Tesla Finished Second and Third of 22 in Canada's Efficiency Test. The Charging Result Needs an Asterisk.

The Canadian Automobile Association ran its 2026 EV Circuit on 16 September 2026 and published the results on 23 September. Twenty-two electric cars drove the same 230-kilometre route from Blue Mountain to Vaughan, Ontario — city streets, rural roads and highway — on consistent settings, each followed by a standardised 15-minute fast-charging session.

Every car finished without charging, using about 40% of its battery on average. CAA leads with that, and it is the right lead: on a route of this length the range question is settled.

Where the Teslas landed

Second and third of twenty-two, separated from each other by 0.04 kWh/100 km and from the winning Toyota bZ by less than 0.4. The spread across the field is the larger number: the least efficient car used two and a half times the energy of the most efficient one over identical road. The Cybertruck finished third from the bottom.

For a European reference point, the base rear-drive Model 3's WLTP consumption is about 12.1 kWh/100 km on its low-rolling-resistance Giti tyres. CAA has not said which trims it drove, so the numbers are not directly comparable.

The cost result, and its asterisk

CAA's coverage puts the average cost of adding 100 km at a public fast charger at CAD $13.45. Drive Tesla Canada, reading the results, has the Model 3 cheapest at $7.28 and the Model Y next at $8.23, with the Nissan LEAF third at $10.13.

Partly that is physics: a car that uses less energy costs less to fill at any tariff. But the standardised charging session was run at Tesla Superchargers for every car in the test. Tesla owners pay Tesla's member rate there; other brands pay the non-Tesla rate on the same hardware. A cost ranking produced on one network, priced by the company that built two of the cars near the top of it, does not measure what these cars cost to charge in general. The per-car cost figures also come from the coverage, not from CAA's own release, which publishes no cost table.

The result Tesla lost, and why

Fifteen minutes of fast charging added 110 km of displayed range on average, across a range from 58 km to 178 km.

The Model Y added 97 km, below the field average, despite having the second-lowest consumption in the test. Range added in a fixed time is charging power divided by consumption, so a low number from an efficient car means low power.

The arithmetic explains it. At 11.81 kWh/100 km the Model Y used about 27 kWh over the route; if that was 40% of its pack, the pack is roughly 68 kWh and the car reached the charger near 60% state of charge. Adding 97 km is about 11.5 kWh, or 46 kW average — which is what any Tesla does in the taper zone above 60%. A test that charges everything from a high state of charge measures taper behaviour rather than peak capability, and it flatters cars with large packs.

"Range anxiety has long dominated the conversation," said Ian Jack, CAA National's vice-president of public affairs, arguing that the discussion can now move to more personalised considerations.

What transfers to Europe

Not the route and not the tariffs. What transfers is the shape: Tesla's cars sit at the efficient end of the field, and charging speed is no longer where they win. That is the same picture as Tesla's fall to fourth in J.D. Power's 2026 US charging study — except there, price was the drag rather than the advantage. Which of the two a European owner recognises depends mostly on what their local Supercharger charges per kWh.