Although the snow is still falling with weeks of winter ahead, residual value trends are showing that consumer interest for cars and smaller vehicles is growing in Canada.

The results of Canadian Black Book’s 2024 Best Residual Value Awards illustrated that the car market is “settling into a more normalized volume of monthly sales and improved new vehicle production,” CBB said in a news release.

Residual values have started to level off, as well, after March 2022 brought record highs. This reflects what the CBB team sees as a “widespread cooling of the wholesale market and a mitigated return to incentive spending.”

As a result, this year’s CBB program saw a small drop from the 2023 model-year’s average of 67.61%. The number came in at 66.28% for 2024 vehicles.

It is a minimal change, but CBB said it definitely shows a shift away from peak four-year valuations.

Car residual values are holding strong, and this year shows the smallest gap between cars and SUV/truck segments so far. CBB attributes this to consumer interest in more affordable and efficient vehicles.

“Cars have continued to try to attract consumers in the wake of Crossovers with more to offer. Adding on AWD trims as well as many hybrid options. With affordability at a low point for average consumers, cars have been the more fuel efficient, more budget friendly option in a market mired with increased MSRP’s and long wait times,” said Daniel Ross, senior manager, industry insights and residual value strategy at CBB, in an email statement to Auto Remarketing Canada.

“We’ve seen more interest in these models recently from consumers, and the wholesale market responded in kind earlier in 2023 where we saw values decline for large SUVs and trucks well before the car markets were affected. This helped bolster 2024 model year car values.”

Cars were the “easy winner” in residual values this year, according to CBB. Cars were the only market to see retention grow on average for 2024 model years. Residual values were up 1.71% from 2023 values. This growth brings the gap between SUVs/trucks and cars to only 3.42%.

Showing the best residual value was the Chevrolet Corvette, coming in at 79.20%. This is the second win in the awards program for the sports car. Next in line was the Toyota Tundra at 75.90% and Toyota 4Runner at 73.70%.

Also of note were electric passenger cars are still seeing better value retention than their ICE alternatives. EV cars sit at 61.85%, while ICEs sit at 59%.

“With electric vehicles becoming more prominent and a growing consumer interest, EVs are becoming a mainstream choice,” CBB president Yolanda Biswah said in a news release.

That said, electric crossovers still remain behind the pack with only 58.30% retention, compared to gas counterparts at 68.0%.

“With the EV world evolving more quickly every year, significant focus has been made on crossovers entering the EV market, especially in 2023. They are among the most expensive vehicles in the mainstream market, but consumer adoption has not gravitated to them because of their lack of affordability,” said Ross.

“There are many alternative crossover hybrids and plug-ins available that do not risk daily requirements like EVs do. This enables EV cars an advantage in consideration. They have lower initial cost and most of these models have been on sale for longer, creating greater market history.’

Moving on to cover brand awards, not all together surprisingly, Toyota/Lexus takes home the gold for best Overall Brand for the third year in a row and Overall Brand: SUV/Truck for the second time after winning in 2023, as well.

The brands won in nine categories all together, with repeat wins for the Toyota Tundra, for full-size pickups and SUV: Main Mid/Full with the Toyota 4Runner in the lead.

Another highlight is Porsche taking home wins as the best Overall Brand: Luxury, also scoring the brand award for zero-emission vehicles. These are the first wins for Porsche in these categories.

“Porsche’s retained values have been trending higher for many past years. They have become a prestige brand among the luxury market and are one of the only brands that utilize an 800V electric architecture in their current EVs. This has helped future proof, or near future, their electric vehicles and improved their image as an EV brand in the luxury market,” said Ross.

Most Improved is Infiniti, one year after its parent brand Nissan took the gold last year.

This year, the awards measure the forecasted residual value of 2024 model-year vehicles into 2028. Sixteen vehicles and five brands were honored across 21 categories.

The awards forecast a vehicle’s value  as a percentage of its original MSRP after 4 years.

CBB has expanded categories this year to include crossovers in various segments, like compact, sub-compact, mid-size, and full-size models in both mainstream and luxury markets separately.

Awards will be presented by CBB to manufacturers in attendance at the 2024 Canadian International Auto Show in Toronto.