A Geely EX5 electric SUV wearing Ontario manufacturer plates was filmed in traffic on a Toronto-area road in late August, the first road footage of a Geely-badged car in Canada that EV has found, three months after the group flew two test vehicles into Pearson and five months after its chief executive said Canadian certification was coming “soon.”
The 15-second clip, posted on Xiaohongshu on August 27 by a Toronto-based user under the title “ran into a Geely car, road test,” shows a black EX5 from behind in a queue of cars.
The rear carries a full-width light bar with Geely lettering and roof rails. The plate reads 433 MPA, a serial number in the series Ontario issues to manufacturers for testing, though the plate’s wordmark is not legible in the video.
“The domestic brands are really coming,” the user wrote in the caption. “Ran into BYD and Geely one after the other.”
The car’s tall tail, roof rails and continuous rear lamp match the Geely EX5, the compact electric SUV sold in China as the Galaxy E5, and rule out the EX2 hatchback, which has separate oval taillights.
Both models were photographed being unloaded at Toronto Pearson on May 27, per Drive Tesla Canada, in what was read at the time as a certification shipment.
What Geely Has Said
Andy An, Geely Holding’s chief executive and formerly head of Zeekr, told Bloomberg in March that the group expected Canadian certification for Geely Auto-branded vehicles “soon.”
“Geely’s globalization is mostly through exports right now, but we will look to localize production,” he said, as EV reported.
In late April Zeekr International posted six senior roles in Toronto, heads of sales, marketing, product, aftersales, network development and legal, with the listings naming the “Geely Auto Brand,” EV reported, a signal that the mainstream Geely name would launch before Zeekr.
Neither Geely Auto, Zeekr nor Lynk & Co appears by those names on Transport Canada’s Appendix G list of pre-cleared foreign manufacturers, according to the official file updated 9 September 2026.
BYD Auto’s Shenzhen and Xi’an passenger-car plants remain listed.
A Geely-group factory company, Zhejiang Haoqing Automobile Manufacturing, is listed for passenger cars at a Chengdu address on Geely Avenue; that is a manufacturing legal name, not a consumer brand, and does not by itself clear Geely-, Zeekr- or Lynk-badged retail imports.
Geely has still announced no Canadian model, price, dealer or on-sale date.
Test cars can enter without Appendix G via temporary special-purpose or case-by-case import.
Other Geely Brands
The group’s other brands have moved first.
Lotus shipped 18 Wuhan-built Eletres in May at C$119,900 and landed them in Montreal in July, the first Chinese-built cars sold under the quota.
Polestar reopened orders for the China-built Polestar 2 on June 3 at C$69,900, with first imports slated for September on second-window permits, EV reported, and Automotive News putting the planned volume above 1,000.
Industry Minister Mélanie Joly has said Geely, BYD and Chery told her they were willing to explore joint ventures in Canada, though BYD has since rejected the joint-venture model Ottawa promoted.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford has called the incoming Chinese cars “spy vehicles,” and the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers’ Association has warned the quota could displace domestic production.
The Car That Would Come
If the vehicle is the EX5, it is the model Geely has used to enter Australia, Europe and Southeast Asia: 4,615 mm long, 160 kW, with 49.5 to 68.4 kWh Aegis LFP packs, built at Guiyang, and the first Geely model contracted for Ford’s Valencia plant from 2028 under the venture announced in July.
The EX2 that accompanied it to Pearson is the more consequential candidate for Canada’s rules.
Sold in China as the Xingyuan, it was the country’s best-selling car in August at 39,651 units on retail data compiled from the China Automobile Dealers Association, ahead of the Leapmotor A10 and the Tesla Model Y, and China’s best-selling car of any kind in 2025.
On the CPCA’s wholesale ranking for August it was third at 60,955, behind two BYD models.
Its Chinese price range of 64,800 to 94,800 yuan, about C$12,400 to C$18,200, sits far below the C$35,000 free-on-board threshold that will apply to 10% of quota imports in 2027 and half by 2030, on the schedule EV set out in August.
Canada’s quota admits 49,000 China-built vehicles a year at 6.1%, in two windows of 24,500. The first closed on August 31 with 15,603 permits used and the second opened on September 1 with 33,397 available, as EV has tracked. Global Affairs Canada’s data carry no brand detail, so whether Geely has drawn permits cannot be read from them.
The Neighbours
The same user’s caption records BYD sightings alongside Geely’s.
BYD’s Ti7 has been photographed near Montreal, in Markham on a manufacturer plate and, last week, in a Toronto hotel garage with a Canadian specification sheet on the seat, and BYD Canada is hiring and scouting dealers.
Chery’s Omoda and Jaecoo cars have been on Ontario plates since spring.
Dongfeng showed six EVs in Montreal on July 14.
