Tesla Gamed The System To Steal Tens Of Millions In Canadian Incentives On The Final Day Of Eligibility

The Minister of Transport Canada is investigating Tesla after a mountain of suspicious rebate requests were filed in the final three days of Canada’s iZEV government incentive program. As the program wound to a close last month, Tesla filed an incredible 8,600 sales in three days. In spite of severe backlash within Canada against Tesla CEO Elon Musk and his participation in the hostile U.S. Trump Administration, the electric car retailer claims that it sold more cars in Canada in the final three days of the $5,000 incentive program than it had in the entirety of the first quarter of 2024. According to the Toronto Star, Tesla claims to have shifted 8,653 units in a single weekend, with over 4,000 units delivered by a single location in Quebec City. The final-weekend play from Tesla netted the company more than $43 million in Canadian rebates, over half of the program’s remaining budget. The program was scheduled to operate through mid-March, but by the end of January the government was warning that the program was running out of money. With that last blast of Tesla rebate requests, the system’s cash reserves were gone. 

According to the Canadian Auto Dealers Association, the last-minute Tesla application bomb left some 2,300 cars with unreimbursed rebates. The dealers gave their customers the $5,000 rebate from the point of sale, but the program had run out of money and ended over the course of the weekend when government offices were closed, sticking the dealership collective with about $10 million in broken promises. CADA spox Huw Williams complained, “These dealers in good faith gave customers the money for a program that is always refunded. They shouldn’t be left making a payment on behalf of the Government of Canada. Tesla gamed the system.” 

Tesla remains the most popular electric vehicle in Canada, though it has never been quite this popular. It stands to reason that the impending end of the incentive program would cause some people to pull up their purchases in order to get the rebate money, causing a run on electric vehicles in general. Tesla was expected to benefit more than any other manufacturer, but selling in these kinds of numbers after the brand’s sales dropped some 70 percent between December and January in the country seems a little more than suspicious. It’s difficult to say exactly what is happening here, but it does not seem at first glance that Tesla’s claimed sales are genuine. We will have to wait until Transport Canada has concluded its investigation into Tesla and its sales claims in order to know for sure.

Transport Canada has said that the iZEV program, which began in 2019, is merely paused rather than completely cancelled, though the country’s next Prime Minister, Mark Carney, has indicated he would renew the program with further government funds.