2 weeks Ago By Timothy Cain
Article content The auto industry is in a weird place right now. Perhaps that’s far too specific a phrase: we’re all in a weird place right now. Yet as strange and memorable as the first-quarter of 2025 was in the lives of everyday Canadians, let’s be very clear when stating that Canada’s first-quarter auto sales results should in no way be relied upon to forecast the second-quarter .
A rollercoaster awaits us, only 60 months removed from the early days of COVID and years of ensuing automotive unpredictability. Whether it’s due to tariff threats, tariff bluffs, or actual tariffs, we are certain that nobody knows what’s coming down the pipe. Who would have guessed – at the beginning of this year – that we would now be at a stage where we’d see headlines such as, “ Audi, Jaguar Land Rover stop shipments to U.
S. over tariffs ”? Yet in the first-quarter of 2025, midst much uneasiness and a lengthy list of unknowns, a wide variety of automakers in Canada posted big sales increases. Mazda , for example, posted a 21% year-over-year jump courtesy in large part due to a 67% jump in sales of Mazda Canada’s one U.
S. import, the CX-50 . Cadillac and Chrysler were both up by more than 60%; double-digit gains were also reported by Mercedes-Benz , Lexus , Buick , BMW , and Land Rover .
In fact, among Canada’s 10 best-selling auto brands in early 2025 – not including Ford , which is only reporting on an annual basis, bizarrely – eight brands combined for 18,000 extra sales, a 9% increase in a market that was up slightly less than 4%. So, what’s selling? And what isn’t? After excluding any automaker that fails to report model-specific, quarterly-specific, market-specific sales figures – Ford and Tesla , we’re looking at you – we’ve compiled quarterly best seller lists for auto brands, passenger cars, pickup trucks, and SUVs from 2025’s first three months. Canada’s best-selling auto brands in the first-quarter of 2025 5.
Nissan: 29,124, up 4% Nissan’s first-quarter results are full of ups and downs as the brand undergoes significant product changeover and global financial challenges. The disappearance of the Qashqai leaves room for a new Kicks – 4,542 Q1 sales – and the continuation of the old Kicks – 4,983 Q1 sales – now known as the Kicks Play. Nissan also offers a new Murano , which increased sales of the midsize SUV by 18%.
Unfortunately for Nissan, sales of its best-selling Rogue slid 11%, a loss of over 1,200 sales. 4. Honda: 30,299, up 10% While Honda Canada imports a wide variety of models from the United States – the Ridgeline , Pilot , Passport , and Odyssey are all built in Alabama, for example – the bulk of Honda Canada’s sales come from its two Canadian-built models.
The CR-V and Civic account for 7 out of every 10 Honda sales in Canada. Both models appear on their respective best seller lists with 10% Q1 gains. 3.
Hyundai: 30,678, up 11% Hyundai’s leap forward in 2025’s first-quarter occurred in large part to increases from three vital midsize utility vehicles: the conventional Santa Fe , the electric Ioniq 5 , and the brand’s top-selling Tucson . Santa Fe volume rose 80% compared with the first-quarter of 2024. Ioniq 5 sales rose 46%.
The Tucson, one of Canada’s most popular crossovers, was up 32% to 8,234 units, representing more than a quarter of Hyundai’s volume. 2. Chevrolet: 36,278, up 15% One year ago, the gap between Chevrolet and the more popular Toyota brand stood at 19,303 units through three months.
In 2025, Chevrolet shrunk that margin to just 6,860 units as the bowtie brand jumped 15% and Toyota fell 15%. Chevrolet was powered forward by its seven-pronged SUV/crossover lineup, which jumped 24% to 17,288 units. Strong truck sales didn’t hurt: the Silverado and Colorado combined for a 19% uptick to 16,664 units.
1. Toyota: 43,138, down 15% While its Lexus luxury offshoot reported an 18% surge, Toyota’s 15% slip to 43,138 units represented a loss of more than 7,500 sales. The losses piled up all over Toyota showrooms.
Camry sales fell 65%, the Corolla was down 20%, and Prius volume tumbled 47%. Total Highlander sales were down 11%, the RAV4 slid 15%, and a generational changeover resulted in a near total absence of 4Runner sales, a loss of 1,328 units. Yet despite these shortfalls, Toyota still sits atop the leaderboard (in Ford’s non-reporting absence) with more sales than Subaru , Mazda , and Mitsubishi combined.
Canada’s best-selling cars in the first-quarter of 2025 5. Volkswagen Jetta: 2,858, up 52% Only 13% of the new vehicles sold in Canada in 2025’s opening three months were passenger cars. At Volkswagen , car share is somewhat higher – 22% – due to rebounding Jetta sales.
Clearly, the market has shifted in dramatic ways. Only a decade ago, Volkswagen relied on cars (including an array of now-extinct models) for 80% of the brand’s Canadian volume. 4.
Nissan Sentra: 3,215, up 44% Challenging for the third position is unusual territory for the Nissan Sentra , which reported unusually strong sales in the first three months of 2025. Over the last six years, including pre-pandemic 2019, Nissan averages an annual kickstart to the year of just 1,922 Sentras in Q1. The Sentra’s 2025 results are 67% stronger than the norm.
3. Kia K4/Forte: 3,308, up 15% Renamed K4 after a product revamp for the 2025 model year, Kia’s overall compact sales rose 15% with 3,285 K4 sales and 23 remaining Fortes. The K4 is forced to fill a wide variety of shoes.
Not only is it the Forte replacement, the K4 doesn’t have any help from the discontinued midsize K5 and discontinued Rio subcompact. 2. Toyota Corolla: 5,152, down 20% Although the Toyota Corolla’s top-selling rivals managed year-over-year gains in the first-quarter, the overall passenger car category did not.
