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The main reason: Canada now has an auto plan that aligns with the world outside of the U.S., where 30% of new car sales are expected to be electric this year. Even more striking is just how quickly the math around buying an EV shifted in the weeks between February and March, when the new $5,000 federal EV rebate went live and the war in Iran drove up gas prices. Just weeks apart, the savings from switching to a popular model like the Chevrolet Equinox EV jumped from roughly $22,200 to $34,100 over 10 years, while the payback period on its higher upfront cost fell from five years to just over two.

At the same time, Canada’s relatively uncompetitive EV market is also turning around. Automakers are already dropping prices to meet the new federal incentive’s $50,000 cap, while Chinese automakers prepare to bring in more choice and competition. Opening the door to more European models—an idea supported by a number of major car dealerships—would further strengthen this trend.

This report, the latest in our My Clean Bill series and updated for the first time since fall 2024, once again compares the ownership costs of various EVs against their gas equivalents alongside the lifetime costs of other household clean technologies, such as heat pumps, induction stoves, and efficient hot water systems.

Across these technologies, EVs remain the greatest driver of cost savings, with the potential to save Canadian households hundreds of dollars a month. For example, a typical two-vehicle household—with one economy car and one standard SUV—can save upwards of $350 a month in every province, rising to $507 a month in Quebec, from swapping out their gas vehicles with electric equivalents.

The picture for heat pumps is more complicated. While heat pumps still save money in many scenarios across Canada, especially compared to oil and conventional electric heating, in provinces where we compared it to natural gas, they range from cost-competitive in B.C. and comparable in Ontario to a clear cost in the Prairies.

The report further breaks down the cost comparisons across provinces and vehicle models (including hypothetical European and Chinese EVs), while our interactive tool lets households explore their own savings. Head to mycleanbill.ca to calculate your potential savings.

Calculate your clean bill

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It’s high time, then, to take the temperature of people’s experiences. 

Together with Summerhill, Clean Energy Canada surveyed nearly 3,800 heat pump owners across Canada between late 2025 and early 2026. The results show widespread satisfaction, with the vast majority (91%) saying they would recommend a heat pump to a friend or neighbour—a finding consistent across regions, housing types, gender, age, and income, and despite differences in the types of heat pump installed and the systems they replaced or supplemented.

Respondents reported installing heat pumps primarily for practical reasons—from lowering energy bills to improving comfort or adding air conditioning—and those same benefits were also the most commonly reported after installation. Among surveyed heat pump owners, 64% reported only positive experiences with their heat pumps, 22% reported a mix of positive and negative experiences, and just 5% reported only negative experiences.

And although some found government incentive programs difficult to navigate or involving long wait times, the financial support they offered ultimately played a crucial role in helping Canadians make the switch. Many respondents used one or more federal, provincial, municipal, or utility incentives to help cover upfront costs, and for more than half of those households, the support made the difference in deciding to install a heat pump.

The rest of the report takes a closer look at what motivated heat pump owners to install their systems, what owners love most about them, and where challenges remain. It also explores how experiences differ depending on the type of heating system previously in place, offering insights to help improve programs and support continued heat pump uptake.

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Enter the electric heat pump, which heats as well as cools. In the summer, it provides safe, reliable cooling while filtering out some wildfire smoke—something air conditioners do far less effectively. In the winter, it delivers efficient, evenly distributed heat that outperforms both gas furnaces and electric baseboards. And it does all of this year-round with zero emissions.

Despite these advantages, many British Columbians still face real barriers to adopting heat pumps—including high upfront costs, building restrictions, and challenges for renters. But what happens if those barriers are removed? What scale of benefits could greater access unlock?

To find out, Clean Energy Canada commissioned new independent modelling to examine what a provincewide switch to heat pumps for space heating—paired with electrified water heating—would mean for affordability, climate resilience, and the electricity grid.

The results are impressive. 

British Columbians would save a collective $675 million a year on energy bills, while total electricity use would fall, thanks to heat pumps’ much greater efficiency—even with cooling expanded to every home that currently lacks it (44% of households). Emissions would also drop by 3.5 megatonnes, roughly 6% of B.C.’s total.

For individual households, this translates to savings of about $169 a year for those currently using natural-gas heating with standalone air conditioning, and $849 a year for those using electric-resistance heating with standalone air conditioning.

But unlocking this opportunity will require provincial leadership, without which many renters and low-income households will remain locked out. As for how, the report proposes CoolBC, a six-pillar action plan that outlines how to leverage the transformative power of clean technologies to deliver lasting affordability, comfort, and climate resilience for all British Columbians.

