Quebec’s electric-vehicle policy is entering a new phase. On August 19, the province is publishing its revised zero-emission vehicle standard in the Gazette officielle du Québec, formally replacing a regulatory path that had been heading toward a 100% credit requirement in 2035 with an 80% target. The change is substantial, but the fine print matters just as much as the headline number. Automakers will face lower interim requirements, plug-in hybrids will continue earning partial credits, conventional full hybrids receive temporary recognition, and the rules governing stored credits become tighter later in the decade. The amendments take effect September 3, giving manufacturers a new compliance roadmap just as Quebec purchase incentives wind down and Ottawa moves away from its own federal EV sales mandate.
What Became Official Today
Quebec’s environment ministry says the amendments to its zero-emission vehicle, or ZEV, standard have been adopted, with the final regulatory texts scheduled for publication in the Gazette officielle du Québec on August 19. The regulations are set to take effect September 3. The move comes after draft changes were published June 23 and opened to public consultation through July 24, meaning today’s publication represents the transition from proposed policy to the rules manufacturers will actually have to plan around.
The standard applies to automakers whose average annual sales or leases of new light-duty vehicles in Quebec exceed 4,500 units. Those companies must report eligible vehicles, detailed sales and total light-duty sales to the province. Quebec describes the system as a way to increase the availability and variety of cleaner vehicles while reducing transportation emissions, which remain the province’s largest source of greenhouse gases. For manufacturers, however, the immediate significance is practical: product allocation, model mix and credit strategies can now be planned around a substantially different compliance curve.
The 80% Target Is Not Simply an 80% EV Sales Quota
Calling the new rule an “80% EV target” is useful shorthand, but it can also create the wrong impression. Quebec’s system is built around credits rather than a rule saying exactly 80 of every 100 vehicles sold in 2035 must be battery-electric. Each regulated manufacturer must accumulate a prescribed number of credits calculated as a percentage of its total new light-duty vehicle sales and leases. Fully electric and hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles generally receive one credit, while qualifying plug-in hybrids earn fractions of a credit.
That distinction becomes especially important under the new rules. Manufacturers can generate credits themselves, buy excess credits from competitors and, within limits, use credits accumulated in earlier compliance periods. The 80% figure for the 2035 model year is therefore a compliance percentage embedded in a broader accounting system. A company’s actual mix of battery-electric vehicles, plug-in hybrids and other qualifying vehicles can differ from that number. The structure is designed to pressure manufacturers to put more electrified vehicles into Quebec without prescribing one identical showroom mix for every brand.
Quebec Has Cut the Ramp-Up Sharply Before 2035
The biggest change is not confined to the final 80% figure. Quebec has reduced virtually every step on the road toward it. The previous requirement for the 2026 model year was 32.5%; the amended standard sets it at 26%. For 2027, the target falls from 45% to 30%, and for 2028 it drops from 60% to 35%. The new schedule then rises to 44% in 2029, 51% in 2030, 58% in 2031, 64% in 2032, 70% in 2033, 75% in 2034 and finally 80% in 2035.
That means the regulatory relief is particularly large around the end of this decade. Under the earlier schedule, automakers would have faced an 85% credit requirement in 2030; they will now face 51%, a difference of 34 percentage points. Yet Quebec has not abandoned an escalating standard. Requirements still rise every model year. The revised approach effectively trades the earlier steep climb toward 100% for a slower trajectory that leaves manufacturers more room to respond to consumer demand, vehicle availability, supply-chain conditions and a rapidly changing North American auto market.
Conventional Hybrids Now Have a Temporary Place in the Formula
One of the most consequential technical changes is the treatment of hybrids. For model years 2025 through 2027, an eligible non-plug-in “full hybrid” can generate 0.25 credit. That means four such hybrid transactions would mathematically produce the same number of credits as one new fully electric vehicle generating a single credit. The accommodation is temporary: Quebec says non-plug-in hybrid credits expire in 2027, preventing them from becoming a permanent substitute for vehicles capable of significant zero-emission driving.
Plug-in hybrids receive more generous treatment. A qualifying new plug-in hybrid with less than 80 kilometres of credited electric range can generate 0.5 credit under the applicable temporary rules, while one reaching at least 80 kilometres can earn 0.75 credit. A fully electric vehicle earns one. Those gradations give automakers another compliance route in segments where battery-electric alternatives remain limited. Electric Mobility Canada has called the overall 80% compromise reasonable in the current environment but strongly criticized conventional hybrids being counted, arguing that vehicles unable to plug in should not be treated as part of a zero-emission standard.
