12:33 PM EDT, 03/28/2025 (MT Newswires) -- Four Tesla (TSLA)-owned dealerships in Canada are being challenged by federal authorities after reporting sales over three days in January that emptied a government subsidy program for electric vehicles just before it expired, according to multiple media reports.

The dealers, two in Toronto and one each in Vancouver and Quebec City, claimed to have sold a combined 8,653 vehicles from Jan. 10 to Jan. 12, Transport Canada reports obtained by the Toronto Star show.

That's an around-the-clock average about two sales per minute and qualified the dealers for roughly 43 million Canadian dollars ($30 million) in subsidies from the agency, which this week said it was freezing payments pending a line-by-line audit of the sales.

The subsidy program providing up to CA$5,000 to dealers had been scheduled to end in March although the January spike in Tesla sales completely drained its available resource, the reports said.

"An investigation is definitely warranted," a spokesman for the Canadian Automobile Dealers Association told The New York Times. "The level of transactions just does not make common sense."

Tesla did not immediately respond to a request from MT Newswires seeking comment.

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