Brisk electric vehicle (EV) sales combined with a pandemic has unfortunately resulted in the perfect storm for British Columbia’s EV incentive program.
The province is one of the few in Canada that offers an additional $3,000 provincial rebate through CleanBC’s Go Electric Vehicle Rebate Program. Since its inception, more than $100 million has been provided to EV buyers.
That popularity also means the fund is close to running out of money. And as a result of an unfortunate set of circumstances, will likely run out of money within days and not be topped up any time soon.
UPDATE: In a surprise move, the fund has been topped up tonight, and is now sitting at over $4 million.
According to the CEVforBC website, there is currently a little over $700,000 remaining in the fund. That might sound like a lot, but assuming all the remaining rebates are awarded to fully electric vehicles ($3,000 each), that is only enough for 233 cars.
The fund gets more money through updates to the provincial budget. Due to the pandemic, the traditional February BC Budget update has been delayed until April, meaning we likely won’t know until then if more money will be added.
Applications for the rebate are no longer being automatically accepted. Instead each one has to be submitted manually to ensure there is still money in the fund.
It is unclear at this time if once the account is empty Tesla will allow customers to defer delivery until April. If you do accept delivery without the rebate, you will not be eligible to claim it retroactively if the program is continued in April.
Are you impacted by this unfortunate situation? Let us know in the comments below what you plan to do.
