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.
It makes me so happy that I saw protesters today in front of the nearby dealership. Elon a shit.
Damn. What’s the difference between elon and a petty theif?? At least petty thief’s have some morals. Elons moral compass is stuck in magnetic vortex spinning him out of control
A petty thief can only steal what you currently have. Elon can take away things that you don’t even have yet.
It’s a helluva thing killing a man; you take all he’s got, and all he’s ever gonna have.
Elon now stealing money from Canada taxpayers. US taxpayers not enough.
I think for those that wanted Teslas, they realized they have to buy them before the tariff war gets too hot. So ironically there’s a surge of purchases
Ideology aside, they make some very good cars, and I don’t blame people for buying them
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.
With Tesla, you submit your order online. I highly doubt that’s where these numbers come from but it is possible that the orders were placed online and routed through sales center in the major population areas.
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.
If by “private dealership” you mean the Tesla dealerships themselves. “Buy” their own cars, pocket the rebate, sell the car later.
You know.
Fraud.
It’s not for “asking a question”
- I suspect the professionals looking into this potential fraud are going to think of these things.
- when and how hard you choose to play devil’s advocate says something about you.
- whether well intentioned or not this is Musk apologia at best, and excuses/misinformation at worst. I think our Transport Minister does basic diligence before asking for an investigation and having the story in the media.
We’re all used to these “centrist” / “just asking questions” types and how they only crawl out of their holes to play devil’s advocate for fascists, it’s tired.
Lol check my post/comment history and see how fucking wrong you are
Literally caucused for Bernie.
Everyone is so ready to pick up a pitchfork that you fail basic reading comprehension.
I’m literally just trying to think of ways they could have EXECUTED this. I said nothing of the legitimacy, fairness, justice, or legality of the behavior
It is the bread and butter of capitalist fucks to operate just barely within the letter of the law.
This was never apologia and your (and others) penchant for picking a fight is toxic as fuck.
Fair enough, I’m not going to do a background check on every poster but I see that I was lumping your response in with the originator of the thread and could have given yours a more charitable interpretation.
I’m just a journalist/comedian :) I got no dog in this fight, other than that the appearance of corruption in public programs is newsworthy.
If I’m ever unfairly positive about Tesla, do let me know. Most Tesla fans (and assorted grifters who grift in the same circles) say I’m actually the opposite, that I’m shield-biting Tesla hater, probably a paid Anti-Elon shill and maybe a $TSLA shortseller. They feel that way enough to send me threats from time to time. Neither take is true, but it’s funny that I’m getting shot at by both sides.
If you find my stories interesting, you can do me a solid by sharing them on any subreddit or Fedia instance that you think would find them interesting. This publication is a couple weeks old, and that helps me get traction, it’s wild that this story is only getting coverage by Canadian outlets.
Sorry I’ve been imprecise again, I meant the root comment that’s from Lung.
Do non-consumer purchases count as eligible for the rebate if they plan to resell?
Don’t think so, but if I give you $100-$500 to buy a car on paper and sell it back to me less the rebate, that shouldn’t be illegal.
I have no idea. That’s why I was asking 🤷
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.
Even if there was a real run on Teslas, the numbers they claim to have sold are impossible. This is some sloppy ass fraud. The only way they could have “sold” that many was as fleets and if they did, I’d bet everything I own that it was money laundering.
Canadian government thought of that. The sales are marked as either personal or commercial in the database. All the sales I saw were personal.
Tesla has always had problems with quality. In an attempt to increase profit and decrease production time Tesla has sacrificed quality control.
Many customers feel the need to do it themselves. So many do this that there are even people making money of it.
Tesla has always been like this. That’s why they have mostly been cheap compared to competition.
It was out of 4 dealerships. It’s impossible to sale that many cars in three days from 4 dealerships, no matter how many people want to buy them. Plus no way was Canadian demand that high over a $5k rebate.
Ideology aside, they make some very good PR
They immolate people per vehicle sold than the ford pinto. The have absurd numbers of points of failure; until a few years ago each door handle had over a dozen sensors and wires, all exposed to moisture and thermal cycling, and cost $500 each. They use a few hall effect sensors now, but still cost >$500.
Yes, Tesla’s safety record is horseshit, but:
They immolate people per vehicle sold than the ford pinto.
The report is that Teslas have the potential over time to be worse. 27 people died by fire in Pintos due to gas tank failure, pretty slim numerator vs. the denominator of millions sold, but it was made out to be a big deal at the time. I remember, I was there.
The overall fire risk for EVs, (including most Teslas) is pretty low, but the Cybertruck is a huge outlier here.
Should be easy to verify those sales if they are legitimate.
When you make any climate policy other than a carbon tax (right amount is $300/ton = $3/gallon gasoline. Rebated at $4000+ dividend to citizens) you introduce corruption vectors.
What is likely happening here is that vehicles are sold with rebates to people who let it get resold as new, by same dealer, without rebate. Probably not illegal.
Seize Tesla and Elon Musk owned property to make up the difference for obvious fraud.
eminent domain seizure and fucking liquidate them
Liquify*
i mean, that TOO.
This exchange reminds me of Soul Music
“I want a stagecoach with liver on the sides,”
“You mean Livery.”
“That too.”
RIP Sir Pratchett
Do the right thing Canada. Arrest warrants for all involved.
So from everything I’ve seen about this situation, it looks a whole fucking lot like a massive amount of malfeasance from Tesla. I genuinely hope the Canadian government throws the book at them and absolutely reams them financially for fraud.
I don’t know. The US might hit them with tariffs if they do that!
It’s amazing how if you jump to tariffs the you have no real soft power left
People who don’t threaten physical violence often… you know, softies, the part-time tough guys… they don’t anticipate how long-lasting the negative reaction from their victims will be.
The annexation talk, the 51st state talk, none of that stuff will be directly linked to whatever counterpunch Canada cooks up, but it’ll be hardening the hearts of the Canadian voters to be in favor of ever-more-draconian countermeasures.
I hope those Twitter threats felt great to issue, because we’ll all be paying for those for a good long while on every agricultural transaction (among others!) that we make with our closest ally in the coming decades.
Smells like fraud! Tesla is ran by a grifter. Canada better get their stuff together and arrest or ban Musk from business in Canada or he will have you acting like the US.
Xelon + fraud? No one is shocked.
100% tarrifs will be a good start
Elon Musk will go down in history as THE EXAMPLE of greed and generational wealth will do to you.
He is the wealthiest man in history, but is still never satisfied. He will never be happy. And you can’t convince me he is happy right now. His actions are not the same as a happy man, but one that is insecure. Literally every decision, action, and even conversation reeks of it.
Hopefully this will educate future generations to tax the everliving fuck out of the rich. American democracy has gotten worse as the tax rates fell.
Powerful Crassus energy to this one.
Up next, Elon makes a sovereign wealth fund disappear.
That black Cybertruck almost looks good… as a dystopian Sci-fi prop…
I saw a black one yesterday. It still looks like garbage in person. That photo is just unjustly flattering.
They don’t come in black. Customers wrap them.
There are bits and pieces of the design that aren’t incredibly offensive. But all put together, it just looks like a mess of a hulk.
The back end screams of 90’s luxor. I was going to say that the hidden door handles are complexity for no advantage, but nearly every component reeks of that. It has one of the largest windshields in existence, yet, you still can’t see out of it well.
Unless they’re all detailed regularly, they look like they’re dirty.
It’s like someone looked at a delorian, then threw away everything they saw and tried to make a truck from a 6yo’s drawing paper.
Sounds like fraud to me