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The guide details legal requirements, best practices, available government and non-governmental resources, and a step-by-step implementation process. It also tailors its advice for British Columbia, Ontario, and Quebec.

The resource walks building decision-makers through the exploration, planning, and execution stages of installing EV chargers while considering MURB-specific challenges and opportunities, including the role of EV energy management systems (EVEMS) in potentially reducing both upfront capital and ongoing operational costs.

EV chargers are both a practical amenity and a strategic investment that will future-proof a MURB against rising market demand. Packed with practical advice, Make Your Condo EV Ready is an indispensable resource that will help the millions of Canadians who live in condo and apartment buildings and who either drive electric today or would like to do so tomorrow.

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It’s not that these cars wouldn’t appeal to Canadians— all but three of them have driving ranges over 300 kilometres—and it’s also not the case that they are all cheap Chinese vehicles undercutting the competition. Only seven of these EVs are from Chinese automakers, or exactly one-third of the list, while 10 of them are European, three are Japanese, and one is South Korean. None are American.

Missing Out highlights the gap in affordable EV options for Canadians—and the federal actions that could help close it.

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After all, there will be no transition without public buy-in, both literally and figuratively. And thus when it comes to the undertaking of a generation, we must not underestimate the small but mighty household.

All told, households directly account for at least 17% of climate- change-causing emissions in Canada (the combined emissions of consumer vehicles, home spaces, and water heating), and that share is higher in provinces without oil and gas industries, like in Ontario at 30%.

But the real impact of households is greater still. As more and more households globally adopt rooftop solar panels, EVs, heat pumps, battery storage systems, and more, the share of total energy investments made by households has doubled over the past decade. In advanced economies with strong policy support, households have accounted for nearly 60% of energy-investment growth since 2016. Already, China’s surging EV market is playing an increasing role in bending global oil demand growth downward. Indeed, the 17% number mentioned above does not account for the colossal impact global clean technology adoption will have on fossil fuel production, which is our biggest source of pollution.

This is why Clean Energy Canada partnered with Abacus Data on first-of-its-kind market research to better understand the next adopters of clean technologies, their barriers, and the solutions they need to help them make the switch.

Our 3,000-person survey of Canada’s two largest English-speaking urban and suburban centres, the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area and Metro Vancouver, identified five distinct groups ranging from the highly motivated to the not-at-all-interested. Overall, respondents are quite open to clean technologies: 59% are inclined to buy an EV as their next car (69% in Vancouver, where adoption is much higher), 56% have or positively view heat pumps, and 57% say it’s important their next home is energy smart.

Unfortunately, our national conversation too often focuses on those who aren’t interested in adopting new technologies, or assumes that current adoption rates are equal to interest, when it would be more constructive to instead highlight the giant gap that persists between preference and realization. Enabling the next wave of clean technology adopters will require not simply selling people on their benefits—many are already sold—but on systematically breaking down the barriers keeping would-be EV drivers and heat pump owners from doing what they already want to do.

Younger people, for example, are considerably more inclined to adopt clean technologies: 71% of those under 30 want an EV for their next car, compared to 49% of those over 60. And yet they are also more likely to rent or live in apartments, limiting their ability to make upgrades or access home EV charging.

In contrast, older people often live in homes they could upgrade, but they tend to have more technology concerns. Education and simplification could help them make the switch. For example, given they typically drive less, most retired drivers will manage comfortably with Level 1 EV charging, which uses a regular outlet and eliminates any need for electrical upgrades, but how often are they receiving this information?

Whether you’re young, old, financially stable, or living paycheque to paycheque, the upfront cost of clean technology adoption is likely your number one barrier, as it was for every group analyzed, even despite the fact that 64% correctly recognized that a household with an EV, heat pump, and other clean technologies would end up paying less over time.

Incentives have already proven essential to early EV and heat pump uptake because they soften upfront costs, but generally they’re designed to kickstart the market until prices become so competitive that they are no longer needed. Governments should also be looking at other levers to help address upfront cost: Canada could open its car market to more of the lower- cost EVs sold in other countries, and regulations like the EV availability standard could incentivize automakers to make more models available at more price points.

Governments may also be operating under the assumption that the people who care most about the environment are the ones choosing these technologies. But consider the following. Our “Retired Homeowner” group is almost twice as motivated to lower their carbon footprint as our parent-age “Practical Families” group, and yet their openness to various clean technologies, from EVs to heat pumps to smart homes, is effectively the same.

Ultimately, solutions will vary for different adopters. What is abundantly clear is that governments and policymakers would benefit from a sophisticated understanding of who needs help and what kind of help. With a sharper, detailed picture of Canadians, they might better design incentives, determine investments, and craft communications in a way that meets people where they’re actually at—and where they want to be.