Car sales slid more than 5% – excluding cars, auto sales were up roughly 5% – in part due to a 36% drop in car sales at Toyota. The Corolla’s 20% loss equals 1,296 lost sales for Toyota. 1.
Honda Civic: 7,279, up 10% After a two-year stint in which the Civic succumbed to the Toyota Corolla, Honda reclaimed its well-worn crown in 2024 and doesn’t appear to want to give it back. The Civic opened a 2,127-unit gap over the Corolla over the span of just three months to start the year; it trailed the Corolla by only 42 units at this stage of 2024. Canada’s best-selling pickup trucks in the first-quarter of 2025 5.
Toyota Tacoma: 2,732, up 172% Finally, the Tacoma rebounds. During 2024’s transitional year, in which Toyota was ending the third-gen’s eight-year run and launching an all-new truck, supply was limited and sales tumbled. Tacoma volume fell 35% from 2023’s record-high to 10,728 units.
Tacoma volume in 2025’s first-quarter still didn’t quite measure up to GM’s tally, but a 172% recovery is certainly a welcome result for Toyota dealers. 4. Chevrolet Silverado/GMC Canyon: 3,576, up 86% Faced with major Tacoma recovery, GM’s midsize pickup twins riposte took the form of an 86% year-over-year improvement for a segment-leading 3,576 sales.
The split is fairly even: 1,912 Colorados ; 1,664 Canyons . Fourteen years ago, when GM was preparing to exit the midsize truck market, the duo combined for only 1,250 midsize truck sales per quarter. 3.
Toyota Tundra: 3,427, up 8% Building on its best-ever Tundra sales total from calendar year 2024, Toyota puts its best foot forward with an 8% uptick to kick off 2025. Relative to its Detroit competition from Ford, GM, and Ram, the Tundra may appear to be an afterthought. Yet we’re now living in an era when the Tundra actually outsells all but two of the passenger car nameplates on sale in Canada.
2. Ram P/U: 9,903, down 38% Facing the potential of grave new pricing challenges as 2025 wears on, these first-quarter results are frightening figures for Stellantis. Ram trucks are Stellantis’s best-selling product, yet Q1 volume decreased by 6,057 units compared with 2024.
Moreover, 2024 was not a particularly good year for the Ram lineup: sales at this stage of 2024 had fallen 21% from 2023 levels. This amounts to a 51% drop over the span of just two years. 1.
GMC Sierra/Chevrolet Silverado: 30,852, up 12 percent With more than triple Ram’s total, GM’s 16,100 GMC Sierras and 14,752 Chevrolet Silverados accounted for better than 4-in-10 GM Canada sales in the first-quarter. Although Ford failed to report first-quarter sales results, it’s abundantly clear that GM is gobbling up market share from Ram. Only two years ago, the first-quarter sales gap between GM and Ram full-size pickups was 42%.
Now it’s 212%. Canada’s best-selling SUVs in the first-quarter of 2025 5. Hyundai Tucson: 8,234, up 32% With a sharp 28% decline in sales of the Kona , the Tucson has taken over as Hyundai’s best-selling model.
In the broader context of the overall SUV/crossover category, the Tucson’s 32% leap moved the Tucson into fifth place, up from seventh a year ago. Excluding the entry-level Venue and Kona, Hyundai’s four larger utility vehicles – Tucson , Santa Fe , Palisade , Ioniq 5 – combined for 43% year-over-year growth in the first-quarter. 4.
Nissan Kicks: 9,525, up 169% Nissan’s Kicks banner now encompasses both old and new generations of the Kicks. (The first-gen model is now known rather awkwardly as the Kicks Play.) The first-gen Kicks Play was actually the slightly more popular model in Q1 – sales jumped 41% to 4,983 units.
Nissan then added another 4,542 sales of the new Kicks, which effectively takes the place of the 4,767 Qashqais sold in the first three months of 2024. 3. Nissan Rogue: 9,965, down 11% Unlike the Kicks that Nissan sources from its plant in Aguascalientes, Mexico, Nissan builds Rogues in Tennessee.
But quite conveniently, in a potentially tariff-laden 49th parallel, Nissan Canada has already actively switched its primary Rogue source from Tennessee to Japan. While an 11% Rogue decline would typically be quite detrimental to the brand’s fortunes, Nissan was well-positioned in the first-quarter to maintain market share with big gains from the Sentra , Altima , Kicks , Frontier , and Ariya . 2.
Honda CR-V: 13,804, up 10% In the battle of two Canadian-built SUVs at the top of the leaderboard, the Alliston, Ontario-built CR-V narrowed the gap in early 2025. The margin, at nearly 1,200 units per month, remains seemingly insurmountable. The CR-V wasn’t the only Honda SUV making headway during the first three months of 2025.
Up 2%, HR-V volume marginally improved. Sales of the Pilot jumped 25%. 1.
Toyota RAV4: 17,312, down 15% This is what dominance looks like. After nine consecutive years as Canada’s best-selling SUV/crossover, even a 15% decline to start the year doesn’t endanger the RAV4 ’s status as Canada’s leader. Built in Cambridge and Woodstock, Ontario, the RAV4 is pivotal for showroom traffic in Toyota’s Canadian showrooms as 40% of the brand’s sales come from the RAV4 lineup.
The RAV4 actually outsells the Camry , Corolla , Corolla Cross , Tacoma , and Tundra combined. Sign up for our newsletter Blind-Spot Monitor and follow our social channels on Instagram , Facebook and X to stay up to date on the latest automotive news, reviews, car culture, and vehicle shopping advice..
