Immediately after the federal government announced it was winding down the EV rebate program in January, a single Tesla dealership in Quebec City claimed nearly $20 million in public subsidies by saying it sold more than 4,000 electric vehicles over a single weekend, the Star has learned.
Records released by Transport Canada show a dramatic spike in sales in the 72 hours after the government announced the funding for EV rebates was about to run out.
Four Tesla dealerships stand out for their timely salesmanship — two in Toronto, one in Vancouver and one in Quebec City. They went from selling several dozen cars per day to as many as 2,500 electric vehicles on the Saturday before the public funding ran dry, according to the data.
Together, the four Tesla dealerships declared sales of 8,600 EVs and were able to claim more than $43 million in rebates over the weekend of Jan. 10-12 — gobbling up more than half of the $71.8 million in program funding that had been remaining on Friday morning. By Monday, the government informed all dealerships nationwide that its funds had been exhausted and the iZEV rebate program was over.
It’s unclear how these dealerships were able to claim so many rebates in such a short period of time, given the rules of the government program and the logistical difficulties of delivering so many cars to customers so quickly.
Dealerships “must” file a rebate application before the car is delivered to the customer, according to Transport Canada’s website, indicating the surge in claims should not have come from a backlog of paperwork for electric cars that had already been sold.
After being contacted for this story, however, Transport Canada admitted this policy wasn’t being enforced and that some of the rebates during the last weekend were claimed on cars that had previously been sold — though it did not say how many.
Tesla did not respond to a request for comment. The Star could not reach the four Tesla dealerships by phone for comment.
“I am not too surprised to see the surge in sales related to the end of the program,” said Nate Wallace, program manager, clean transportation at Environmental Defence, who called it a “Black Friday” phenomenon.
“People who were on the fence or were planning to wait to potentially buy an EV at a later time will rush to make sure they can take advantage of the rebate before it is gone.”
With this kind of rush in demand, car dealers who sell cars online, such as Tesla, have an advantage over others who primarily place orders in person, he said.
The now-defunct iZEV program provided as much as $5,000 toward the purchase of an EV or plug-in hybrid vehicle with a maximum price of $55,000, a limit that excluded some more expensive Tesla models. Dealerships provided the rebate to buyers upfront and were reimbursed by the government afterward.
The program has been wildly popular, subsidizing more than half a million zero-emission vehicles and helping to drive uptake of EVs from 2.9 per cent of new car sales in 2019 to 15.4 per cent in the final quarter of 2024. Many in the industry thought the program would be re-financed and continued, but as chaos engulfed the federal government in January — with then-finance minister Chrystia Freeland resigning and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announcing he would step down — the iZEV program appears to have fallen through the cracks. Its funding was allowed to run out without any plans announced for its future.
Transport Canada still says the program has been “paused.”
The Friday and Saturday before the money ran out were the two biggest single days for EV rebates since the iZEV program was started in 2019, according to a Star analysis of rebate data.
With 6,144 eligible EVs sold, the Saturday more than tripled the previous record set in December 2024.
While the Tesla dealership in Quebec City topped the list with 2,558 EVs sold that day, the second most sales were made at a Tesla dealership on Dundas Avenue West in Etobicoke, which sold 1,709 eligible vehicles. This dealership sold 2,528 EVs over the final weekend of the iZEV program, more than all the rebates it had previously claimed.
The government paid out more than $12.5 million to this dealership for that weekend alone.
Employees at the Etobicoke Tesla dealership declined to comment on the sales figures, but did specify that the iZEV rebate is only applied when a customer picks up their vehicle, not when they purchase it online.
There is a large parking lot surrounding the dealership, but it can accommodate fewer than 200 vehicles, according to a count of parking spaces in an aerial view on Google Maps — making it hard to picture how more than 1,700 vehicles could have been delivered to customers on a single day.
Asked about the surge in rebate claims, Transport Canada said dealerships need to submit an eligibility assessment before the vehicle is delivered to the customer to ensure “the vehicle and purchasers are eligible, and funds are still available,” but that there is no rule to prevent them from submitting the paperwork after the car is delivered.
“Between Jan. 10 and Jan. 12, the iZEV Program received claims for vehicles that had already been delivered or were about to be delivered,” wrote spokesperson Flavio Nienow in an email.
Transport Canada did not answer a question about the discrepancy between the language on Transport Canada’s website and the practice of filing for rebates after an EV has been delivered.
Joanna Kyriazis, director of public affairs at Clean Energy Canada and a longtime observer of the electric vehicle market, said she suspects Transport Canada had been waiting for the government to announce more money to continue the program but when it became clear the fund would run dry, the department rushed out a last-minute warning to dealerships.
“I don’t think Transport Canada wanted to put dealers in this situation. This was a crummy outcome,” she said. “I just wonder if there was a bit of sympathy for the abrupt pause of this program and all of the messiness that the dealers then had to deal with,” she said, speculating that this was why late rebate applications were allowed.
More than 500 dealerships submitted iZEV rebate applications in the 72 hours between the announcement that the program was running out of money and the final cut-off, said Transport Canada spokesperson Sau Sau Liu, who emphasized that there are several layers of checks to prevent fraud and misappropriation.
The government uses “multiple controls to ensure the Program only delivers incentives for eligible transactions and is compliant with its pre-established terms and conditions,” she added.
