The Financial Post reports in its Tuesday edition that electric-vehicle sales in Canada plummeted in the second quarter even as overall auto sales remained brisk. The Post's Gabriel Friedman writes that registrations of new battery EVs dropped 39.2 per cent year-over-year, while plug-in hybrid EV registrations fell 2.2 per cent, Statistics Canada said on Monday. Overall new vehicle registrations in the second quarter hit 541,566, the highest number since the start of COVID-19 and a 5.9-per-cent jump from a year ago. The drop in EV sales is attributed to the disappearance of government consumer rebate programs that reduced the cost of an EV rather than the 25-per-cent U.S. tariff on autos. "It speaks to the importance of having incentives if you want to move electric vehicles," said David Adams at the Global Automakers of Canada, a lobby group for foreign carmakers. In January, the federal government's consumer rebate program ran out of funds and Quebec temporarily paused its program in February, although a reduced rebate was reinstated in May. British Columbia in May cancelled its EV rebate program outright. However, Hyundai earlier this month said its electrified auto sales in August jumped 27 per cent year-over-year.