What Is Going On With The $43 Million In Rebates Tesla Claimed In Canada Over 3 Days?

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People have been asking us to cover this story from Canada about 4 Tesla stores claiming $43 million in EV rebates from the Canadian government in 3 days and thus emptying the program account and blocking other auto dealers from getting reimbursed for EV rebates they passed along to customers. The problem is, it’s still unclear what is going on here.

Here are some more details on what we know:

• Only C$71.8 million (US$50M) of government funding for EV subsidies was remaining, and it was announced this EV rebate program (iZEV) would soon be paused.
• Then, immediately after that was announced, in three days, 4 Tesla stores reported selling 8,600 vehicles, claiming C$43.1 million (US$30M) in rebates — 60% of remaining funding.
• That’s about 120 cars per hour for 3 days straight, 24 hours a day — or about 2 cars per minute.

Some in the industry have claimed this isn’t possible.

“Tesla had a run on the bank,” said Huw Williams, a spokesperson for the Canadian Automobile Dealers Association (CADA). “Somehow, Tesla gamed the system. What we can’t figure out is how this could have happened without setting off alarm bells.” He added that “the registration gaming of this may be inappropriate.”

“They didn’t sell those cars that weekend,” a government official reportedly said.

However, it’s unclear if something was done inappropriately or not here. It’s possible Tesla just didn’t submit the rebate forms car by car as they made sales and then ended up submitting several thousand all at once. It’s also possible — though probably less likely — that there was a huge rush to buy Tesla vehicles before big tariffs were potentially placed on Teslas, and also before rebates ran out.

Or there’s of course the possibility — which many are implying — that Tesla did something inappropriate or illegal here and submitted EV rebate requests for cars that haven’t actually been sold yet in order to gobble up the rebate money.

“Keep in mind that Tesla is struggling when it comes to sales in Canada right now,” Carscoops writes. “According to the National Post, deliveries nosedived some 70 percent between December 2024 and January 2025. When the Canadian government announced that it would soon end electric vehicle subsidies, it was expected that Tesla would see a small bump up in sales. However, a giant spike like this is a different ballgame altogether.”

Some have suggested that some workaround allowed Tesla to sell the cars to itself and claim the rebates. However, others have pointed out that a buyer is only allowed one rebate a year. So, that doesn’t seem like a real option. Again, though, it’s possible Tesla just submitted the paperwork from previous months in big batches all of a sudden.

The owner of another 8 dealerships in Canada says he’s paying the price for this. After the rebate money ran out, Terry Budd (that’s his name) had submitted about $150,000 in rebate requests, money they had passed along to buyers, and another $25,000 was being processed.

“The deal’s done, and we’re shy that money,” Budd said. “Nobody can tell us whether we’re going to be paid or not.” He was also skeptical of what Tesla did. “There’s no way they delivered or sold that many cars in a weekend,” he said.

As others have pointed out and I’ve said repeatedly above, it’s just not clear what happened here. It’s hard to even conjecture. I’m sure more will come to light and we can update you. A full Transport Canada investigation has been requested by industry watchdogs.