Tesla Claimed 8,669 Canadian EV Rebates as the Program Ran Out of Funds… That’s 1.5 Sales Per Minute (fuelarc.com)

submitted 4 days ago by KayLeadfoot@fedia.io to c/news@beehaw.org

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Between January 10 and January 12, after being warned that an EV rebate program was running out of funds, Tesla dealerships in Canada managed to claim 8,669 individual iZEV EV rebates, or about $43 million CAD in incentives.

Meanwhile, 200 other auto dealerships across Canada are left holding the bag for millions worth of rebates that Transport Canada may not be able reimburse after the funds ran out, according to excellent reporting in the Toronto Star.

At least the Canadian government is paying attention. Transport Minister Anita Anand is personally looking into it. She stated:

“I am disappointed. This report is unacceptable and I am asking the department that is responsible for administering this program to provide me with detailed and complete information.”

So what happened here? And how did the iZEV program run out of funds so quickly?

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[-] KayLeadfoot@fedia.io 9 points 4 days ago

I can't say that it is certainly fraud.

... But I can certainly say that Tesla has historically never come close to registering that sort of single weekend sales performance while taking advantage of the iZEV program in Canada :)

For some reason, their most lucrative rebate performance came after Elon's controversial backing of a US president who, among other things, is calling for the annexation of Canada under the threat of economic (and maybe military?) ramifications.

How about that! You would think that would be really unpopular to be associated with, seeing as how Canadians have a proudly independent streak. It's causing ~50-75% drops in sales in politically-similar NATO states. Then, just in Canada, that talk apparently coincided with huge sales gains, and just as the EV rebate program was due to run out of funds. Strange!

These next few weeks are going to be really interesting as the Canadian Transportation Minister confirms the details on that rebate program, like she has stated she intends to.

[-] SharkAttak@kbin.melroy.org 2 points 3 days ago

Could it also be "oh no Ewon crying cause sales are crashing, make numbers go UP no matter what!"? Dunno, I'm not an economist.

this post was submitted on 11 Mar 2025

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