Tesla Vancouver Store Reportedly Took In ~800 Model 3 Orders Last Week
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A Canadian Tesla enthusiast reported on Sunday that he recently sent an email to his Tesla rep in Vancouver to inquire about consumer interest there and the Tesla rep told him the Vancouver store had taken in approximately 800 orders in the past week.
Take note that Vancouver’s parent province of British Columbia has generous incentives for electric car buyers and Canada itself has a hot new point-of-sale subsidy for electric cars (including plug-in hybrids) with a base price under $45,000 (or $55,000 if the vehicle has 7+ seats).
The Canadian subsidy, part of Transport Canada’s iZEV program, is $5,000 for new fully electric vehicles (aka battery electric vehicles), or $2,500–$5,000 for new plug-in hybrids. (Yes, the Tesla Model 3 is eligible for the $5,000 subsidy.)
The New Car Dealers Association of BC also offers a $5,000 subsidy on electric vehicles. Yes, the Model 3 is again eligible.
And there’s one more big cash incentive in the region. “BC SCRAP-IT is a voluntary early retirement vehicle program that provides incentives to help British Columbians replace higher polluting vehicles with cleaner forms of transportation. The program is designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to lower exhaust pollutants across the province. All scrapped vehicles and their components are permanently and properly recycled.
“Incentives for up to $6,000 are available for a new, and $3,000 for a used qualifying electric vehicle.”
Edit/Update: Tesla vehicles are not eligible for the SCRAP-IT incentives.
All in all, if you consider how much of a no-brainer a Tesla Model 3 is in the US and you consider the extra financial incentives in the Vancouver area, the only wonder is why every new car sale in the region isn’t a Tesla Model 3.
The New Car Dealers Association of British Columbia (NCDA) has counted approximately 1,800 EV sales since May 1. If that’s accurate and the ~600/week referenced by the Vancouver Tesla rep can be extrapolated and have been counted as sales, it would seem that the Model 3 was accounting for almost all of the EV sales. However, more likely is that the Tesla orders have mostly not been counted as sales yet. The Tesla Motors Club member I mentioned at the top indicated that it was supposed to take 4–8 weeks to receive a Model 3. The good news is the provincial government is refilling the pot for these subsidies.
“We went through $6.5 million in the fund from May 1 to last Wednesday,” Blair Qualey of NCDA said. “Fortunately, the government was prepared and ready, as we asked them to be, and they topped up another $10 million in the fund last Thursday.”
Also, the past week’s order numbers may be higher than weeks earlier in the month. We’re reaching out to the Tesla Vancouver store to inquire further.
As exciting as all of that is, I think the most interest comment from the EV lover was a comparison of the Model 3 order details and details regarding his order of a LEAF SL E+, an order he also placed recently.
The LEAF SL E+ is expected in January 2020 — an 8 month wait. You might be inclined to think, “Wow, how much demand is there for the new LEAF?” But here’s the kicker: the buyer’s dealership is only allowed to receive 18 LEAFs per month. 18!
So, yes, it’s a 4–8 week wait for a Model 3 in a place where people are ordering approximately 3,200 a month, and there’s an 8 month wait for a LEAF in which dealer supply is 18 a month. I’ll let you do the math — I’m too disappointed in Nissan to even think about it.
A picture I took of some friends in the Vancouver Tesla store the day I first drove a Tesla Model S.
Interested in buying a Tesla Model 3, Model S, or Model X? Need a referral code to get 5,000 miles of free Supercharging? Use ours by May 27: http://ts.la/tomasz7234 (or use someone else’s if they helped you more).
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