The best cars in Canada for 2023

Choosing which new car to buy can be a very difficult decision. In addition to finding a car that meets your needs, you also want to make sure you’re getting the best value for your money.

To help make your decision a bit easier, we’ve taken the ten most popular cars in Canada and ranked them by price, fuel economy, insurance cost, and safety. Finally, we’ve combined these four ratings to rank the best cars in Canada overall.

Let’s get to work on ranking the best cars in Canada.

Meet the top 10 best-selling cars in Canada

When it comes to new cars, Canadians love mid-sized crossovers like the Toyota Rav4 and Honda CR-V. Six of the 10 bestselling cars fall into this category, each with two rows of seating and cargo room to spare.

While traditional sedans are less popular than in years past, the style is far from passé. Three sedans made the top ten list, including the Toyota Corolla, Honda Civic and Hyundai Elantra.

These are the top 10 best-selling cars in Canada, and the subjects of this comparison:

1. Toyota Rav4

Canadians love mid-sized crossovers, and the one they love most is the Toyota Rav4. This 2-row family hauler is a picture of practicality with plenty of room and good fuel economy for its size. Toyota sold almost 56,000 Rav4s in 2022.

2. Toyota Corolla

If you’ve ever rented a car, chances are you got a “Toyota Corolla or similar.” This small four-door may not be terribly exciting, but it’s both affordable and practical. Canadians bought over 33,000 Corollas last year, putting it in second place for sales.

3. Honda CR-V

Similar to the Toyota Rav4, the Honda CR-V is a mid-sized crossover with room for your family and all of their stuff. More than 32,000 new Honda CR-Vs hit the road in Canada last year.

4. Honda Civic

If you look outside right now, there’s a good chance you’ll see a Honda Civic. This small car has been a favourite of Canadians for decades thanks to its pep and reliability. The Civic was the fourth-bestselling car overall last year with just shy of 30,000 copies sold.

5. Hyundai Kona

The Hyundai Kona is the one car on this list that’s neither a small sedan nor a mid-sized crossover. This compact crossover sits somewhere in between the two and feels more like a grown-up version of a sporty hatchback. With seating for 5 and an all-electric option available, the Kona represents the best of the tiny-SUV trend.

6. Hyundai Elantra

Hyundai’s alternative to the Corolla and Civic has bold styling and has the lowest overall base price on this list. Canadians saw the value in the Elantra, buying more than 24,000 of them in 2022.

7. Mazda CX-5

The Mazda CX-5 is another mid-sized crossover that compares closely with the Toyota Rav4 and Honda CR-V but with a bit more power and performance at the expense of cargo space. 

8. Ford Escape

The Ford Escape is the lone domestic vehicle on the list of bestselling cars in Canada. This mid-sized crossover is similar in size and power to the other crossovers on this list but hides it behind a more car-like appearance. 

9. Hyundai Tucson

Yet another mid-sized crossover, the Hyundai Tucson seats five and offers cargo room to spare. The Tucson is the most affordable crossover SUV on this list and is popular for its value relative to its competitors.

10. Nissan Rogue

Squeezing into the top 10 with 20,000 sales in 2022, the Nissan Rogue is another contender in the crossover category that offers good fuel economy and some recent updates that aim to improve performance and reliability. The Rogue has the lowest base price of the SUVs on this list.

The best-selling cars in Canada ranked by price

The starting price of most new cars isn’t a good indicator of how affordable they really are. To get the features you want, you’ll most likely need to add a package or upgrade to another trim level.

With that in mind, we’ve compared the ten best-selling cars in Canada not only by base price, but also by the cost including a few features we don’t think are too much to ask: keyless entry with pushbutton start, heated front seats, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto compatibility, and adaptive cruise control.

With these features in mind, the Hyundai Kona comes out on top of our price comparison, followed closely by the Hyundai Elantra and Toyota Corolla. The only car of the top ten to include all these features standard is the Honda Civic, which only loses points for lacking a more affordable entry-level trim.

Of the SUVs on the list, the Hyundai Tucson comes in as the most affordable, while the Toyota Rav4 takes last place as you’ll have to spend almost $40,000 to get that pushbutton start.

The best-selling cars in Canada ranked by fuel economy

It’s no surprise that the three small cars on our list perform the best when it comes to fuel economy.

