Tesla suing Ontario over nixed rebate
Canadian branch claims unfair treatment because it doesn’t have traditional franchise model
In a recent Notice of Application for Judicial Review, it appears Tesla Motors Canada is suing Ontario’s ministry of transportation for discrimination in its recent cancelling of the (up to) $14,000 rebate offered to purchasers of electric vehicles.
It is asking specifically that the plan — more specifically an “exclusion decision” in the “transition plan” — be quashed.
As has been reported, the newly elected Conservative provincial government cancelled Ontario’s cap-andtrade program in a quest to fulfil Premier Doug Ford’s promise to reduce the price of gasoline by as much as 10 cents a litre, and with it, end “all programs funded out of cap-and-trade carbon tax revenues.” Since the Electric and Hydrogen Vehicle Incentive Program (EHVIP) is funded by cap-and-trade revenue, incentives for the purchase of a new zero-emissions vehicles were cancelled as of July 11.
As a sop to all those who had purchased an EV, the transition plan allowed the incentives to be honoured up to Sept. 10 for vehicles on order from a dealership, but they had to be delivered and registered by that date. Tesla originally received deposits for more than 400,000 Model 3s, many bought by Ontario customers, which made headlines around the world.
The problem, says the application, is the Ontario government sees Tesla Canada as a subsidiary of the company’s manufacturing arm, whereas the company itself contends Tesla Canada is nothing more than a dealership network.
For those not au courante on Tesla business models, it has no franchised dealerships and owns all its outlets, therefore it contends that Model 3s already on the ground should not be excluded from the government’s transition plan.
But, according to Tesla, the MTO specified that “vehicles that have been ordered directly from an original equipment manufacturer” — as the government of Ontario considers Tesla — “but which have not been delivered, registered and plated on or before July 11, 2018 are not eligible for an EHVIP incentive.”
In other words, those Model 3 owners who might have taken delivery between July 11 and Sept. 10 would not have received the same incentive as owners of competitive electric vehicles.
Tesla calls this exclusion “arbitrary and targeted.”