this post was submitted on 26 Mar 2025
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I appreciate your skepticism, but the sales numbers reported by some of the dealerships in question are nothing short of miraculous. I know, because car dealers are my company's clients.
So even if they had a backlog of rebates, the sales numbers would still be normal, and they're not.
This looks and smells strongly of fraud.
The Tesla show rooms / delivery centers aren't dealerships in the traditional sense. It's all Tesla. Tesla could have just dumped paperwork on a less busy area and said file all this shit.
Edit: and I agree, it's fishy and should be investigated, but all the calls that it IS fraud are really premature.
I wondered about that myself but I'm not familiar with how Tesla dealerships operate, especially since it's Canada.
Eh, maybe. I appreciate your skepticism but as a former Sales Guy the ending of the iZEV program would have made sales, including fleet sales, pretty damn easy.
Let say you've had a company considering buying 50 EVs for their fleet and suddenly its in the news that the rebate program is ending. You now have 250,000 reasons to call the Dealership and get those vehicles under contract (Sale or Lease).
It works the other way around too. The Sales Schmuck from the dealership goes through his book of recent visitors to the dealership and calls them up. "Hey, I just wanted to let you know that the iZEV program is going to close down. So if you want to save $5,000 you should get down to the dealership right away." so the person who was interested runs down there and inks a deal.
Those scenarios aren't just plausible I've personally done them. The ending of a rebate program worth thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars is a powerful closing tool.
Also the sales numbers only appear "miraculous" if you assume that the transactions all happened in those two days when they almost certainly didn't. A couple hundred individuals buy cars in January meanwhile the phone is ringing off the hook with fleet sales and suddenly the paperwork is behind.
Transport Canada has the paperwork, you can't file a rebate claim without it, so its just a matter of time until the truth comes out. If Tesla tried to defraud the Canadian Government then I hope they get crucified for it.