The measurements from Natural Resources Canada put the Hyundai Elantra on top with a combined consumption rating of 6.7 litres per 100 kilometres travelled. Based on 20,000km per year and an average gas price of $1.50 per litre, the Elantra will use $1,340 in gas annually.

Of the crossover SUVs, the Honda CR-V posts the best fuel economy, using 7.8l/100km. The Mazda CX-5, with a standard 2.5-litre engine and all wheel drive, comes in last place for gas mileage. At 9l/100km, the CX-5 will cost approximately $2,700 per year to gas up.

The top 10 best-selling cars in Canada ranked by insurance cost

A major component of the cost of owning a car is insurance. Getting the right coverage to protect you and your vehicle is essential, and the price can vary widely based on what car you drive.

A major component of the cost of owning a car is insurance. Getting the right coverage to protect you and your vehicle is essential, and the price can vary widely based on what car you drive.

To measure the cost of insuring each vehicle on our list, we used Ratehub.ca to compare car insurance quotes based on a statistically representative driver named “Jennifer Madeup.” Jennifer is a 42-year-old woman from Toronto, who commutes 15 km each way to work and drives a total of 20,000km per year. Her coverage includes $1 million in third-party liability, loss of use, accident forgiveness, and replacement cost coverage with a $1,000 deductible.

The lowest SUV insurance quote is for the Hyundai Kona, with an estimated price of $117 per month. Of the larger SUVs, the Ford Escape and Hyundai Tucson cost the least to insure at $131 per month, while the Honda CR-V costs the most at $143.

Whereas the three sedans on our list are among the cheapest to buy and fuel, it turns out they cost far more to insure than some of the other vehicles on the list. The Corolla and Civic are quoted $145 and $176 per month for insurance, respectively. Overall, the Honda Civic would cost our fictional driver over $700 per year more to insure than the Hyundai Kona.

The Top 10 best-selling cars in Canada ranked by safety

When it comes to safety, very little separates the top 10 cars in Canada. All of them are leaders when it comes to safety. And with a 6-way tie for first place, it feels a little unfair to declare a ranking.

All ten cars on our list have 5-star safety ratings from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHSTA). Where the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) is concerned, all but the Ford Escape and Hyundai Kona are named Top Safety Picks, while the Honda CR-V and Hyundai Tucson earn the Top Safety Pick+ designation.

Aside from those two designations, the only other item that makes any difference in our rankings is how easy the child restraint system is to use.

The top 10 best-selling Cars in Canada ranked overall

After tallying up our scores out of five for the top ten bestselling cars in Canada, the Hyundai Elantra and Hyundai Kona tie for first place, each earning 17 points out of a possible 20.

These smaller options from the Korean automaker both score well when it comes to price, coming in well under $30,000 well-equipped. The Elantra is slightly better on gas, while the Kona is cheaper to insure – and the trade-off almost evens out the overall cost of ownership. 

The Toyota Corolla competes well with both Hyundais but falls to third place on its much higher cost of insurance. Meanwhile, the Honda Civic’s severely outlying insurance quote is high enough to drop it to eighth place overall.

Out of the SUVs on our list, the Nissan Rogue and Honda CR-V tie for fourth overall with 14.1 points each. While both are in the middle of the pack when it comes to price, they outperform the other crossovers when it comes to fuel economy and the cost of SUV insurance.

At the bottom of the list, the Toyota Rav4 and Mazda CX-5 both lose points on price; the MSRP of both vehicles approaches $40,000 when accounting for all the features on our wish list. And while the Rav4’s score is buoyed by its fuel economy and safety ratings, the CX-5 doesn’t fare well enough in either category to get out of last place.

The bottom line

The Hyundai Elantra and Hyundai Kona tie for first place on our ranking of the 10 bestselling cars in Canada thanks to their affordability, both in purchase price and operating costs. The Toyota Corolla comes in third, missing the top spot only due to its higher insurance cost.

If you’re thinking about buying a new car, make sure to use all the tools available to get the best deal for you. And don’t forget to factor in the cost of insurance by comparing quotes online before you buy. 

Also read

• The best SUVs in Canada for 2023
• How much do Canadians know about car insurance?
• What is high-risk auto insurance in Ontario?