Very suspicious. (Dare I say "Concerning"? :p) From another source with a bit more context for those numbers:
> Tesla’s Canadian stores are company-owned and directly controlled by the company. [...] Four Tesla stores in Canada each sold an average of 30 cars per hour, amounting to 120 cars per hour across all four locations—essentially one car every minute, 24 hours a day… for three straight days. And yes, this includes hours when the stores were closed.
> Tesla’s $43.1 million in rebates took up more than half of the cash left allotted for EV subsidies remaining. That meant that by the time some other dealers attempted to get their own subsidies, the money had run out. [...] 226 [non-Tesla] dealerships submitted rebate claims for 2,295 electric vehicles but still haven’t been reimbursed, leaving them collectively out by C$10 million.
-- https://www.carscoops.com/2025/03/tesla-accused-of-gaming-ca...
This is only "suspicious" because it's fake news.
So yes it is suspicious. Especially considering that the Model Y starts much more expensive then it's competitors like the Mach E, the Ioniq 5, the EV6, the Equinox/Blazer, and Prologue. The only main advantage Tesla has is the Supercharger network and better software experience.
Whether anything comes of it or not is an entirely different matter because there are ways of doing this that do not violate the letter of the law.
No, the rebate is paid at point of sale to the purchaser of said vehicle, not to the dealership, and not to Tesla.
>So yes it is suspicious.
So it is not suspicious.
>Especially considering that the Model Y starts much more expensive then it's competitors like the Mach E, the Ioniq 5, the EV6, the Equinox/Blazer, and Prologue.
It's not that much more in price, and it's a much better vehicle than anything Ford or Chevrolet makes.
>Whether anything comes of it or not is an entirely different matter because there are ways of doing this that do not violate the letter of the law.
Nothing will come up because nothing happened. Consumers went on a buying spree because the rebate was quickly coming to a close.
https://tc.canada.ca/en/road-transportation/innovative-techn...
========================================= To get reimbursed:
Log into the ZEV application, select the selling dealership, and go to the “I want to view all iZEV requests submitted for this dealership/authorized seller.” Then search the Service Request ID # of the Eligibility Assessed request and upload the sales/lease agreement and the Incentive Received Form. Make sure that all documents are complete and include all signatures and information required.
[...]
iZEV Online Application: request status
[...]
Rebate Sent
The dealership has been sent a payment, and you'll be notified by email. This email will include the payment amount, the service request ID and the Vehicle Identification Number. Some banks may take up to 5 business days to deposit the funds into your account.
========================================
Straight from the horses mouth; the dealership is reimbursed. The buyer pays a lower out of pocket price. It makes no sense to have the reimbursement go to the owners directly as part of the point of sale. Transport Canada would need have to have electronic payment systems setup for every EV buyer along with all the privacy and financial handling headaches that such a government system entails.
>It's not that much more in price, and it's a much better vehicle than anything Ford or Chevrolet makes.
The Mach E starts at $58,000. The Ioniq 5 at $55,000. The EV6 at $56,000, the Aryia at $52,000, and the ID4 at $44,000.
The Model Y start at $65,000. It's a significant chunk of change even for middle class Canadians.
>Nothing will come up because nothing happened. Consumers went on a buying spree because the rebate was quickly coming to a close.
Maybe, maybe not. There's also ways that I could see this legitimately happening. But at the end of the day it's still highly unusual behaviour that bears further scrutiny. Also known as the being suspicious.
First, that single weekend's 8.6k sales (if the timestamps are to be believed) are than Tesla's Canada sales for the entire prior month (Dec 2024) as well as exceeding the total for any month in 2024.
Second, even a mob of frenzied Canadians car-buyers would probably fall more-evenly across different sellers, and across more days of the month, rather than being so unusually-concentrated.
Finally, remember that the incentive program was already slated to end within another month or two, not a year later or whatever. This places limits on how big we can expect the crowd of procrastinating car-buyers to be, especially since for most people cars are not impulse-buys.
https://tc.canada.ca/en/road-transportation/innovative-techn...
This is only "suspicious" because it's fake news.
> > Even then it would likely still be some variety of fraud
> This is not fraud.
The scenario they brought up of misrepresenting non-Canadian buyers as Canadians in order to take rebates from the Canadian government would absolutely be fraud.
As for your "online orders" thing, I've replied in another thread.
The most-charitable formulation I can can come up with is something like:
"We know Musk already possesses a personal staff of unscrupulous geeks and likes to illegally stop payments. Therefore it is likely they were engaged in payment fraud here too, where the "enemy" Canadian government is hurt by stolen funds, and "enemy" car-competitors are hurt by the rebate pool being suddenly empty."
Sounds like Musk being a dick - sticking it to Canada to please/amuse his boss.
The "fraud" narrative being pushed about this is because this is fake news.
"Falsifying sales records to receive rebates is criminal fraud, regardless of how nicely you do so."
You don't have any sources to back it up, so it can be dismissed outright.
The Canadian Automobile Dealers Association has urged Transport Canada to investigate, citing potential misuse of the rebate system. Attempts to reach Tesla for comment have gone unanswered.
The federal EV rebate program, facilitating over 500,000 electric vehicle purchases since its inception, was paused on January 13, 72 hours after the government signaled its potential suspension. Officials are now reviewing the Tesla sales data to determine if any irregularities occurred during the program’s final days.
A simple search yields https://tc.canada.ca/en/road-transportation/innovative-techn... for citations of program overview.
- "Individuals are eligible for one incentive"
- "Organizations and businesses are eligible for up to 10 incentives. Organizations and businesses that share common ownership, other than common ownership as a result of being a publicly traded company, are considered as one single organization eligible for a combined total of 10"
- "The incentive will be applied at the point-of-sale by the dealership once they have confirmed your eligibility"
The story is that Tesla sold as many cars, at four dealers in three days, almost as many as they sold in Canada in all of Q1 2024 at a time when their Canadian sales are trending down.
There are 1440 minutes in a day, they sold 8600 cars. Assuming a 12 hour dealer workday at 4 dealers. Articles say 2 cars a minute, I get one car per minute. It still they correctly process the incentives at point of sale or delivery? The investigating will find out.
The fraud also might be if anyone bought their own vehicles to sell later, or are otherwise violate the 10 rebates per organization limit and attempted to hide this.