[Auto] Driving By Numbers: 10 auto brands that still sell a lot of cars in Canada

[_Happy boy]

Over the course of the decade leading up to pandemic-plagued 2020, the Canadian auto industry’s passenger-car sector lost market share at an average rate of 6.5 per cent per year. As recently as 2009, passenger cars – Civics and Corollas, Mustangs and Miatas, Sentras, and Stingers – actually generated more than half of the Canadian market’s overall volume.

But over the next ten years, the rate of car-sales decline in Canada was accelerating down a treacherous path. Car market share decreased by less than 4 per cent in 2013, by nearly 10 per cent in 2016, and more than 11 per cent in 2019, falling 18 points to just 26 per cent during that period.

On top of that, 2020 turned that treacherous downhill into a sheer cliff-drop. More than one-fifth of passenger car market share disappeared. Total volume collapsed by nearly 200,000 units compared with 2019. Only around 320,000 of the 1.55 million vehicles sold in 2020 were cars. At 20.7 per cent of the market, the sprawling network of available car nameplates was outsold by full-size pickup trucks for the first time.

Put simply, car market share isn’t just shrinking, and the rate it’s falling is gaining steam. Even if the rate of market share collapse was to stabilize, and the car sector loses “only” 21 per cent of its existing share each year, the category’s share of the overall industry would drop to just 10 per cent as soon as 2023.

Nevertheless, inside the disaster zone that is Canada’s car market, a handful of automakers are selling tens of thousands of cars. The nature of a declining category actually causes demand to coalesce around the dominant players. As a result, the five highest-volume car brands now produce 60 per cent of Canadian car sales – that’s up four points in just one year. Brands such as Buick and Lincoln have stepped out of the car market entirely; Ford and General Motors only have their toes dipped in; and Stellantis (what we once knew as Fiat Chrysler Automobiles) has only a token presence.

Spoils to the victor? Well, sort of. The remnants of the car market do increasingly belong to a few top-tier competitors, but there’s not much in the way of spoils.

To establish which auto brands still play a leading role in the car market, and which still rely on passenger cars for a significant chunk of their overall sales, we compiled this list by excluding brands that didn’t generate more than 1,000 total sales per month in Canada last year. That leaves out the low-volume marques prone to statistical anomalies. The result is a group of 10 that generated between roughly one-quarter and one-half of their 2020 Canadian sales volume from sedans, coupes, convertibles, hatchbacks, and wagons.

What’s the one brand that still needs cars more than any other?

Just under one-quarter of Acura’s 14,281 Canadian sales in 2020 came from the car side of the lineup. Of those 3,481 sales, the lion’s share (2,704) were TLXs, which was new for the 2021 model year. Long gone are somewhat affordable sport compacts such as the Integra and its RSX successor, and the outdated ILX serves as a weak sedan entry-point for the brand.

Overall, Acura’s car sales were down 34 per cent, year-over-year, in 2020. That actually represents slightly better-than-average results during a horrible year for Canada’s passenger car market.Though critically acclaimed, swathes of Mazda’s lineup produce increasingly insignificant volume. Adding together the Mazda 3, 6, and MX-5 sold in Canada comes to 14,334 cars, a 39-per-cent year-over-year decrease. The 3 does the bulk of the work, with 12,769 sold in 2020. But that was a 40-per-cent drop from 2019 levels, and a far cry from the 50,000-plus sold in 2008. In an abbreviated sales year for the new CX-30, the Mazda 3 still managed to outsell its crossover offshoot in 2020. In 2021, however, that story is likely to change. Through the first two months of the year, the 3 leads the CX-30 by only 209 units.

Hyundai: 29 per cent
Only two auto brands in Canada sell more passenger cars than Hyundai. However, this Korean brand has rapidly shifted into the crossover era, and cars now account for only 29 per cent of Hyundai’s total volume. Just three years ago, cars such as the Elantra, Accent, and Sonata produced 55 per cent of total Canadian volume, but the Elantra isn’t even Hyundai’s top-selling vehicle these days.

Of the brand’s 112,358 sales in 2020, only 32,910 were cars, including 22,000 Elantras. On the crossover side of the ledger, Hyundai sold 23,578 Konas.