Across Canada's wide roads, a new kind of luxury is emerging as electric SUVs like the VinFast VF 9 replace the engine's roar with restorative quiet, turning everyday travel into a calm, comfortable escape powered by silence instead of fuel.
The defining sound of the 20th century was the engine. The defining sound of the 21st might be its absence. Across Canada's long highways, the roar is softening into something steadier and calmer, a quiet that feels like a new kind of comfort in itself.
Quietness has long been an underappreciated comfort for Canadian car owners, who spend countless hours behind the wheel. People drive across distances that would feel immense anywhere else, so the car often becomes more than transportation. Luxury models have traditionally offered that rare quiet, a moving refuge, a small private room where the world outside fades away. Today, electric vehicles are beginning to deliver that same sense of peace, but with a cleaner conscience and a more affordable price tag.
One of those rare offerings is the VinFast VF 9, a seven-seat electric SUV designed to make every trip feel like a quiet retreat. There is no engine vibration and no low hum beneath conversation. The panoramic roof filters soft northern light into the cabin, and the second-row captain's chairs are wide enough to curl up in. Each seat in the front and second row can heat, cool, and massage, with cushions so soft they feel like a living room sofa—you could easily close your eyes for a moment while waiting for the kids to finish their twenty-minute break at the rest stop. A wide 15.6-inch display glows gently at the front, minimalist and precise.
Crafted by Pininfarina, the Italian studio known for its balance of utility and elegance, the VF 9 looks large but never loud. Clean lines replace chrome, while LED strips trace a slim curve across the nose. According to Statistics Canada, SUVs and light trucks made up more than 80 percent of new vehicle registrations in 2025, most still gasoline-powered. That makes the VF 9 part of a quiet shift, one where Canadians keep the size they want while losing the sound and emissions they no longer need.
Comfort here is about survival through long winters and longer drives. A heated seat on a February morning, a silent cabin where children sleep in the back, and a suspension that smooths out rough rural roads are not extravagances. They are what make the journey bearable. The VF 9 does them all while using no fuel and producing no tailpipe emissions. Its all-wheel drive handles snow and gravel without fuss, and its air suspension makes a car that weighs more than three tons feel surprisingly light.
Technology still matters, but in a quieter way. Beneath that calm surface sits a 402-horsepower dual motor setup and a range of up to 518 kilometres. The VF 9 also comes with one of the longest warranties in the industry: 10 years or 200,000 kilometres for the vehicle and an unlimited-kilometre warranty for the battery. For drivers hesitant about long-term reliability, that promise matters more than any performance figure. Through its app, owners can locate and access nearly all public chargers across North America, schedule maintenance, and request roadside assistance with a few taps.
The first generation of electric vehicles competed on numbers like range, speed, and cost. The next competes on what happens inside the cabin. When the mechanics fade into the background, what remains is how the car feels to live with. The VF 9 suggests that comfort itself is becoming the measure of innovation.
Somewhere between the Laurentians and the Prairies, the silence starts to feel complete. The cabin glows with pale daylight, and the landscape rolls past in near stillness. You can talk without raising your voice. You can hear your own thoughts. The absence of sound makes the drive itself visible again.
That quiet is what the VF 9 really sells. It is not just electric, not just large, not just new. It gives Canadians something they did not know they missed: the space to breathe while in motion. Progress, it turns out, does not always arrive with a roar.
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