Driving By Numbers: The 10 best sellers of SUVs and crossovers in Canada in 2021's first-half

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Nearly half a million SUVs and crossovers were sold in Canada during the first-half of 2021, enough to drive the category’s share of the overall market up to 56 per cent.

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That’s an astonishing gain for the SUV/crossover sector, only one year removed from owning slightly less than half of the market. As the Canadian auto industry rebounded with half-decent inventory levels, high demand, an increasing appetite for elevated transaction prices, and less restrictions, overall auto sales volume jumped 33 per cent from 2020’s disastrous first-half lows. But the bulk of that increase occurred in what was already the highest-volume section of the market: SUVs and crossovers.

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Driving By Numbers: The 10 best sellers of SUVs and crossovers in Canada in 2021's first-half Back to video

But before you begin picturing Tony Soprano’s Suburban or Horatio Caine’s Hummer H2, remember what defines an SUV or crossover in 2021. Very rarely are the SUVs of 2021 body-on-frame, four-wheel-drive, trucks-with-a-bed. A few don’t even offer all-wheel drive. Broadly speaking, a moderately elevated ride height, combined with a rear liftgate and ample wheelarch cladding, is sufficient for SUV status.

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Call them cute-utes or soft-roaders or CUVs — call them whatever you want. Some brands are simply very adept at bringing such vehicles to market. And they may not be the brands you first think of when the word “SUV” springs to mind.

Hyundai? With five SUV/crossover nameplates — Venue, Kona, Tucson, Santa Fe, Palisade — Hyundai has turned itself into a dominant force in this sprawling corner of the market. Far from a V8, Mazda doesn’t even offer a six-cylinder engine in its four-pronged crossover lineup, yet Mazda sells very nearly as many utility vehicles as Jeep. Meanwhile, Jeep is just one of a wide variety of traditional SUV-centric brands that, without major players at the low end of the market, don’t play among the leaders. We previously looked at Canada’s 10 best-selling SUVs and crossovers in 2021’s first-half , but now let’s take a look at the 10 top-selling SUV brands in Canada’s first half of 2021.

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10. Chevrolet: 20,578, up 48 per cent

There’s been limited production of Chevrolet’s highest-volume utility vehicle, the Equinox. That fact alone has inflicted major injury on the brand’s overall numbers. Equinox volume is down 20 per cent in a sector that’s up by more than 50 per cent. Fortunately, the smaller TrailBlazer has picked up much of the slack; 4,798 were sold in 2021’s first six months.

9. Subaru: 23,334, up 67 per cent

Although the Ascent has hardly proven popular in the three-row SUV segment led by the Toyota Highlander and Ford Explorer (the Highlander outsells the Ascent by more than 6-to-1), Subaru’s more established trio are major players. The smallest, Subaru’s Crosstrek, is Canada’s eighth-best-selling utility vehicle overall with 10,872 sales in 2021’s first-half.

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8. Kia: 24,462, up 56 per cent

Kia had success stories with the Sorento and Telluride already. But we knew Kia hit it out of the park when the small Seltos hit the Canadian market at the same time as COVID hit Canada, and it took off anyway. The Seltos is now Kia’s clear No.1 seller with 8,134 units in 2021’s first-half (up 140 per cent from its abbreviated first-half of 2020), more than the Sorento and Telluride combined. To date, the Seltos has not yet experienced a period in which supply levels have been anything less than minimal.

7. Mazda: 26,449, up 61 per cent

The brand that sources its heritage from the Miata and rotary engines is among the last you’d expect to see making hay off utility vehicles. But this is where the metal moves in 2021: Mazda generated more than three-quarters of its first-half Canadian volume from its four CX-branded crossovers. The CX-5 alone is a prominent entity, outselling Mazda’s car division by 1.7-to-1 between January and June.

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6. Jeep: 29,252, up 35 per cent

Remember when Jeep’s SUV-only status distinguished the brand from virtually every other brand save for Land Rover and, to some extent, GMC? Now brands as far removed from Jeep as Buick and Lincoln have given up on cars. Wrangler aside, it’s much more challenging for Jeep to stand out as an SUV brand in a market that’s skewing more toward SUVs than ever before. Jeep’s share of Canada’s SUV/crossover sector in 2021’s first six months fell to 6.0 percent from 6.9 percent a year ago.

5. Ford: 36,462, up 37 per cent

Traditionally among the top two players, thanks to the force with which previous iterations of the Ford Escape dominated Canada’s SUV market, Ford is now a distant fifth, primarily due to the Escape’s less impressive results. The Escape now ranks seventh overall among SUVs/crossovers in Canada. Ford’s Bronco Sport hasn’t yet had enough time to make a meaningful impact. The EcoSport is a non-factor. The Explorer’s 25-per cent improvement in 2021 doesn’t measure up to the market. And while the Mustang Mach-E and Bronco generate headlines, real volume comes at the entry-level, where Ford’s first-half was unimpressive.

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4. Honda: 36,681, up 36 per cent

The Canadian-built Honda CR-V is Canada’s second-best-selling SUV/crossover overall, but that’s not enough to propel Honda to a podium finish. Honda’s trio of CR-V supporters simply don’t do enough volume. The aging subcompact HR-V is quickly losing market share — sales are up just 7 per cent in 2021. The Pilot’s modest 12-per cent uptick and the Passport’s 9-per cent downturn (no thanks to near-nonexistent availability) have done Honda’s overall SUV total no favours, either. Nevertheless, the CR-V pushes Honda to the top of the list with 26,716 sales of its own in 2021’s first-half.

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3. Nissan: 38,923, up 57 per cent

Nissan is in fighting form with a product offensive the likes of which the brand hasn’t seen in a decade. The new third-gen Rogue is at the forefront; the new Pathfinder and Frontier (inventory permitting) should push the brand into a higher gear. There’s no denying Nissan needs the hits — the last few years have been a challenge, to say the least. Rogue volume is up 77 per cent this year. The Kicks is Nissan’s No.2 — its sales have grown 82 per cent from 2020 levels.

2. Hyundai: 46,270, up 58 per cent

With Canada’s leading subcompact crossover in the Kona, and the Tucson slotting in as Canada’s sixth-best-selling utility vehicle overall, Hyundai is feeling fine. How times have changed: the Kona and Tucson now both outsell Hyundai’s long-time No.1, the Elantra. Utility vehicles accounted for only 41 per cent of Hyundai sales in 2016 — they’re now at 74 per cent.

1. Toyota: 59,128, up 84 per cent

If the only SUV Toyota sold was the RAV4, Toyota would still rank among the three top-selling SUV/crossover brands in Canada. The Canadian-built RAV4 accounts for nearly two-thirds — 37,908 — of Toyota’s wild utility vehicle total. Although eventually hindered like virtually every other brand by supply constraints, the first-half wasn’t as tight for Toyota, which added to 2020’s January-to-June sales tally by more than 27,000 extra units. Toyota’s No.2 SUV is the Highlander, sales of which more than doubled to 10,403 in 2021’s first six months.