--- title: "Tesla’s Being Accused of Something Unbelievably Sketchy in Canada" description: "Over 200 Canadian car dealers are crying foul after Elon Musk's Tesla claimed tens of millions of dollars worth of rebates." date: "2025-03-12" modified: "2025-03-12" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/tesla-sales-numbers-canada" categories: - "Advanced Transport" - "Tesla" tags: - "canada" - "donald trump" - "elon musk" - "tesla" --- # Tesla’s Being Accused of Something Unbelievably Sketchy in Canada ![Over 200 Canadian car dealers are crying foul after Elon Musk's Tesla claimed tens of millions of dollars worth of rebates.]() *\Image: Getty / Futurism\* Over 200 Canadian car dealers are crying foul after Elon Musk's Tesla claimed tens of millions of dollars worth of rebates mere days before the government shut down a subsidy program in January. As the [*Toronto Star* reported]() last week, the dealers are now an estimated $6.91 million out of pocket after having to provide rebates to over 2,000 customers hoping to be reimbursed. The Incentives for Zero-Emission Vehicles (iZEV) Program was launched by the federal government department Transport Canada in 2019, and offered up to roughly $3,500 at the point of sale to Canadian EV and plug-in hybrid buyers. But with the resignation of former prime minister Justin Trudeau, the ensuing political chaos led to Transport Canada informing dealerships on January 10 that the program would run out of money well before its original termination date at the end of March, per the *Star*. (Trudeau's replacement, prime minister Mark Carney, is [expected to renew the program]().) On the program's final weekend, though, a massive surge of claims from just four Tesla outlets in the country raised alarm bells. A single dealership in Quebec City claimed that it had sold more than 4,000 EVs in a single weekend, asking for over $13 million in public subsidies, according to the [newspaper's reporting last week](). As experts have since pointed out, there's a good chance the EV maker heavily fudged the numbers. But it remains to be seen whether Tesla actually broke the law — or abused a system that was ironically designed to drum up some much-needed demand. The four Tesla-run showrooms claimed a total of 8,653 EV sales in just 72 hours and asked for almost $30 million in rebates. "Tesla had a run on the bank," Canadian Automobile Dealers Association spokesperson Huw Williams told the *Star*. "Somehow, Tesla gamed the system. What we can’t figure out is how this could have happened without setting off alarm bells." The number of sales, in particular, appeared extremely suspicious to officials. Many of the showrooms can't physically hold even a fraction of the number of cars they claimed to have sold in less than a day, as the newspaper reports. Sure, the end of the incentive program was expected to result in a spike in the number of sales — but this is far and beyond what anybody expected. One possibility is that the dealerships filed the rebates in massive, backdated batches, which would still raise plenty of eyebrows. "Tesla didn’t sell those cars that weekend," one Transport Canada official told the *Star*. It's worth noting that [Tesla CEO Elon Musk's vitriolic behavior]() and his close chum president Donald Trump's persistent [stigmatizing of Canada]() and his entirely [unprompted trade war targeting the country]() have sent sales plummeting there. According [to the *National Post*](), sales in the country crashed a whopping 70 percent between December 2024 and January 2025. The situation has gotten so desperate for the EV maker that even Trump put on his best performance as a Tesla car salesman this week, by [making a bizarre sales pitch]() alongside Musk in front of the White House. Meanwhile, Canadian transport minister Anita Anand told the *Star* that the situation was "unacceptable" and that she has asked the "department that is responsible for administering this program to provide me with detailed and complete information." It remains unclear whether Tesla broke any laws and we'll likely have to wait for Transport Canada to conclude its investigation before we can draw any conclusions — but given the glaring sales numbers, it's not a stretch to wonder if something dodgy was afoot. The independent dealers affected by the surge are still waiting to be reimbursed, and Tesla hasn't responded to the *Star*'s requests for comment. **More on Tesla:** *[Trump Says It's "Illegal" to Boycott Tesla]()* ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()