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Canadian officials are investigating a surge in Tesla sales in January, which depleted the country’s subsidized EV rebate fund just days before the program was paused. The American EV company claimed it had sold 8,600 vehicles in just three days, which is 8,000 more than Ford sells of its wildly popular F-Series pickup in the same time period – although the Tesla Model Y is indeed a hot-selling EV, we’re not sure it could have unseated Canada’s most popular vehicle for decades in a single weekend. In fact, one retailer in Toronto claimed more than 1,200 sales in a single day, raising concerns over whether those new vehicle registrations were legitimate.

Tesla Surge Took Advantage Of A Program Before It Ended

According to the Toronto Star, the sudden surge in Tesla sales spurred $43 million CAD ($29.8 million USD) worth of rebates from a Canadian EV subsidy program, which paused on January 13. The government announced it would temporarily end the program on January 10, which might have encouraged Tesla retailers to take as much advantage of the system before it went away. Those 8,600 sales came from just four retailers – two in Toronto, one in Quebec, and one in Vancouver – to the tune of six Teslas sold at each dealer every hour.

According to the Star, that left 200 other Canadian retailers “stiffed” because the government’s rebate fund ran out before they could offer rebates to their customers, unbeknownst to them. That left those dealers holding the bag to the tune of $10 million CAD ($6.9 million USD) because they promised the rebate to nearly 2,300 customers and now had to pay out of pocket to make up the difference. Those dealers now want answers as to how their 200 locations could be so severely outsold by just four Tesla retailers.

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An Investigation Is Now Underway

Speaking to the television station CTV News, Canadian Auto Dealers Association representative Huw Williams said it defied logic that the company-owned stores could sell that many vehicles in one weekend. “There is something highly unusual about this,” he continued. “It seems that somebody at Tesla may have been tipped off or that the registration gaming of this may have been inappropriate.” The association urged the Canadian Transport Ministry to look into the sales and understand exactly how and why the claimed new vehicle registrations came into effect.

Transport Canada announced it would evaluate the 8,600 new-vehicle registrations claimed by the Tesla dealerships, although the automaker itself has remained silent on the matter, despite the surge far outpacing its 7,000 units sold in the entire first three months of 2024. Canada is reviewing the particulars of each sale to determine if Tesla dealers undertook any wrongdoing in claiming its billions from the rebate program, which according to CTV has incentivized the sales of more than 500,000 EVs in the country.

Source: CTV News, Toronto Star