Plug-in Electric Car Sales in Canada, April 2015: Leaf Likely Leads After Tesla March Madness

The Tesla Model S now owns the record for the most electric car sales in Canada in a single month

To borrow from the popular song, Canada's plug-in electric vehicle market in March was "all about that S".

Based on registration data, which lags by a month, Tesla sold a whopping 250 Model Ses in Canada during March – half the entire country's plug-in total – and handily beating the previous monthly sales record of 222 Chevrolet Volts sold in April 2014.

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Most impressive of all, Tesla managed these sales without a tailwind from either the new 70D announcement or the reinstatement of renewed electric-car incentives in British Columbia, both of which happened last month--one month after the record.

Healthy registration numbers are also expected when April data is reported next month, thanks to all the British Columbians who postponed signing their paperwork until the Clean Energy Vehicle program's reinstatement in April.

As for the most popular electric car in the world, Nissan sold a Canadian-record 127 Leafs last month, almost doubling its month-ago (74 units) and year-ago (77 units) totals.

The Leaf was likely boosted by the return of incentives in British Columbia (the self-proclaimed Best Place on Earth per a one-time slogan, despite Vancouver suffering 161 rain days per year). The province represents about one-fifth of the Canadian market.

Chevy put in a consistent April, moving 69 Volts, versus 68 in March, but far below the 222 last April (perhaps partly due to the imminent change-over to the all-new 2016 Volt).

Since just one in 16 Volts in Canada are sold in British Columbia, incentives are unlikely to have provided much of a boost.

In contrast, almost half of Canadian BMW i3's are sold in the province. No surprise, then, that BMW dealers sold a fantastic 64 i3s in April.

That's twice the 29 sold in March, and easily its best-ever sales month.

Even Mitsubishi's i-MiEV managed 24 sales, barely missing its monthly sales record (26) set in 2012 and 2013, when it benefited from far more limited competition.