Canada’s $5,000 EV incentive starts next month, Tesla officially disqualified

Canada’s newly announced $5,000 incentive for electric vehicles is officially going into effect on May 1st next month and the federal government has released the list of eligible vehicles.

Tesla vehicles are officially ineligible for the incentive.

As we reported last month, the Canadian federal announced a new $5,000 incentive for electric cars with a $45,000 price limit, which virtually excluded Tesla vehicles.

Now the government has released all the details about the incentive:

“To be eligible for incentives, a vehicle must have a base-model manufacturer’s suggested retail price of less than $45,000 for passenger vehicles with six or fewer seats, and less than $55,000 for vehicles with seven or more seats. For eligible vehicles with six or fewer seats, higher priced versions (trims) are eligible as long as the final manufacturer’s suggested retail price is $55,000 or less.”

All the most popular electric vehicles, except for Tesla’s vehicles, are eligible for the incentive.

Even the Chevy Bolt EV, which starts has an MSRP of $46,945 CAD in Canada, is officially eligible for the federal incentive.

The federal government incentive can also be added on top of other provincial incentives.

For example, the Chevy Bolt EV would start at only $34,000 CAD in Quebec, which is the equivalent of ~$25,500 USD.

Tesla Model 3, which is now by far the most popular all-electric vehicle in Canada, starts at $53,700 on the website, but the automaker claims to still be selling the base Model 3 for $47,000 as an off-the-menu item offline.

We contacted Tesla about them possibly working with the government to make Model 3 eligible for the incentive, like the Bolt EV, and we will update if we get an answer.

Here are all the electric vehicles are eligible on the government website: