Driving By Numbers: 10 Worst-selling vehicles in Canada in 2022

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How many Canadians took possession of the vehicles ranked as Canada’s 10 worst sellers in 2022? Just 7,086. It amounts to less than 0.5 per cent of the entire Canadian new vehicle market.

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That’s not to say there aren’t vehicles selling at an even slower rate. But when it comes to Driving’s list of Canada’s worst-selling vehicles, we’re strict with the parameters. We exclude vehicles from premium brands, vehicles priced over $100,000, vehicles with no rear seats, vehicles that are formally discontinued, and vehicles that weren’t on sale at the beginning of 2022.

In other words, we’re only examining vehicles that should, in theory, sell at a much healthier level.

In fact, despite all of the prevailing headwinds facing the automotive industry at large — the supply chain crisis most obviously — some of the worst-selling vehicles in Canada actually sold more frequently in 2022 than they did in 2021. As auto sales dipped by nearly one-tenth in 2022, however, many other worst sellers declined at a particularly precipitous rate.

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10. Nissan Versa: 1,286, down 56 per cent

Not only has Canada’s subcompact car category evaporated before our very eyes, one of the few lingering participants is struggling to even pick up the scraps. The Nissan Versa, new for 2021, is already proving to all of the other automakers that escaped the category over the last decade that they were likely right to do so.

9. Kia Niro: 1,234, down 72 per cent

To be fair to the Niro, it’s in the midst of a generational changeover that took an already scarcely available car and made it even more difficult to acquire. Expect much bigger numbers from this car in 2023. The Niro produced its best sales year, 4,403 units, in 2021.

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8. Kia K5: 934, down 30 per cent

Canada’s midsize sedan sector declined at a 20-per-cent clip in 2022 — twice the rate of the industry at large — as even more competitors declined further participation. The Ford Fusion, Mazda 6, and Volkswagen Passat are the most recent midsize withdrawals. How long will Kia Canada be content selling fewer than 80 K5s per month? How long, given the rate of the category’s demise, will Kia even be able to sell 80 K5s per month? A decade ago, the K5’s Optima predecessor, produced 1,000 sales per month.

7. Mazda MX-30: 812, up 449 per cent

Although Mazda’s finally determined to sell the limited-range electric MX-30 across the country for 2023, industry observers continue to find Mazda’s approach curious. The MX-30 is rated at only 161 kilometres — and remember, that’s in ideal circumstances — at a time when even the Nissan Leaf more than doubles that. Do the MX-30’s unique style and prototypical Mazda driving dynamics offer enough to offset its urban-only range? Limited primarily to British Columbia and Quebec, Mazda sold only 812 MX-30s in 2022. For the record, Leaf sales rose 26 per cent to 1,542 units.

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6. Toyota GR86: 713, up 838 per cent

As much as the midsize cars, big SUVs, and subcompact crossovers of this list should, in theory, be producing sufficient volume to avoid worst-seller status, do you really expect a 2+2 priced around $35,000 to hold mass-market appeal? Of course not. Yet the Toyota GR86, known at its 2013 launch as the Scion FR-S, actually produced a five-year sales high in 2022 of 713 units.

5. Subaru BRZ: 623, up 42 per cent

A twin of the Toyota GR86 that produced 14-per-cent more Canadian sales volume in 2022, the Subaru BRZ bounced back in second-generation form to hit a three-year sales high. Hardly intended to be a high-volume competitor for the Ford Mustang or even Subaru’s WRX — which produced 3,808 and 2,195 sales, respectively, in 2022 — the BRZ still stood out as the only Subaru to produce year-over-year sales improvement.

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4. Subaru Legacy: 566, down 40 per cent

Think of the Subaru Legacy as a Kia K5, only with 39-per-cent fewer deliveries. They’re both midsize sedans with all-wheel drive and tortured sales forecasts. Only 2 per cent of the midsize sedans sold in Canada in 2022 were Subaru Legacys.

3. Nissan Armada: 427, down 28 per cent

The Nissan Armada is in a quirky position. It isn’t actually based on a U.S.-built pickup truck. (The Armada is a Patrol, not a Titan-oriented SUV.) It isn’t a Chevrolet, GMC, or Ford in a segment where, to be honest, you need to be a Chevrolet, GMC, or Ford to create any real volume. And it doesn’t appear to even be capable of competing with its own upmarket twin. The Infiniti QX80 is merely a glitzed-up Armada, but it’s the QX80 that creates more sales: 603 in 2022.

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2. Jeep Renegade: 345, up 14 per cent

The Jeep Renegade has virtually all of the elements that should make a popular subcompact SUV. It’s a Jeep, which is generally a solid starting point in the SUV world. (The Wrangler, Grand Cherokee, Compass, Wagoneer, and Cherokee combined for 54,936 sales in 2022.) It’s properly equipped, arrayed with unique features, and is actually surprisingly off-road capable. And while nowhere near the hit that it was when launched, Jeep sold 27,549 Renegades in the U.S. in 2022, 80 times its Canadian tally. Based on that U.S. result, the Renegade should produce around 3,000 annual sales in Canada.

1. Toyota Sequoia: 146, down 65 per cent

The Sequoia likely deserves to be on this list of Canada’s worst-selling mainstream brand vehicles, but it doesn’t deserve to be in the No.1 position. And it won’t be in 2023. Almost all of the Sequoia’s volume was carved out at the end of the year as Toyota finally began selling third-gen Sequoias after a 2008-2021 run from the previous edition. Of the Sequoias sold in 2022, 95 found homes in Q4, clearly suggesting the potential for 400-600 annual sales, not 146.