques that date back more than 100 years. Yet with a small network and a small lineup, Genesis simply piles on quarter after quarter of growth, slowly but surely nibbling off little bites of market share from the established premium brands. Genesis jumped 26 per cent in 2022, 15 per cent in 2023, 6 per cent in 2024, and is up 15 per cent to 3,864 sales through the first-half of 2025.
HONDA: A
Bolstered by Canadian production of its two best sellers, Honda reported a 21-per cent year-over-year sales improvement to start the year. The 69,536 Hondas sold in the first-half represents Honda’s best start to the year since 2019. It’s not just Canada’s best-selling car (the Civic) or No.2 SUV (the CR-V) helping Honda, either. Honda’s Alabama-built quartet — Odyssey, Passport, Pilot, Ridgeline — produced a 32-per cent jump in the first-half.
HYUNDAI: A
Despite being rocked by the elimination of Canada’s iZEV program — as evidenced by a 56-per cent second-quarter decline in sales of its Ioniq 5 electric leader — Hyundai reported big gains from the Elantra, Sonata, Santa Fe, Tucson, and Venue to cap off a strong first-half. Hyundai’s 74,474 sales put Hyundai behind Toyota and Chevrolet but ahead of Honda. In Hyundai’s best-ever year, 2014, the brand had sold 70,270 vehicles in the first-half of the year.
INFINITI: D-
Amidst the plant closures, layoffs, falling sales, and epic massive financial losses that define Nissan’s global struggles, the parent brand is actually selling a very healthy number of vehicles in Canada. Nissan’s Infiniti premium division, on the other hand, is tumbling. The 15-per cent year-over-year drop to only 2,576 first-half sales places Infiniti over 4,000 sales behind Volvo, nearly 2,900 sales behind Land Rover, and nearly 1,300 behind Genesis. Infiniti’s first-half sales have fallen 57 per cent in just seven years, and the brand’s shrinking lineup won’t help close that gap.
JAGUAR: F
Jaguar made big bets on an electric future that, certainly in the short and medium-term, no longer seems to include nearly as many plugs. Then again, it’s not as though Jaguar was selling many ICE-powered vehicles, either. Pre-pandemic, Jaguar’s 2019 annual total reached only 3,636 units. In 2025, with first-half results off last year’s pace by 25 per cent, it is on track to end with Jaguar’s seventh year-over-year decline since 2015. Jaguar’s monthly Canadian output is down 76 per cent since 2017.
KIA: A
With a great deal of flexibility to source the overwhelming majority of its vehicles from Korea, rather than its U.S. plants, Kia Canada is well positioned to build on the brand’s record results in 2024. Kia reported an 11-per cent climb through the first six months of the year with renewed strength from the Sportage, Sorento, and Forte-replacing K5. Excluding the nosediving EV6 and discontinued models, Kia sales are actually up 22 per cent in 2025.
LAND ROVER: B+
Alongside its increasingly irrelevant Jaguar partner, Land Rover sales jumped 14 per cent to 4,895 units in the first-half of 2025. In fact, Land Rover’s three Range Rover spinoffs — Evoque, Sport, Velar — combined for a 60-per cent leap. 2025 is on pace to be Land Rover’s eighth year of growth in the last decade. Land Rover’s Canadian sales have grown 27 per cent since 2015.
LEXUS: A+
Lexus is solidly locked into its groove after a 2024 in which sales spiked to the brand’s second-best finish ever. Lexus is currently Canada’s top-selling premium brand as first-half volume jumped 21 per cent, a gain of 3,166 units. Lexus generated just over two-thirds of its 18,113 sales with its two Canadian-built models, the RX and NX.
MASERATI: D-
It’s almost as if part of the mystery behind Maserati; the aura of the brand, requires a level of uncertainty to maintain. The future of Maserati is up in the air — it almost always has been — and the brand’s Canadian sales figures serve as piece of evidence in the case against the brand’s prospects. Only 230 Maseratis were sold in the first-half of 2025, a 35-per cent drop from last year’s figures and a brutal 57 per cent decline from 2023’s first-half totals.
MAZDA: A
There’s no shortage of challenges for a very small brand such as Mazda during a time of industry upheaval, significant government intervention, and shifting global trade norms. That can be seen as easily as looking at Mazda’s product plans, where the Alabama-built CX-50 has been pulled from Canadian shelves. Yet Mazda is overcoming, surging 21 per cent in the first-half of 2025 (to 39,781 units) after substantial post-pandemic growth in 2023 and 2024.
