Matthew Klippenstein, Contributor
Articles
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Toyota made a strong return to the Canadian plug-in electric vehicle market in June, selling 144 Prius Prime plug-in hybrids.
The tally is all the more remarkable as the vehicle has so far launched...
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Plug-in electric car sales in Canada, May 2017: what dominance looks like
As certain as LeBron James reaching the NBA Finals, the Chevy Volt led the Canadian plug-in electric vehicle market in May. Barring a sales collapse in June, it will have led the category for a remarkable two-thirds of the months (48 of 72) in which electric vehicles from major carmakers have been...
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Plug-in electric car sales in Canada, Apr 2017: plus ça change...
The Volt remains the undisputed king of the Canadian plug-in electric vehicle market. In April, the Chevy Volt enjoyed its 13th consecutive month as Canada's best-selling plug in electric vehicle, and its 46th month overall. While overshadowed by other vehicles in its home U.S. market, the Volt's...
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Is Toyota's hydrogen fuel-cell fervor foolish, or foresighted? (with charts)
Toyota's staunch, unswerving support for hydrogen fuel cells has astonished and aggravated many in the electric vehicle community. For some of them, the technology is at best an inferior solution—and at worst is fossil fuel-friendly vaporware, a Judas in Jesus's clothing, if you will. With...
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Plug-in electric car sales in Canada, March 2017: Chevy charges ahead
The Chevy Volt likely continued its winning ways atop the Canadian plug-in electric vehicle sales charts in March. Its 377 sales give it a comfortable margin over the Tesla Model S's high mark of 325, set in March 2016 before the Model X became available. The Chevy Bolt's 241 units were nearly...
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Plug-in electric car sales in Canada, Feb 2017: Bolt sprints to a speedy start
The Chevy Bolt EV electric car got off to a fast start in its first full month of Canadian sales, selling 86 vehicles in February. Excluding its first week of availability in late January, the Bolt enjoyed the fourth-best debut month of any plug-in electric vehicle in the Canadian market. It...
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The Chevrolet Volt continued its reign on top of the Canadian electric-vehicle sales charts for the tenth consecutive month in January.
The plug-in hybrid Volt's 256 sales obliterated the prior...
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Plug-in Electric Car Sales in Canada, Dec 2016: cresting Everest
While still just shy of the 30,000 vehicle milestone, cumulative Canadian plug-in electric vehicle sales likely finished 2016 high enough to scale Mount Everest (elevation in feet: 29,029). While the full 2016 milestone is unlikely to be reached by January 11—birthday of Sir John A...
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Plug-in electric car sales in Canada, Nov 2016: Bolts from the blue?
Canada's first three Chevrolet Bolt EVs were registered in October, no doubt for media test-drives and dealership training ahead of the 238-mile electric car's Canadian launch. That event is expected to take place early next year, but with photos of truckloads of Bolt EVs headed for U.S. dealers...
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Plug-in electric car sales in Canada, October 2016: Volt's seven-peat
The Chicago Cubs won the World Series for the first time in 108 years; the Chevy Volt won the Canadian electric-car sales trophy for the seventh time in seven months. Though Chevy Volt sales in Canada fell from stratospheric to mere tropospheric levels in October, the vehicle remains Canada's...
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Quebec passes Canada's first zero-emission vehicle rule, to start in 2018
Quebec has become the first Canadian province to adopt a requirement for sales of a certain number of zero-emission vehicles, similar to the one in effect in California. Quebec's Assemblée Nationale passed the regulation on October 26 by a unanimous vote of 112 to 0, and to universal praise...
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Plug-in electric car sales in Canada, September 2016: new record?
The past week has brought a "hat trick" of good news for Canadian plug-in electric vehicle owners. The Toronto Blue Jays made the major-league baseball playoffs, the Canadian government announced a national carbon price to come by 2018, and a spectacular September almost certainly shattered monthly...
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The Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid followed July's record-setting 385 Canadian sales with 421 units in August—the first time any plug-in electric vehicle had topped the 400 monthly sales mark...
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Electric-car pioneers vs mainstream buyers: how they differ, in Canada (exclusive)
A detailed study of 1,900 new-car buyers has let Canadian researchers contrast the early adopters of electric cars with the more mainstream market in fine detail. More than 150 of the respondents surveyed bought a plug-in electric vehicle, offering a sharp contrast in attitudes and adoption...
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Plug-in electric car sales in Canada, July 2016: the Model X factor
The second-generation Chevy Volt set a single-month Canadian plug-in electric vehicle sales record in July with 385 sales, the equivalent of about 3500 sales in the American market. That's more than August 2013, the Volt's best-ever month in the United States, when dealerships moved 3,351 units...
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Plug-in electric car sales in Canada, June 2016: volte-face for the Volt
Paced by the Chevrolet Volt, Canada may have had its first-ever month in which 1,000 plug-in electric vehicle were sold. Volt sales continued to soar in Canada during June, with GM's electric flagship topping 300 for the first time. Factoring in population ratios, this would be roughly equivalent...
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Electric cars a key part of climate-action plans in Ontario, Quebec
In the past two months, the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec announced aggressive climate-change policies, both featuring strong plug-in electric vehicle support. Ontario's provincial government followed up on its recently-strengthened purchase rebates with a battery of policies including...
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Plug-in Electric Car Sales in Canada, May 2016: Canada crosses 20,000 cars with plugs
The Chevy Volt's May sales numbers put it in the driver's seat in Canada for the fourth time in five months The country welcomed its 10,000th plug-in electric vehicle around October 2014, about 40 months after the first Nissan Leafs arrived. This past April—about 18 months later—the...
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With the Stanley Cup destined to be won by an American team for the 23rd straight year, Canadian hockey fans seemingly spent the month of April shopping.
The country's monthly auto sales topped...
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Plug-in electric car sales in Canada, March 2016: springing forward
Though many countries opt out of daylight savings time, the Canadian auto market always "springs forward" in March. Last month set a Canuck record for total March auto sales, at 175,000 units; depending on Tesla volumes to be reported this month, the plug-in electric vehicle segment may have broken...
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Toyota Mirai manga: hydrogen fuel cell beats electric cars, plug-in hybrids
Manga are comics created in Japan, conforming to a style set more than 100 years ago and still very much a part of popular culture. While they may look like no more than light entertainment, they're widely read by people of all ages—and sometimes used to market commercial products. A year...
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Electric cars in Canada: 6 good-news events for buyers, drivers
Canadian electric-vehicle policy seems to be enjoying its own annus mirabilis, or "wonderful year," during 2016. While "a journey of 1,000 miles begins with a single step," plug-in proponents could be forgiven for wanting to advance more than a step at a time. Here, then, are a half-dozen recent...
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Plug-in electric car sales in Canada, February 2016: Volt Valentine
Chevy's 102 Volt sales may have led the Canadian plug-in electric vehicle market in February, and bring its national total to 5,611 units. As it happens, this is a mere 103 units away from Nolan Ryan's major league baseball strikeout record of 5,714. Up slightly from January's 94 sales, this was...
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Ontario, Canada, Boosts Electric-Car Purchase Rebate Amounts
As U.S. electric-vehicle advocates are well aware, a handful of states have reduced or killed incentives for plug-in vehicles over the past year, adding some headwinds to sales. Earlier this month, the Canadian province of Ontario took the opposite approach, expanding its plug-in electric vehicle...
Matthew Klippenstein