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Canada must now look beyond its borders, within its borders, and within itself. First and foremost, that means aligning our economy with the wider, friendlier world. 

Canada has trade agreements with 60% of the global economy, making us well positioned to lessen our reliance on U.S. markets. And as Clean Energy Canada’s analysis shows, among our 10 largest non-U.S. trade partners, all of them have net-zero commitments and carbon pricing systems, and roughly half apply carbon border adjustments on imports and have domestic EV requirements reshaping their car markets.

Taken together, these measures send a clear, unmistakable signal regarding where their economies are headed. Carbon border adjustments, for example, offer preferential access to low-carbon products from importing nations like Canada, while a carbon price and requirements for more EVs mean a market is weaning itself off fossil fuels. As more countries adopt these measures, demand for oil and gas will see a decline, while interest in clean energy imports and low-carbon products will only increase.

The global market for the top-six mass-manufactured clean energy technologies (solar PV, wind turbines, electric cars, batteries, electrolysers, and heat pumps) is set to rise from US$700 billion in 2023 to more than US$2 trillion by 2035—close to the value of the world’s crude oil market in recent years.

Canada’s opportunities are plentiful, significant, and realizable. A number of think tanks and business groups have analyzed and identified opportunities in Canada’s clean economy, including but not limited to clean electricity generation and transmission, critical minerals, EVs and batteries, low-carbon heavy industry, and value-added agricultural and forest products.

So, how does Canada map this vision onto reality?

The simple answer is to streamline Canada, connect Canada, buy Canada, and promote Canada.

In the case of streamlining Canada, the slightly longer explanation involves accelerating regulatory and permitting processes for clean growth projects, recognizing green collar worker credentials across provinces, and better aligning building, construction, and transportation codes.

Connecting Canada means investing in and accelerating the build-out of critical trade, energy, and transportation infrastructure, like road networks to remote mining sites and ports to growing markets. Now more than ever, it is time to enhance connections between provincial electricity systems. Prioritizing grid interties in strategic regions will enhance energy security, flexibility, and ratepayer affordability.

Buy Canada has quickly turned into a trendy phrase, but for policymakers the definition should include growing the market for Canadian products, supporting Canadian ownership, and helping emerging Canadian companies scale up. Governments can do this through consumer incentives for locally-made clean technologies, government procurement that favours low-emissions Canadian products, and interprovincial trade promotion.

Finally, shedding our northern humility, “elbows and chin up” should be our motto moving forward. Promoting Canada boils down to expanding and diversifying export opportunities while also incentivizing global companies to build here. Business parks and shovel-ready industrial lands, permitted and proximate to production networks and abundant clean electricity, are easy beacons for all manner of businesses. As is our clean electricity grid: we have already seen companies choose Canada in part for its low-cost, low-emissions power. Indeed, Canada should be marketing a “Clean Canada” export brand to both Canadians and the world.

This all may sound like a bold vision, but it is one with its feet firmly on the ground. Seizing the clean economic opportunity is not about starting over, but about leveraging pre-existing industries and advantages in a way that sets us up for a different future—and a destiny we write for ourselves.

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But woven into this very necessary build-out are some sizable but often overlooked climate implications. Specifically, manufacturing the construction materials that make up our buildings—from the concrete foundations to the drywall—creates between 20 to 120 tonnes of emissions per home. To put that in context, meeting the previous federal government’s housing plan (which would support nearly four million houses by 2030) was expected to generate the equivalent of more than a year’s worth of Canada’s total emissions by 2030. Thankfully, building cleaner doesn’t mean compromising on cost.

What’s more, with the U.S. no longer the reliable partner it once was, Canadian materials producers will be increasingly looking to the domestic market as well as other international partners like the EU for business. While this may seem tangential to our housing problems, there is a single elegant solution to a multi-layered issue: clean construction products and practices.

Designing buildings more efficiently and selecting materials that are made using cleaner processes and power sources can have a significant impact on the emissions embodied in a building or infrastructure project. Conveniently, as this report explores, many of these products are both cost-competitive and made in Canada—a dual opportunity to cut carbon and boost our homegrown industries.

Lower-carbon materials are already being produced across the country, from steel produced in electric arc furnaces to concrete mixes that reduce emissions while delivering the same performance, to low-emissions alternatives for drywall and insulation.

But at a time when we need to be building affordable housing, cost is key. This report looks at the price differential of using cleaner products and finds that lower-carbon equivalents are available in Canada at the same cost or for a negligible cost premium across almost all building materials and case studies explored. Where small premiums do exist, in most cases they add less than $3,000 for the material budget, which is a rounding error for multi-million dollar construction projects and falls within the price variations that construction projects face every day. Put simply, cutting carbon won’t break the bank.

