2026 Honda Prelude Photo by Elle Alder

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2026 is not proving to be the easiest year in which to sell new vehicles in Canada. Softening demand – surely made worse by the high cost of fuel – is partly to blame. Yet for many automakers, the sheer inability to ship their entire vehicle lineup to dealers is a major obstacle.

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We’re not talking about the absence of niche sports cars or ultra high-end SUVs. No, we’re talking about Kia dealers missing out on the Telluride (the brand’s No.2 seller south of the border), Mazda dealers that can’t sell the Alabama-built CX-50, Subaru’s Ascent-less lineup, and Nissan stores that lack sufficient supply of Pathfinders, Muranos, and Frontiers.

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A few automakers just so happen to have lineups seemingly built to shuffle buyers from one vehicle to another. Toyota, for example, isn’t exactly flush with RAV4s, but Toyota does sell 10 – t-e-n – other utility vehicles: C-HR, bZ, bZ Woodland, Corolla Cross, Crown Signia, Highlander, Grand Highlander, 4Runner, Land Cruiser, and Sequoia. Kia Canada, on the other hand, isn’t currently offering a Telluride or a conventional ICE-powered Sorento, either.

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These are not, as they haven’t been for half a dozen years, normal times. Manufacturers nevertheless reported nearly 1 million new vehicle sales across Canada during the first six months of 2026, down marginally from 2025’s output. Amongst those roughly 950,000 first-half sales, we reserve special attention for the worst sellers.

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Eligibility for Driving’s worst-sellers lists isn’t terribly inclusive. We exclude premium brand vehicles, officially discontinued vehicles (including vehicles such as the aforementioned Mazda CX-50 that are paused due to import challenges), vehicles without a rear seat, and vehicles with base MSRPs above $100,000. This is the most efficient method to omit vehicles that were never intended to sell in meaningful volume to begin with. Also absent are Ford and Tesla vehicles – the two brands aren’t reporting quarterly, model-specific, Canadian-market sales figures.

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Ranked by both volume and year-over-year change, these were Canada’s 10 worst-selling vehicles in 2026’s first-half.

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With the Leaf between generations a year ago, Nissan left its electric performance up to the Ariya in the first-half of 2025. One year later, with Nissan selling nearly 500 new-gen Leafs per month, the Ariya is quickly fading from view. The Canadian EV space, prompted in large part by appearing-disappearing-reappearing government incentives, is clearly prone to peaks and valleys. The Ariya, which ended 2024 with 3,964 sales, is clearly not currently at its peak.

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2025 Nissan Armada Pro-4X

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Wearing a mainstream badge and a decidedly upmarket price tag, the Nissan Armada and its kind are always likely candidates for Canadian worst-selling status. The Armada’s not the only full-size SUV on this list, not by any means. Armada volume is, however, ticking up, just not to the levels enjoyed by Canada’s GM favourites. Chevrolet sold 2,163 Tahoes in the first-half along with 2,090 Suburbans and another 3,865 copies of their Yukon twins at GMC.

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Don’t say you expected a roughly $80,000 electric van to sell like a Toyota Sienna, let alone like a Dodge Grand Caravan of 20 years ago. The ID. Buzz is further outside the mainstream than any current Volkswagen Canada product. Yet despite a quasi-hiatus for 2026, Volkswagen’s actually selling more ID. Buzz vans this year than last during Volkswagen’s best-ever first-half.

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With all Wagoneers now wearing Grand Wagoneer badging, Jeep’s flagship now kicks off at $92,585 and rises all the way to $124,348 for the range-topping Summit Obsidian. (Brace yourself for the oncoming depreciation cliff.) Given that Cadillac’s Escalade now starts above $130,000, plus the fact that Jeep’s now trying to sell the Recon EV for nearly $90K, is the Grand Wagoneer even that expensive? For the record, Jeep sold 582 Grand Wagoneers between January and June along with 64 leftover not-so-Grand Wagoneers.

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2024 Chevrolet Blazer EV RS AWD Photo by Jil McIntosh

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Hardly the star of Chevrolet’s electric lineup, the Blazer EV is lost in a sea of Equinox EVs. In fact, the Chevrolet Bolt is back, as well. GM Canada reported 3,072 first-half Bolt sales and another 5,302 Equinox EV sales. Remember, there’s still a conventionally powered Blazer, too, although that model also managed to crack 2026’s first-half worst-sellers list.

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In Toyota’s vast SUV empire, the Sequoia competes with a wide array of its own siblings for attention from three-row SUV buyers, not to mention upmarket competition from cousins at Lexus. Most buyers steer a different direction, either in the form of the far more affordable Grand Highlander or the more traditional Land Cruiser. The Sequoia is also faced with stiff competition from the Detroit establishment. GM Canada sold 4,425 Tahoes and Yukons in 2026’s first-half.

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Hyundai Ioniq 6 Photo by Hyundai

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We’re hardly in an era of family sedan acceptance, yet despite the rejection and disappearance of most midsize four-doors, Hyundai Sonata volume is up 39% this year. The same cannot be said for the outrageously designed electric Ioniq 6. Two years ago, Hyundai Canada produced 12% of its sales with Ioniq models. Through the first-half of 2026, that’s down to 4%.

