2026 Léger Reputation Survey: Toyota reaches 6th place while Tesla posts one of the sharpest declines

• Léger conducts a study on brand reputation in Quebec and Canada every year.

• Toyota is the automaker with the best reputation, ranking 6th in Canada and 8th in Quebec.

• Tesla is the manufacturer that suffered the sharpest decline in 2026, losing 52 positions to finish in 424th place.

The polling firm Léger has conducted a study on brand reputation in Quebec and Canada every year for nearly 30 years. The results of the 2026 edition have just been published, and although only the top 10 and the largest movements are available to the public, two pieces of data interest us.

Indeed, three automakers are highlighted, two in a positive way and the other much more negatively. Unsurprisingly, Toyota appears in the Quebec and Canadian top 10, climbing to 8th and 6th place respectively.

Although the reasons explaining this ranking are not known, Toyota benefits from a solid reputation in terms of reliability and great popularity in terms of sales, which inevitably places its name at the top of many consumers’ lists.

Furthermore, Toyota’s position as the largest automaker in terms of Canadian production, thanks to its three plants located in Ontario, may have earned it points against its rivals during this period when Canadians are more patriotic due to the strained relationship with the United States.

Interestingly, the Japanese manufacturer seems to be on a roll, since it ranked 10th in Quebec and Canada in 2025 and did not even appear in the top 10 in 2024, finishing 17th in Quebec.

That is not all for Toyota, since the company also appears on the list of the best employers in Canada—that is, the brands for which the most respondents would like to work. In fact, Toyota is ranked as the 5th best employer in Quebec, one rank lower than its performance last year in the Canadian rankings.

This is where we also find our second automaker from the 2026 study, as Honda climbed to 8th place among the best employers according to Quebecers. Honda also has three plants in Canada, all spread across an 890-acre site in Alliston, Ontario.

The factors that influence a company’s employer reputation are its notoriety, its overall reputation, as well as the perceived quality of the treatment of its employees.

The news is much less encouraging for Tesla, however, as the third automotive brand highlighted in the Reputation 2026 study does not appear in any top 10. In fact, Tesla was only mentioned because of its notorious underperformance, which saw it drop 52 positions to reach 424th place in the overall ranking. This is all the more alarming given that the American company had already experienced a significant decline in 2025.

This slump in the brand’s reputation is mostly attributable to the negative perception of Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, who was very close to the Trump administration for several months last year. This is also reflected in the brand’s sales, which decreased by 84% in Quebec between 2024 and 2025.

As a whole, the automotive sector saw its reputation increase by one point in 2026, following a 4-point increase in 2025. A return to normalcy in terms of vehicle availability after the pandemic, as well as the upcoming arrival of new, more affordable electric models, could explain this slight improvement in the industry’s reputation.

The Reputation 2026 study collected the opinions of 38,000 Canadians, including 17,000 Quebecers.

Source: Léger