In addition, our analysis found that designing lower- carbon buildings from the start and reducing the amount of material we use can reduce overall costs and compensate for any clean material premiums that do exist. Specifically, making a few deliberate changes like not overbuilding, or switching to above- ground parking garages, can reduce embodied emissions by as much as 41% while saving hundreds of thousands of dollars in material costs.

Crucially, there are many countries in the world looking to slim down this slice of their emissions pie. By making the products that these jurisdictions want, Canada is moulding itself into a more competitive exporter to jurisdictions with carbon border adjustments like the EU. In a time of trade tensions, investing in Canadian-made clean materials is the right economic move.

But to be successful abroad, Canada should support its market here at home. “Buy Clean” policies, where governments require that cleaner materials are used in public construction projects, is the first and most important port of call. In fact, using this approach in public procurement policy could avoid up to 4 million tonnes of emissions by 2030 (the equivalent of 850 thousand cars).

In addition, governments should reevaluate building codes and design guidelines to remove unnecessary restrictions on lower-carbon designs while focussing on carbon performance over prescriptive requirements. Finally, they should remove any other barriers to clean construction including support for smaller producers to develop emissions-related data on their products.

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Except not everyone has the same kind of access to this cost-saving convenience. EV owners with charging where they usually park their car tend to be those living in detached family homes. In fact, one Canadian survey found that 81% of battery electric car drivers reside in detached houses, while only 19% live in apartments.

For the 34% of households in Canada that live in apartments (defined as buildings with a common entrance but multiple separate units), this is a problem. And while public charging is a necessary and helpful solution, ensuring wider EV adoption means making plugging in as convenient as possible, for as many as possible. Charging in multiunit buildings offers a host of benefits for drivers, utilities, electricity systems operators, and city planners alike. Apartment buildings are found in the majority of communities in Canada, although they are particularly prevalent in cities. In Toronto, they make up 40% of all households, and in Vancouver, 52%.

What’s more, apartment dwelling is particularly prevalent among younger Canadians. Three out of five (60%) of people aged 20 to 44 live in apartment buildings in Metro Vancouver (which extends from Langley to Lions Bay) compared to half (49%) of those over 44. And yet, younger people are generally more interested in EVs: 77% of those aged 18 to 44 are inclined to go electric, according to a recent Clean Energy Canada survey of Metro Vancouver residents, compared to around 62% for those aged 45 or older. In short, those with the most appetite for EVs are those most likely to face the barrier of not having charging access at home.

Nonetheless, there are ways to overcome this issue by installing EV charging in apartment building lots. But costs, electrical infrastructure, and regulations can all pose barriers. Thankfully, these can be overcome with good policies.

Crucially, the cheapest, easiest EV charging retrofit is the one that doesn’t need to happen in the first place. Installing EV charging in new builds is three to four times cheaper than upgrading an existing building. There are currently no federal regulations requiring EV readiness in new construction despite a new housing plan promising nearly 4 million new homes over the next decade.

Provincially, the picture isn’t much better. Quebec is currently the only province with EV readiness requirements for new homes in its building code and is in the process of extending the requirements to all apartment buildings before the end of 2025. But a number of provinces and territories, from B.C. to Quebec to the Yukon, do offer some help to retrofit older buildings to varying degrees.

Amid an inconsistent Canadian landscape, many municipalities have been leading the charge, requiring EV readiness or charger installations in new construction while also helping residents upgrade their existing buildings.

It’s probably not surprising that the two urban centres with the most EV-ready municipal bylaws are the two with the highest EV adoption. In Vancouver and Montreal, EVs made up 27% and 36% of total car sales in 2024 respectively, compared to 17% nationally.

But a piecemeal approach led by municipalities isn’t the best option for anyone—residents, charging station providers, developers, or our climate. And varied and sometimes contradictory regulations add complexity and bureaucratic red tape, delaying installations. Thankfully, there are a number of actions that can and should be taken at other levels of government.

For starters, provinces must ensure 100% EV readiness in new builds via changes to building or electrical codes. This can be coupled with funding to retrofit existing buildings and legislation that makes it easier for residents to work with condo boards or stratas to install their own charger if they want one. And all of these measures should be bundled into province-wide, comprehensive charging strategies. Municipalities can also help by ensuring 100% EV readiness in new builds via bylaws or by funding retrofits.

After all, unless we knock down these barriers, those most inclined to buy EVs—young people and city dwellers, a group that could certainly use a financial break—will struggle to reap the savings and lifestyle benefits of going electric.

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