Banked Credits Can Help Automakers, but the Cushion Gets Smaller
Quebec’s credit market gives automakers flexibility when sales do not line up perfectly with annual requirements. A manufacturer that accumulates more credits than it needs can sell them, while another can purchase credits to cover a shortfall. Companies may also retain some unused credits for later periods. The province is tightening that second option, however. The maximum share of qualifying surplus credits that can be used is 20% for the 2025-2027 compliance period, then drops to 10% for 2028-2030 and 5% for 2031-2033. For later periods, the listed ceiling is zero.
Expiration rules add another layer. ZEV credits accumulated before the 2025 model year are reduced by half after the 2025-2027 period, with the remainder valid through 2030. Credits from plug-in hybrids with at least 80 kilometres of electric range last for the period in which they are earned and the next one. Credits from shorter-range plug-in hybrids expire in 2030, while the newly recognized non-plug-in hybrid credits expire in 2027. In other words, Quebec is easing the annual targets while also preventing manufacturers from relying indefinitely on old over-compliance.
Ottawa Is Moving in the Same Direction, but With a Different System
Quebec’s adjustment is unfolding alongside an equally important federal shift. On August 15, the federal government published proposed regulations in the Canada Gazette that would repeal the Electric Vehicle Availability Standard. That federal regime currently contains ZEV requirements of 20% for model year 2026, 60% for 2030 and 100% for 2035. Ottawa now intends to replace that approach with tougher Canada-specific greenhouse-gas standards that provide manufacturers greater technological flexibility while putting the country on a path toward a stated goal of 75% EV sales in 2035 and 90% in 2040.
The federal regulatory analysis points directly to the changed market environment. It says Canadian ZEV sales fell from about 14% of new passenger-vehicle sales in 2024 to roughly 9% in 2025 while the industry confronted trade disruption and other economic pressures. Quebec’s 80% target therefore places the province somewhat above Ottawa’s new 75% national goal for 2035, while abandoning the old shared destination of 100%. Both governments are still pushing electrification, but neither is now relying on the regulatory trajectory that existed only a short time ago.
Buyers Will See the Shift as Quebec’s Own Rebates Disappear
The regulatory changes are arriving just as Quebec reduces another major tool that helped build its EV market. The Roulez vert program is scheduled to end on December 31, 2026. For vehicles registered this year, provincial assistance is down to $2,000 for a qualifying fully electric vehicle, compared with $7,000 in 2024. Eligible plug-in hybrids receive $500 or $1,000 depending on battery capacity, while qualifying used fully electric vehicles receive $1,000. Beginning in 2027, the amounts listed by the province fall to zero.
That makes the ZEV standard increasingly important as a supply-side policy. Instead of putting thousands of provincial dollars directly toward each purchase, Quebec will be leaning more heavily on rules that encourage manufacturers to provide electrified models. The market is still moving unevenly. Statistics Canada recorded 43,113 new ZEV registrations nationwide in the first quarter of 2026, representing 10.8% of new vehicle registrations and a 15.8% year-over-year increase. Quebec’s ZEV registrations jumped 42.1% from a year earlier, illustrating both the province’s continued appetite for electrified vehicles and how quickly demand can shift.
Automakers and EV Advocates Still See the Compromise Very Differently
Automotive industry groups have welcomed the weaker targets without declaring the problem solved. In a joint response to Quebec’s June announcement, the Corporation of Quebec Automobile Dealers, Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers’ Association and Global Automakers of Canada said the changes provided some relief but argued that the government should have temporarily suspended the standard. The dealer association represents nearly 900 new-vehicle dealerships in Quebec, while Global Automakers of Canada says its 15 member automakers account for more than 60% of light vehicles sold nationally.
EV advocates are concerned for almost the opposite reason. Electric Mobility Canada accepted the 80% endpoint as a reasonable compromise under current conditions but wanted stronger interim requirements and objected particularly to credits for conventional hybrids. Those competing reactions illustrate what Quebec has tried to do: loosen a mandate viewed by automakers as increasingly difficult without abandoning regulatory pressure to electrify. The next milestone is September 3, when the amendments take effect. After that, the consequences will be measured less by the wording in the Gazette than by which vehicles manufacturers send to Quebec, how they price them and how rapidly buyers keep making the switch.
