Eligible vehicles

Vehicle eligibility criteria

To be eligible under the iMHZEV Program, a vehicle had to:

• be a zero-emission vehicle (i.e., has the potential to produce no tailpipe emissions);
  • We considered the following to be zero emission vehicles:
    • Battery-electric;
    • Plug-in hybrid electric; and
    • Hydrogen fuel cell;
• be a medium or heavy-duty vehicle (i.e., have a gross weight rating greater than 8,500 lbs);
• meet all of Canada's Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, where applicable;
• be available for order/purchase/lease in Canada;
• be intended for use on public streets, roads, and highways or other paved surfaces;
• be registered in Canada in the eligible recipient organization’s name, where applicable; and
• for classes 2B and 3, be a medium-duty passenger vehicle (MDPV) with an MSRP equal to or below $100,000, or a commercial vehicle.
  • To be considered a commercial vehicle, the vehicle model must had satisfied one or more of the following commercial vehicle criteria:
    • have a seating capacity of 9 passengers or more;
    • have a cargo area (for example, a pick-up truck box or bed) with a minimum length of 183 cm measured throughout the cargo area. For pick-up trucks, the truck box or bed length must be measured from the inside of the bulkhead (excluding passenger cabin) to the inside of the closed tailgate; or
    • be a truck with container attachment capabilities (e.g., chassis cab, half truck).

Zero emission vocational on-road trucks (e.g., refuse or dump trucks) were eligible as are yard/shunt and drayage trucks. Zero-emission shuttle or coach buses were also eligible.

Only new MHZEVs were eligible for the federal incentive (in other words, vehicles that hadn’t been registered before). Demonstrators (a demo vehicle that buyers could test drive) were considered new vehicles and were eligible for the incentive as long as the odometer was less than 10,000 km.

As long as a vehicle’s full description (the year, make, model, and configuration) appeared on the list of eligible vehicles, an incentive could be provided, assuming all other eligibility criteria were met. A “configuration” was a pre-set package of equipment and finishes offered for a particular vehicle model. A vehicle model could have multiple configurations. Different configurations usually had different prices.

Transport Canada may have excluded certain types of vehicles from the program such as transit buses, school buses, recreational vehicles (RVs), or off-road vehicles.

Conversions (i.e., converting an existing internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle to ZEV) were not eligible.