AI Analysis: New motor vehicle sales, monthly

Executive Summary

Statistics Canada's New Motor Vehicle Sales dataset (Table 20100085) spans 80 years of monthly data from 1946 to 2026, capturing long-term growth in Canadian auto sales across 39 unique time series tracking vehicle type, fuel type, origin of manufacture, and sales measure. The dataset reached a record high of approximately 3.9 million units sold in 2025, with the most dramatic short-term disruption occurring during the COVID-19 pandemic when April 2020 sales collapsed to just 47,508 units. The data reveals a structural market shift toward trucks over passenger cars, growing zero-emission vehicle tracking, and strong long-term revenue growth reflected in dollar-value series.

Key Findings

• The dataset covers 961 monthly observations from January 1946 to January 2026, containing 20,528 total records across 39 unique time series — making it one of the longest-running vehicle sales datasets available from Statistics Canada.
• 2025 was the highest year on record with approximately 3,917,164 units sold, reflecting sustained post-pandemic recovery and long-term market growth.
• April 2020 recorded the lowest monthly sales in the dataset's history at just 47,508 units — roughly half the long-term monthly average of 99,348 units — driven by COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns.
• The distribution of sales values is heavily right-skewed: the overall mean of 551,141 is nearly 8 times higher than the median of 68,382, driven by large aggregate totals and high-value dollar-based records.
• Dollar-based sales records average $1.13 billion per month (median: $416 million) with a standard deviation of $1.69 billion, indicating extreme variability likely reflecting both vehicle price inflation and the wide range of segment-level series over 80 years.
• Trucks show the strongest correlation with total new motor vehicle sales, reflecting their dominant and growing share of the Canadian auto market relative to passenger cars.
• The dataset includes zero-emission vehicle tracking as a distinct fuel type category, enabling analysis of Canada's ongoing transition toward electric vehicles within the broader historical sales context.