Suspicious Tesla Sales Surge Triggers Canadian Government Investigation

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.

Glad this delusional invented scenario is not what happened.

It is paid to the buyer, but collected by the dealership. Buyers are those who qualify to receive it. Straight from the horse's mouth:

"There is a limit to how many incentives Canadians and Canadian organizations can receive for the purchase or lease of eligible vehicles under the iZEV Program, in a calendar year: Individuals are eligible for one incentive"

"Individuals are eligible", not dealerships. Dealerships collect the reimbursement, but the individuals must qualify. If you qualify and he dealer didn't discount the car, they owe you the rebate:

"If you didn't receive the incentive on an eligible ZEV purchased or leased on or after the date listed on the eligibility vehicle list, please contact the dealership to verify if they are enrolled in the Program. If they are enrolled, they may reimburse you the maximum eligible incentive amount (this is usually reimbursed by cheque)."

https://tc.canada.ca/en/road-transportation/innovative-techn...

A difference without distinction. From the financial point of view, the cheque goes from the Government of Canada to the dealership. Whether the dealership then cuts another cheque or simply discounts the vehicle $5000 is irrelevant because in either case the money has to enter the dealership's coffers.

Now AFAIK adding in the rebate directly as a discount into the bill of sale is the modus operandi of Tesla and other dealerships in Canada that were participating in the iZEV. And that's why I don't think it's impossible that this is legitimate.

If Tesla sold inventory for the previous years and applied the discounts on the bills of sale, but then didn't get around to filing the paperwork until now near the end of the rebate... well that would explain why the sudden rush to get the paperwork done when the pause was announced. Other dealerships were doing something similar and are now out of pocket for their procrastination.

Now it's a little odd to me why a company as tech savvy as Tesla wouldn't have automated the filling of the forms. But I could see that just being due to to mismanagement and potentially also why the store managers refused to comment to CTVNews when they came asking about it.

The idea that people were rushing out to Tesla's website to buy isn't impossible either but Tesla's never been shy about bragging about good sales performance. The fact that the storage lots near the Toronto or Montreal are also quite full doesn't exactly help sell that story either.

Now it's also possible that this is borderline fraud. It's only $330 to establish a numbered company in Ontario, so hypothetically if someone had $3 million or so to create 8600 numbered companies, those holding companies could in 'buy' a Tesla that qualifies under the iZEV for a $5000 reimbursement. Technically that is not illegal on it's own, and money doesn't have to flow anywhere. And actual buyers would still be buying a new car.

It's also possible that it's just outright fraud and Tesla just submitted forms for sales that never happened. There's nothing on the Transport Canada forms that require only a name of the purchaser and then a make, model, and year of the vehicle, so it'd be trivial to just put falsified information into the forms.

Whatever the reality is, it's still suspicious, and bears further scrutiny. Especially given how politically delicate government funds flowing to Tesla is right now.

It's a huge difference. Dealerships cannot just make a claim and collect the money. It's not theirs, even though they collect it.