Misleading headline. Tesla says the Canadian government misunderstood its own program and the incentive claims were entirely legal.
I think Tesla is likely correct and this is manufactured outrage. It has been several weeks and it should be trivial to verify if the rebates correspond to sold cars or not.
The whole issue is a deflection. Tesla didn't "stiff" other auto dealers, the Canadian government did. The government abruptly shut down the public subsidy program with insufficient funds to cover cars sold.
Of course there was a race to get the claims in. A dealer backlog isn't shady or unusual, as evidenced by the fact 200 other Canadian dealers have backlogs they aren't able to claim.
The program had been running since 2019, so the government knew, or should have known.
Trending would be an easy way. For example: if you get $1 million in rebates per day and the average rebate is 90 days old, you probably have 90 million outstanding. Accounting 101.
The common practice is announce that rebates will not be offered on future sales, not refusing to reimburse for past sales.
The story was pushed by the Canadian government due to tariffs and to shift the blame. Freezing funds and opening an investigation is good press. It doesn't matter if they know there was crime.
Electrek is thoughtless garbage. It wasn't that long ago it was a pro tesla hype machine.
>Since Tesla Canada did not provide a timeline or other backdating details, the filings were suspicious to the Canadian government.
Surely the filings with the government would contain a field for date of transaction? I doubt the government would accept claims without any accompanying information about the sale to the end-user.
Source? I havent seen any statements the documentation was incomplete. All I see indicates the data is all there, and any "suspicion" is an empty claim.
They're also saying that they provided a discount to customers up front and then didn't try to get reimbursed by the Canadian government for months, until they found out that the program would run out of money and they might not get reimbursed at all, at which point they rushed to submit the whole backlog in a few days. So either they were grossly incompetent and leaving millions of dollars on the table, or maybe they were trying to delay revenue to make earnings look better in a future quarter.
Sure. Lots of Canadian dealers rushed to get them in. 72 million in rebates were claimed in the 48 hours after the government announced the program would close, and 40% of that was other dealers.
Tesla isn't the bad guy in this situation, the government is. The government is the one stiffing dealers for the rebate on cars already sold.
It's a bit weird Tesla would be so lax with handling the rebates if they knew later-filed rebates might not be fulfilled. But w/e, not like we here have any actual facts of the case.
Is it weird or unusual? At least 200 other Canadian auto dealers also had backlogs, were even slower in fulfilling them, and are now angry the government wont pay them?
It was the government that abruptly canceled the the program without funding to cover sales.
Someone at Tesla realized the government was going to stiff dealers for millions and rushed to get them in while the other dealers were sitting on them.
The government announced on Friday that that the program would be "paused" in a few weeks, and Tesla worked 24/7 through that weekend to get theirs in before funds ran dry, along with many other proactive dealers. [1]
>Due to the high uptake, the iZEV Program will be paused in a few weeks,” stated the email sent to dealerships just before noon on the Friday, obtained by the Star. But that weekend there was an unprecedented surge in claims from four Tesla outlets, the Star revealed this week. The four Tesla showrooms claimed 8,653 EV sales in 72 hours and filed for $43.1 million in rebates — more than half of the $71.8 million in remaining funds. By Monday, all the money was gone and Transport Canada announced the EV rebate program was “paused.” It shut down the online claims portal for dealers, leaving hundreds without recourse to recoup their money.
>It's a bit weird Tesla would be so lax with handling the rebates if they knew later-filed rebates might not be fulfilled.
But that's consistent with their behavior? They were lax when it didn't matter, but when they learned the rebate was ending they got their shit together and filed all the backlogged claims. This is basically college assignment procrastination behavior, nothing "weird" about it.
Misleading headline. Tesla says the Canadian government misunderstood its own program and the incentive claims were entirely legal.
I think Tesla is likely correct and this is manufactured outrage. It has been several weeks and it should be trivial to verify if the rebates correspond to sold cars or not.
The whole issue is a deflection. Tesla didn't "stiff" other auto dealers, the Canadian government did. The government abruptly shut down the public subsidy program with insufficient funds to cover cars sold.
Of course there was a race to get the claims in. A dealer backlog isn't shady or unusual, as evidenced by the fact 200 other Canadian dealers have backlogs they aren't able to claim.
