If you want to be one of the first people in Canada to drive off in a Tesla made at Giga Shanghai, then you should be heading over to Tesla’s existing inventory website as there a few Model 3 and Model Y cars now available in select provinces.
Tesla started exporting the made-in-China cars to Canada last month after launching the new rebate-eligible Model Y RWD. Although Tesla never officially announced it, we were able to confirm the new variant features lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries, giving the electric SUV a range of 394km (245 miles) and a 0-100km/h time of 6.9 seconds, all for the price of $59,990, before the $5,000 federal incentive and any additional provincial-level incentives. Soon after we saw evidence at a port in Shanghai that Tesla was also exporting Model 3 cars to Canada.
While we have yet to hear of any made-in-China deliveries in Canada, Tesla’s existing inventory website shows there are a handful of units that are “ready for delivery” in British Columbia, Ontario, and Quebec. If there was any doubt as to the vehicle’s origins, you can look at the URL and see the first three letters of the VIN start with LRW, the same letters assigned to vehicles built at Giga Shanghai.
According to a review of the website by Drive Tesla, here is how many Model Y RWD are available in each province at the time of publication.
- BC – 2
- Ontario – 3
- Quebec – 2
The Model Y RWDs are available in black and red with only 19″ Gemini wheels, and only the black interior as those are still the only only options to pick on the Design Studio when building a new car to order.
As we reported yesterday, Tesla is already sending a second shipment of cars from China to Canada. The cargo ship Viking Sea left Shanghai on Sunday and is scheduled to arrive in Vancouver on June 13. We expect this shipment to also include the Model Y Performance after Tesla quietly updated the range of the performance SUV last month to indicate it too was going to be exported from China to Canada.