Geely EX5 Filmed in Toronto Traffic on Ontario Manufacturer Plates — First Road Footage of a Geely-Badged Car in Canada

A Geely EX5 electric SUV wearing an Ontario manufacturer plate was filmed in traffic on a Toronto-area road in late August — the first road footage of a Geely-badged car in Canada, three months after the group flew two test vehicles into Pearson airport 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 plate reads 433 MPA — a serial number in the series Ontario issues to manufacturers for testing — and the car's full-width rear light bar with Geely lettering, roof rails and tall tail match the EX5 compact electric SUV, sold in China as the Galaxy E5, rather than the smaller EX2 hatchback with its separate oval taillights.

"The domestic brands are really coming," the user wrote in the caption. "Ran into BYD and Geely one after the other."

What Geely has actually said about Canada

The sighting is the road-visible edge of an entry campaign that has been building since spring:

• Certification promise: Andy An, Geely Holding's chief executive and former head of Zeekr, told Bloomberg in March that the group expected Canadian certification for Geely Auto-branded vehicles "soon," adding that "Geely's globalization is mostly through exports right now, but we will look to localize production."
• Hiring in Toronto: 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," a signal the mainstream Geely name would launch before Zeekr.
• Test cars landed in May: both the EX5 and the smaller EX2 were photographed being unloaded at Toronto Pearson on May 27, in what was read at the time as a certification shipment.

The Appendix G gap

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 September 9, 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 — but that is a manufacturing legal name, not a consumer brand, and it does not by itself clear Geely-, Zeekr- or Lynk-badged retail imports. Test cars like the one in the video can enter without Appendix G via temporary special-purpose or case-by-case import.

Geely has still announced no Canadian model, price, dealer or on-sale date.

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 battery 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 may be 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 retail units — ahead of the Leapmotor A10 and the Tesla Model Y — and 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 per cent of quota imports in 2027 and half by 2030.

Second quota window is open

Canada's quota admits 49,000 China-built vehicles a year at the 6.1 per cent tariff rate, in two windows of 24,500. The first closed on August 31 with 15,603 permits used; the second opened September 1 with 33,397 available. Global Affairs Canada's data carry no brand detail, so whether Geely has drawn permits cannot be read from them — but the road-test timing, five months into the program, tracks the same pre-launch pattern BYD's test fleet has followed in Markham and Montreal.

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.

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