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.
Canadians are furious, but even considering an uptick to catch rebates this is pure fraud:
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.
It’s not for “asking a question”
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.
Ope, shit, I jumped the gun. My bad!
If by “private dealership” you mean the Tesla dealerships themselves. “Buy” their own cars, pocket the rebate, sell the car later.
You know.
Fraud.
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.