Residents in Newfoundland are more likely to buy a brand new car when compared to those dealing with the high cost of living in other provinces. <\/p>\n
Vince Gibbons\u2019 premium trim 2025 Corolla GR is, admittedly, a little bit of an indulgence.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t exactly what he was looking for when he began shopping for a new vehicle, but after a test drive last summer, the car\u2019s polish won him over.<\/p>\n
\u201cI instantly fell in love with it,\u201d he said. \u201cI said, \u2018you know what? I\u2019m getting to the point in my life where I\u2019m going to have a vehicle I want for a change, not one that I need.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The white Corolla is one of more than 35,000 brand-new cars that rolled off dealership lots in Newfoundland and Labrador in 2025.<\/p>\n
No other province in Canada buys brand new vehicles at such a rate: In the 11 months with compiled data from 2025, Newfoundland and Labrador leads all provinces in per-capita purchases, working out to about 63 brand-new cars bought for every 1,000 people in the province between January and November. <\/p>\n
New Brunswick, the closest province in purchasing habits, bought 52 cars per 1,000 people, according to data compiled by Statistics Canada.<\/p>\n
Residents of British Columbia and the three territories \u2014 where data is combined by record-keepers at Statistics Canada \u2014 were the least likely to buy new vehicles, with a rate of 34 per 1,000 residents.<\/p>\n
The 34,426 vehicles bought in Newfoundland and Labrador in that timespan amounted to $1.6 billion in purchases. All that spending provided a significant boost to the provincial economy, which grew more than expected \u2014 also leading all provinces \u2014 in 2025.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe probably drive too much, but it\u2019s easy to drive here too, isn\u2019t it?\u201d remarked Paulette Samson, who just took a sunnyside yellow-coloured Mini Cooper home to Paradise, N.L., in January.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can pull out of my driveway here, I can go to a beach, I can go to a store, she said. \u201cI can go anywhere and not really be held up in traffic.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even one of the province\u2019s biggest transit advocates acknowledges that family vehicles are a necessity for the vast majority in Newfoundland and Labrador.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf me and my partner lived on any of the ZIP routes: the 2, the 1, the 3 or the 10, then we would not have a car, period. But in our area of town, the bus comes once an hour,\u201d said Myles Russell, a recent candidate for St. John\u2019s City Council.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I want to go to my job, it takes me an hour and 40 minutes in the morning, and in the evening, I wouldn\u2019t be able to do it \u2026 that\u2019s the reality for a lot of people in the city.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gibbons said he couldn\u2019t imagine not having a car \u2014 he works early shifts at the St. John\u2019s International Airport.<\/p>\n
Russell bought a brand-new car a few weeks ago, saying the used vehicle market in the province is less appealing than in other, drier climates, because all of the salt used on highways and roads increases corrosion and wear on vehicles.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen it came to that monthly payment, it just made sense to buy (it) brand new, right out of the package,\u201d added Samson.<\/p>\n
Even if it helps the economy \u2014 and even if consumers seem to love the convenience \u2014 Russell believes there are some significant downsides to car-focused cities, which includes a sense of social isolation that comes with spending more and more time away from others.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou go from your isolated house to your isolated box where you listen to your own music, you then go to an office with a couple of people that you see all the time, every day, in and out. You go back in your car, back to your home. That is extremely socially isolating,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt becomes all about you, and less about community.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Residents in Newfoundland are more likely to buy a brand new car when compared to those dealing with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":433844,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[712,45,49,48,46],"class_list":["post-433843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-apple-news","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=433843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433843\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/433844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=433843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=433843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=433843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}