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Canada’s two best-selling SUVs and best-selling car are built in Canada. So are Canada’s second and third-ranked premium brand utility vehicles. Unfortunately, patriotic buying tendencies don’t dictate automatic success, certainly not for full-size electric muscle. The Fiat 500e and Windsor-built Charger form Stellantis’s car lineup in Canada – and the 500e actually outsells the Charger by nearly 4-to-1.

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Toyota still sells cars. Cars, you know? Passenger cars. Traditional sedans, for example. In fact, with 25,609 cars sold in the first-half of 2026, Toyota sells more cars than any other brand in Canada. The Crown, however, hardly fits the traditional mold due to its elevated ride height and near $60K starting price. Only 0.6% of the cars sold by Toyota in 2026’s first-half were Crowns.

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2026 Honda Prelude Photo by Andrew McCredie

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It hardly seems fair. Unfortunately for Honda, despite the brand’s limited production intentions, the Prelude fits within our eligibility criteria as a mainstream brand car under $100,000 with a rear seat. Launched in late 2025, Honda Canada sold only 106 Preludes in the first-half of 2026. That’s not quite one Prelude for every two Honda dealers in the country.

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In a people-carrier segment that’s up 9%so far this year (after surging 40% in 2025), Honda is shedding market share at a frightening pace. In 2024, the Odyssey – last revamped for the 2018 model year – owned 15% of the minivan market. That’s now down to just 8%.

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2025 Subaru Forester at PEI Confederation Bridge Photo by Stephanie Wallcraft

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What a rollercoaster ride. In 2024, Forester sales surged in the first-half of the year, rising 150% to 8,411 units. In 2025’s first-half, Forester sales jumped 43% to 12,035 units. And now the Forester is back, plunging 32% to 8,224 units. Though still Subaru’s No.2 seller, the Forester is currently producing less than half the volume of the top-selling Crosstrek.

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After 10 consecutive years as Canada’s best-selling SUV, Canada’s list of worst-selling vehicles is the last place you’d expect to find the new-for-2026 RAV4. Indeed, the RAV4 remains a top seller – it ended the first-half as Canada’s No.2 SUV. Don’t expect Canada’s 33% RAV4 decline to continue. Q2 sales were down just 12%; June volume actually jumped 32% to 7,624 units. That was 2,803 more sales than the Honda CR-V managed in June.

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2026 Toyota Land Cruiser Photo by Toyota

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Blame the winter. Land Cruiser volume plunged 62% in the January-March period before recovering with a year-over-year Q2 improvement. Toyota isn’t about to sell high-end off-roaders in massive numbers, but after a hiatus that lasted more than three decades, we’re happy to see any number of Land Cruisers reaching Canadian roads.

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Gone are the days in which automakers of all stripes offered sporty versions of humble compact sedans and hatchbacks. You won’t find ST or RS versions of the Ford Focus. (Or any Focus, for that matter.) There’s no hot Nissan Sentra on the market, no Fiat 500 Abarth, no Mazdaspeed 3 or wildly torque-steering Saturn Ion Red Line. Yet in a disappearing passenger car market, there are still plenty of sport compacts: Civic Si and Type R, Elantra N, GR Corolla, and a Golf GTI/R duo that found 1,135 first-half buyers. The WRX remains a major player in the category, albeit with a 37% drop in a particularly challenging first-half for Subaru, sales of which are down 14%.

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Tariff implications have forced the removal of half of Hyundai Canada’s Santa Fe lineup. This is now a hybrid-only model, as sales of the U.S.-sourced ICE variant tumbled 91% in the first-half of the year. Mind you, in the Korean SUV universe, the Santa Fe is by no means the only vehicle suffering from the consequences of a trade crisis at the 49th parallel.

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GM Canada managed to land on the first-half worst seller list twice with two versions of one nameplate. Admittedly, the Blazer and Blazer EV are actually distinct well beyond their powertrains. The duo also managed to land on worst seller lists for different reasons: the Blazer EV because of low volume; the gas-powered Blazer due to the fact that sales are falling off a cliff.

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Bolstered by a heavy rebate system at federal levels and in many provinces, Hyundai sold over 1,100 Ioniq 5s per month in 2024. Sales plunged by two-thirds in 2025. The nosedive continues. In the second-quarter of 2026, Hyundai’s Canadian dealers suffered an 86% drop in Ioniq 5 sales, moving only 745 units between April and June.

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If there’s an electric future, it won’t arrive in the form of Nissan’s Ariya. Sales of the Ariya peaked in 2024 at 3,964 units, tumbled 48% in 2025, and are on pace to end 2026 in triple-digit territory. Count instead on the next-generation Rogue’s e-Power hybrid – utilizing a gas engine that generates power for an electric motor to send power to the wheels – to propel the brand’s quasi-EV hopes forward.

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Kia Sorento PHEV Photo by Kia

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How the mighty have fallen. In 2010, Kia’s second-generation Sorento arrived with a 1,062% year-over-year improvement and powered the brand to new heights thanks to 10,214 sales. In 2015, the third-generation Sorento arrived; Kia sold 14,372 copies of its new best seller. With tariffs impeding the import of the U.S.-built gas-powered model, Kia Canada is now selling only hybrids and plug-in hybrids. Over the span of just six months, Sorento volume has fallen by over 5,000 units in 2026.

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