MERCEDES-BENZ: B
Slotted in behind Lexus, Audi, and BMW in premium sales rankings, Mercedes-Benz generated 15,349 first-half sales (plus an additional 3,352 Sprinters) in 2025 across a seemingly unending product line. The brand’s 15-per cent growth stemmed largely from somewhat affordable Benzes such as the CLA, CLE, GLA, and GLC, a foursome that jumped 65 per cent from 2024 levels to 7,858 sales. That’s over half of Mercedes-Benz’s non-Sprinter volume.
MINI: B-
The 7-per cent improvement in Mini sales that BMW Canada generated in the first-half of 2025 doesn’t really hide the fact that Mini is still playing on the periphery. This is truly a niche-market premium small car brand that doesn’t really sync with North American sensibilities. Mini offers mini-sized vehicles at decidedly non-mini price points. It works, but on this continent, it works only with very small volumes. Mini’s currently selling around 400 vehicles per month in Canada.
MITSUBISHI: B
In advance of a revamped Outlander stepping in, sales of Mitsubishi’s current Outlander fell 12 per cent in the first-half of 2025. For an Outlander-dominated brand — it accounts for 53 per cent of Mitsubishi’s 18,900 first-half sales — that’s a problem that results in below-average growth for the brand overall. Yet Mitsubishi is still on track to top 2024, the brand’s best-ever year in Canada, as remaining Mirages are flushed out and the brand somehow finds a way to actually sell more Eclipse Cross and RVR SUVs than last year.
NISSAN: B+
Even with transaction prices soaring, there’s still room in the Canadian automotive market for affordable, entry-level vehicles. Nissan’s first-generation Kicks (now known as the Kicks Play) and second-generation Kicks combined to more than double first-half sales to 20,136 units. Nissan also sourced growth from the Altima, Versa, Ariya, Armada, Frontier, and Murano. As Nissan looks ahead at a second-half without a Frontier, Murano, or Pathfinder — victimized by tariffs — the brand’s first-half sales rose 11 per cent to 57,730 units.
PORSCHE: B-
Perhaps we should have known that Porsche’s seemingly unending Canadian sales growth had to come to an end at some point. Porsche volume surged 189 per cent between 2013 and 2023 before finally sliding back slightly in 2024. The 1-per cent improvement (to 4,881 units) in the first-half of 2025 comes as the brand’s iconic 911 tumbles 20 per cent. Any form of 911 recovery in the summer and fall may well lead Porsche to yet another record annual result.
STELLANTIS: F
Unfortunately, this might get worse before it gets better. Stellantis, the parent company of Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Ram, and Fiat, suffered a 14-per cent Canadian sales blow in the first-half thanks to a 31-per cent drop in Ram pickup truck sales, a 21-per cent slide at Jeep, among other disastrous declines. But this may be the least of Stellantis’s worries given the expected $3.7 billion loss from the first-half of 2025, frequent plant shutdowns, and shifting sands in executive boardrooms. First-half volume topped out at 59,138 units — a 31,000-unit loss over the span of just three years.
SUBARU: A
While some of the brand’s designs are certainly on the quirkier end of the scale, we can no longer truly consider Subaru an obsessively all-wheel-drive-oriented quirky outsider that nibbles around the edges of the market. Subaru sold 39,512 vehicles in the first-half of 2025, an 11-per cent improvement. A decade ago, it took Subaru 10 months to sell what it now sells in 6 months. Growth from the Crosstrek and Forester more than canceled out the first-half’s 25-per cent Outback downturn. In fact, the Crosstrek is currently outselling the Outback by a 3.5-to-1 margin.
TOYOTA: B-
Now so much more reliant on its hybrids than ever before, Toyota is unfortunately limited by scarce parts supply from suppliers such as Aisin and Denso. Toyota’s Canadian sales dipped 3 per cent in the first-half — though that includes a 6-per cent Q2 uptick — due to significant declines from the Camry, Crown, 4Runner, bZ4x, Highlander, and the now discontinued Venza. The RAV4, despite a tough start to the year, remains Canada’s best-selling SUV by a wide margin.
VOLKSWAGEN: B-
The Volkswagen brand is proving capable — albeit barely — of matching last year’s booming pace, a year that ended with more than 80,000 sales and a 28-per cent rate of annual growth. Volkswagen ticked up to 40,548 first-half sales, a 101-unit increase, thanks primarily to booming sales of its entry-level models cancelling out losses from the Tiguan and electric ID.4. The Jetta sedan and Taos subcompact utility are up 45 and 20 per cent, respectively, which amounts to nearly 5,000 extra sales for VW.
VOLVO: B+
Volvo’s growth is by no means stratospheric, but the modest 4-per cent uptick in early 2025 is noteworthy given the brand’s standing in 2024. Last year was Volvo’s best ever; this year is better. Volvo’s second and third-best-selling models, the XC40 and XC90 respectively, combined for an extra 100 sales per month in the first-half of 2025.
