One thing I lament about Tesla as I wait for my Model 3... is their apparent lack of love for us Northern neighbours. As the actual exchange rate is about 1.27 CAD per USD, Tesla is charging an effective exchange rate (EER) of 1.37! That makes an already expensive car more expensive just for us.
How's that compare with Chevrolet? GM is actually pretty good to us, however there are some weird anomalies. In a futile exercise to examine the differences, I made this Google Sheets document that goes over most of the options and breaks it down into US dollars (from chevrolet.com), Canadian dollars (From chevrolet.ca), and the effective exchange rates of such (simply CAD divided by USD).
What we see is... that on the whole, GM is priced favorably for Canadians. A no-option Premier has an EER of only 1.116, yielding a savings to the Canadian of over $5000! The LT at first appears to not be as good of a deal (with a still great 1.138 EER), but one interesting thing is the comfort package is standard in Canada, whereas it is a paid upgrade in the US.
Overall, I'm really quite pleased with how GM has priced the car in Canada... with a few very glaring exceptions:
On the other hand, we get some real bargains on some of the (mostly minor) accessories: Wheel upgrade with the black paint, Front license plate bracket, Wheel lock Kit, vehicle cover, window shades, cargo mat, and all weather mats all come in right around par (EER close to 1). Other than the Interior Protection Package [EER 1.275] and others listed in previous paragraph... every option is well under actual exchange rate pricing.
Anyway, I went through the exercise so I figured I may as well share it in case it is helpful to any other Canadian wondering about this.
How's that compare with Chevrolet? GM is actually pretty good to us, however there are some weird anomalies. In a futile exercise to examine the differences, I made this Google Sheets document that goes over most of the options and breaks it down into US dollars (from chevrolet.com), Canadian dollars (From chevrolet.ca), and the effective exchange rates of such (simply CAD divided by USD).
What we see is... that on the whole, GM is priced favorably for Canadians. A no-option Premier has an EER of only 1.116, yielding a savings to the Canadian of over $5000! The LT at first appears to not be as good of a deal (with a still great 1.138 EER), but one interesting thing is the comfort package is standard in Canada, whereas it is a paid upgrade in the US.
Overall, I'm really quite pleased with how GM has priced the car in Canada... with a few very glaring exceptions:
- Adaptive Cruise Control is a whopping $1375 in Canada, versus $595 in the US. That's an EER of 2.311! Yikes. What in the world could possibly be different that justifies this?
- Getting an additional charge cable is considerably more expensive in Canada ($765 vs $535 - EER of 1.43)
- The illuminated charge port and tablet holder (whatever that is) both have EER over 1.3.
- We get screwed on destination charges... $875 in USA is $1700 in Canada. At least some of that is out of GM's control ($100 a/c tax is included in that). Destination charges are often higher in Canada (at least Tesla is fair on that one).
- USA has 3 no-charge paint options that we have to pay $495 for (they also have Citron Green that we can't get at all). Blue is also $495 vs USA of $395 (EER 1.253). White Pearl is a bit of a better deal at an EER of 1.2 ($1195 vs $995).
On the other hand, we get some real bargains on some of the (mostly minor) accessories: Wheel upgrade with the black paint, Front license plate bracket, Wheel lock Kit, vehicle cover, window shades, cargo mat, and all weather mats all come in right around par (EER close to 1). Other than the Interior Protection Package [EER 1.275] and others listed in previous paragraph... every option is well under actual exchange rate pricing.
Anyway, I went through the exercise so I figured I may as well share it in case it is helpful to any other Canadian wondering about this.
