The federal government is pausing its $5,000 rebate for drivers who buy battery-electric vehicles ahead of the March 31 deadline “due to high uptake”, Electric Autonomy Canada reported in an exclusive dispatch Jan. 10.
A Q&A on the Transport Canada website puts the official pause date at Jan. 12. “The iZEV Program was scheduled to conclude on March 31, 2025, or when the allocated funds were fully exhausted,” the department says.
“Due to the popularity and increased demand for the Program in recent years, the funds allocated to support the iZEV Program have been completely committed ahead of schedule,” the website adds. “This surge in interest has led to a faster depletion of resources than anticipated, necessitating the pause of the iZEV Program.”
Electric Autonomy says the fund still had $71.8 million in hand as of Jan. 10, “enough rebates for roughly 14,360 more battery-electric vehicles.”
The pause echoes the Trudeau government’s decision to wind down its popular Greener Homes Grant Program years before it was due to sunset. The announcement last year produced chaos and layoffs in an energy efficiency sector that had geared up on the promise of a seven-year program, after public demand far exceeded what federal program planners (or the number-crunchers they reported to) had anticipated.
Nate Wallace, clean transportation program manager at Environmental Defence Canada, said it didn’t have to end this way.
“The federal government has long known that due to rapidly growing electric vehicle sales, funding for the iZEV program was going to run out early in 2025,” he said in a statement. “There was an opportunity in Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland’s recent Fall Economic Statement to include stopgap funding to top up the program and prevent this from occurring. Its omission indicates a significant lack of foresight, and it means Canadians are now paying the price.”
Wallace added: “Effective climate policies like the iZEV program that tie emissions reductions with measures that reduce the cost of living should not fall victim to the chaos in Ottawa.”
Electric Autonomy says some 546,000 battery-electric, plug-in hybrid, and hydrogen vehicles have received federal rebates since the iZEV program started up in May 2019. The federal Zero-Emission Vehicle (ZEV) Council gave no indication of whether the program would be topped up, the news story adds.
“However, given the upheaval within the federal government, the widely anticipated upcoming snap election, and Canada’s deficit as detailed in the interim financial report tabled in December 2024, the future of iZEV is anything but secure.”
