Looks like Tesla’s profiting off government subsidies has finally hit a wall in Canada.
After Tesla requested reimbursement for an unprecedented 8,669 Canadian EV rebates in just three days, the Canadian government froze Tesla’s rebate payments and paused all future eligibility.
For those keeping score, Tesla claimed to sell 1.5 vehicles per minute, a huge spike that came after the company was alerted that the rebate fund would run out.
That means that $43 million in Tesla rebate payments are frozen and future subsidies paused. Read on for the full story!
If thats what they did How is it fraud?
Companies can own assets, provided they filled out all the correct paperwork, paid the taxes and insurances or whatever Canada does they now “Own” the cars and can do with them as they please. Including sell them. Provided they dont misrepresent the cars as “brand new” and sell them as “used cars” then its not fraud.
Doing it on this scale is dodgy as hell which is why the Govt froze the rebates. But I absolutely beleive Elon would do something like.this to prop up the sales numbers and stock price while forcing the Canadian govt to either make an issue of it (which means he can play victim) or let him get away with it. (Ego boost)
The company already owned the cars, boss :) Tesla the car manufacturer and Tesla the car dealership are both the same company, that single company is publicly traded under the symbol $TSLA.
Here’s the Canadian statute. Notice that the jail terms are vastly longer if the deception influence the stock market in any way. IDK, I’m not a lawyer.
https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-46/section-380.html
Tesla isnt one company, its the parent company. Tesla Canada is a wholly owned subsidiary.
But other than that you raise a fair point. It entirely depends on when the rebate is issued, it depends if its issued on the planned manufacture of the car, the car entering production, when its produced or when its sold. I assumed that when it was first registered for road use with the government with its first owner.
We’re kind of splitting hairs on this given that its hypothetical until we figure out their rort. But if you look up a cars history of ownership, it doesnt show the manufacturer or the dealership. They own a car shaped asset with a hypothetical value, it isnt until money changes hands and the car is registered/taxed by the govt that it has an “owner” and that seemed the most likely point to issue any kind of rebate or incentive to produce EVs because thats the point thats hardest to do sneaky shit like try and scam the government.
Yeah its probably against the rules, but Elon has no respect for rules.