Tesla sends out massive batch of Model 3 invites to Canadian reservation holders

A week after inviting the first Canadian Tesla owners to order the Model 3, Tesla has now sent out an important batch of invitations to non-owners with Model 3 reservations in Canada.

At Electrek alone, we have received close to 100 reports from reservation holders in Canada who received their invitations over the last two days.

That’s 3 times as many reports as we have received for previous batches and therefore, we estimate that Tesla sent out many more invitations.

Tesla recently increased the rate of new Model 3 VIN registrations in March with over 6,000 new VINs over the last few weeks.

As we previously reported, sources told Electrek that Model 3 reservations are strong in Canada – especially in Ontario and Quebec, where buyers will benefit from generous CA$14,000 and CA$8,000 incentives respectively. These incentives don’t wind down this year like they are expected to in the US.

But several reservation holders who received their invitations have also reported waiting for the dual motor all-wheel-drive option or the less-expensive standard battery pack.

Canadian deliveries are expected to start in the next 3 to 7 weeks.

Electrek’s Take

I’ve never gotten more emails, Twitter messages, and other tips than over the last day. I’m sorry if I didn’t get back to you, but there were simply too many for me to reply to all.

Opening the online configurator to a larger batch of reservation holders could be an indicator that Model 3 production is increasing, but it depends on other factors.

An interesting thing to follow will be the rate of Model 3 deliveries in the US as Canadian deliveries start.

Tesla could try to slow down US deliveries to push the point at which they reach the 200,000 US delivery threshold for the federal tax credit phase-out.

If they can delay the 200,000th delivery in the US to the start of a new quarter, U.S. buyers get 3 more months of the full $7,500 tax credit before it steps down to $3750.

CEO Elon Musk already said that the company will try to optimize the federal tax credit for reservation holders and based on our estimate, Tesla should reach the threshold during the second quarter.

It certainly works with the timing of the Model 3 launch in Canada.