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

submitted 1 week ago by KayLeadfoot@fedia.io to c/nottheonion@lemmy.world

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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. That’s a staggering number of sales to log in a single weekend, about 1.5 sales per minute. Let's dig into the numbers.

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[-] Hobbes_Dent@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago

Canadians are furious, but even considering an uptick to catch rebates this is pure fraud:

Let’s run the numbers:

8,669 iZEV rebates over three days claimed by Tesla dealerships.

Mostly claimed by four Tesla locations.

Tesla dealerships in Canada are open from 10 AM to 6 PM.

That works out to 722 rebates per primary dealership per day.

Which equals 90 iZEV rebates per hour.

Or 1.5 Tesla sales per minute.

Let’s take a step back. Two Tesla sales every 90 seconds? That’s absurd. A good car salesperson might close two deals in two hours, not per minute. And that’s in a normal sales environment… not one where every eligible car has to be processed for a government rebate at the same time.

[-] neatchee@lemmy.world -1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Is it possible some of these were liquidations or inventory sell-off or something? As a data person my initial assumption would be a few bulk purchases throwing this calculation out of whack

I could see some private dealership figuring out a way to buy the vehicles and resell them as a hard-to-get item later

Edit: down votes for asking a question? Y'all are weird. I'm not even saying it's not fraud.

[-] DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

If by "private dealership" you mean the Tesla dealerships themselves. "Buy" their own cars, pocket the rebate, sell the car later.

You know.

Fraud.

[-] HK65@sopuli.xyz 0 points 1 week ago

Do non-consumer purchases count as eligible for the rebate if they plan to resell?

[-] neatchee@lemmy.world 0 points 1 week ago

I have no idea. That's why I was asking 🤷

[-] KayLeadfoot@fedia.io 1 points 1 week ago

So, the data has a "commercial" or "consumer" flag, Canada is apparently quite sensible and thought one step ahead of the shady things auto dealers might try - so we'd be able to see if it was a wholesale sort of deal, I think.

It wasn't, all the sales I saw were consumer flagged.

this post was submitted on 09 Mar 2025

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