As in many places around the world, Tesla sales in Canada have been falling for months, an apparent reaction to Elon Musk’s outsize role in the Trump administration and his repeated denigration of Canadian sovereignty.
Yet somehow, four Tesla- owned dealerships reported to the Canadian government that they sold an astonishing 8,653 cars during a single weekend in January — enough to qualify for 43 million Canadian dollars’ (about $30 million) worth of government subsidies under a program just before it expired.
Now the Canadian government wants to know exactly how the electric carmaker managed to move two cars a minute off its lots — a rate that assumes those four dealers had stayed open 24 hours from Jan. 10 to Jan. 12.
Those payments were frozen this month after Mark Carney became Canada’s prime minister and named a new transport minister who ordered officials “to fully examine each claim individually and determine whether all are eligible and valid.” The minister, Chrystia Freeland, said that “no payments will be made until we are confident that the claims are valid.”
The subsidy program has expired, but Ms. Freeland, taking aim at the Trump administration, said that if there was a new one, Teslas would not be eligible “so long as the illegitimate and illegal U.S. tariffs are imposed against Canada.”
Tesla’s gain was a loss for some of its competitors.
The company’s breathtaking flurry of sales claims for some of its dealers in Ontario, British Columbia and Quebec drained funds from the government’s rebate program, bringing it to a close before its scheduled March 31 end date. As a result, the Canadian Automobile Dealers Association estimates, 225 dealers selling other brands were unable to claim about 10 million in Canadian dollars, putting some of them in financial peril.
“When you’re looking at a 43 million dollar hit over a weekend, an investigation is definitely warranted,” said Huw Williams, a spokesman for the dealers’ association. “The level of transactions just does not make common sense.’’
Tesla did not respond to a request for comment. The Toronto Star first reported the sales rush claims, which were posted on a government website that tracks rebate payments.
Under the government plan, which began in 2019, dealers deducted rebates of up to 5,000 Canadian dollars when they sold electric vehicles before reporting the purchase information — including buyers’ names and the vehicles’ identification numbers — to the government for reimbursement.
The torrent of Tesla claims started on Jan. 10 after Transport Canada warned dealers across the country that the program would run out of money before the end of March. By Monday morning, the account was empty and the program was closed.
About 1,000 dealers selling other brands submitted claims over that weekend but Tesla accounted for about 88 percent of the applications.
“How did Tesla magically know to hit that number?” Mr. Williams asked, referring to the draining of the rebate program’s remaining funds.
While some dealers stacked up claims before submitting them to the government, Mr. Williams said, the Tesla surge “doesn’t fit any pattern for Tesla going backwards.”
He also said that it was physically impossible for the four Tesla dealerships to keep thousands of cars on hand.
Mr. Williams said that Ms. Freeland told his group that dealers who missed out after Tesla emptied the fund would ultimately be reimbursed, but that how long that might take was unclear.
Tesla has become a particular source of anger among Canadians since President Trump began imposing tariffs on Canada and calling for Canada to become the 51st state. Annexation has also been championed by Mr. Musk, who holds Canadian citizenship and lived in Canada before moving to the United States.
An online petition calling on the Canadian government to revoke Mr. Musk’s citizenship has drawn hundreds of thousands of signatures.
More than 80 Teslas were vandalized, their tires punctured and their paint scratched at a dealer in Hamilton, Ontario, this month. A Tesla outlet in Montreal was defaced with pink paint. And in Vancouver, organizers of an auto show banned the company over concerns about possible protests and vandalism.
Four Canadian provinces have excluded Tesla from their electric vehicle rebate programs this year.
At least one Tesla competitor has been trying to cash in on the antipathy. Polestar, the Swedish -based, Chinese-controlled EV maker, is offering Canadians a 5,000 Canadian dollar discount if they can prove that they are registered Tesla owners.
