{"id":648046,"date":"2026-05-04T22:06:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T22:06:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/648046\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T22:06:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T22:06:11","slug":"automotive-industry-sales-down-3-9-amid-high-gas-prices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/648046\/","title":{"rendered":"Automotive industry sales down 3.9% amid high gas prices"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"b-date-custom__date-item\">Updated:\u00a0May 04, 2026 at 2:52PM EDT<\/p>\n<p class=\"b-date-custom__date-item\">Published:\u00a0May 04, 2026 at 11:55AM EDT<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">RICHMOND HILL \u2014 DesRosiers Automotive Consultants Inc. says April auto sales were down from a year ago but still maintained a \u201creasonable selling pace,\u201d given the economic headwinds.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The firm estimates 178,000 vehicles were sold in April, down 3.9 per cent from last year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">DesRosiers managing partner Andrew King says April sales seem somewhat more palatable than they first appear, given trade tensions and sky-high gas prices.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">King also says the resurgence of zero-emission vehicles in March cooled off a tad in April. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">However, he says electric vehicle sales could rebound in the coming months as Tesla brings back its Model 3 vehicles with a lower price tag.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The federal government replaced its EV rebate program with an EV affordability program in February, which allows for an incentive of up to $5,000 on car purchases with a final value of $50,000 or less. That, in turn, slightly boosted EV sales in March.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 4, 2026.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Updated:\u00a0May 04, 2026 at 2:52PM EDT Published:\u00a0May 04, 2026 at 11:55AM EDT RICHMOND HILL \u2014 DesRosiers Automotive Consultants&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":648047,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[23201,45,49,48,46,1688],"class_list":["post-648046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-automotive","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-economy","tag-manufacturing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648046","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=648046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648046\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/648047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=648046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=648046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=648046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}