> The government abruptly shut down the public subsidy program with insufficient funds to cover cars sold.
How would the Government know whether they had insufficient funds if nobody had put in their rebate claims?
The program had been running since 2019, so the government knew, or should have known.
Trending would be an easy way. For example: if you get $1 million in rebates per day and the average rebate is 90 days old, you probably have 90 million outstanding. Accounting 101.
The common practice is announce that rebates will not be offered on future sales, not refusing to reimburse for past sales.
>this is manufactured outrage.
Yeah, seems like Electrek.co has an article hating on Musk 1-2 times a day.
The story was pushed by the Canadian government due to tariffs and to shift the blame. Freezing funds and opening an investigation is good press. It doesn't matter if they know there was crime.
Electrek is thoughtless garbage. It wasn't that long ago it was a pro tesla hype machine.
[dead]
TLDR:
The claim is that this was the result of backdated sales that Telsa had not yet filled.
Since Tesla Canada did not provide a timeline or other backdating details, the filings were suspicious to the Canadian government.
>Since Tesla Canada did not provide a timeline or other backdating details, the filings were suspicious to the Canadian government.
Surely the filings with the government would contain a field for date of transaction? I doubt the government would accept claims without any accompanying information about the sale to the end-user.
This is why they thought they were suspicious and were investigating.
Source? I havent seen any statements the documentation was incomplete. All I see indicates the data is all there, and any "suspicion" is an empty claim.
They're also saying that they provided a discount to customers up front and then didn't try to get reimbursed by the Canadian government for months, until they found out that the program would run out of money and they might not get reimbursed at all, at which point they rushed to submit the whole backlog in a few days. So either they were grossly incompetent and leaving millions of dollars on the table, or maybe they were trying to delay revenue to make earnings look better in a future quarter.
The entire outrage stems from the fact that other Canadian automakers were even more incompetent and slower with their backlogs.
Seems like this was standard practice and Tesla was the quickest to get them in.
The average auto dealer is a local, family business. They can be pretty big as local businesses go, but they're nowhere near the scale of Tesla.
It makes a lot more sense for a local dealer to be slow, especially if EVs only make up a small percentage of their business.
Sure. Lots of Canadian dealers rushed to get them in. 72 million in rebates were claimed in the 48 hours after the government announced the program would close, and 40% of that was other dealers.
Tesla isn't the bad guy in this situation, the government is. The government is the one stiffing dealers for the rebate on cars already sold.
Thanks, the article does a very poor job at explaining what's going on.
Also, why would you be downvoted on this? Awful people.
It's a bit weird Tesla would be so lax with handling the rebates if they knew later-filed rebates might not be fulfilled. But w/e, not like we here have any actual facts of the case.
Is it weird or unusual? At least 200 other Canadian auto dealers also had backlogs, were even slower in fulfilling them, and are now angry the government wont pay them?
It was the government that abruptly canceled the the program without funding to cover sales.
Someone at Tesla realized the government was going to stiff dealers for millions and rushed to get them in while the other dealers were sitting on them.
The government announced on Friday that that the program would be "paused" in a few weeks, and Tesla worked 24/7 through that weekend to get theirs in before funds ran dry, along with many other proactive dealers. [1]
>Due to the high uptake, the iZEV Program will be paused in a few weeks,” stated the email sent to dealerships just before noon on the Friday, obtained by the Star. But that weekend there was an unprecedented surge in claims from four Tesla outlets, the Star revealed this week. The four Tesla showrooms claimed 8,653 EV sales in 72 hours and filed for $43.1 million in rebates — more than half of the $71.8 million in remaining funds. By Monday, all the money was gone and Transport Canada announced the EV rebate program was “paused.” It shut down the online claims portal for dealers, leaving hundreds without recourse to recoup their money.
https://archive.is/vpwmL#selection-4843.0-4853.208
>It's a bit weird Tesla would be so lax with handling the rebates if they knew later-filed rebates might not be fulfilled.
But that's consistent with their behavior? They were lax when it didn't matter, but when they learned the rebate was ending they got their shit together and filed all the backlogged claims. This is basically college assignment procrastination behavior, nothing "weird" about it.