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Danish government accuses Tesla of registering 2,500 Model S’s to circumvent tax increase, but the company denies

The Danish government recently announced the phasing out of tax breaks for electric vehicles starting next year. The new provision would increase the price of all-electric cars significantly, but even more so for luxury vehicles like the Tesla Model S, which could see its price increase by as much as 180%.

As I speculated in a recent piece: “Denmark’s tax increase on electric cars could be a blessing in disguise for Tesla“, potential buyers could rush to secure the purchase of electric vehicles before the end of the tax break, which would create a surge in EV registrations during the last quarter of the year.

Earlier today, tax minister Karsten Lauritzen confirmed that such a surge happened, but he claimed that it could be due to an “illegal bulk purchase” of 2,500 cars from Tesla.Danish paper DR reported the minister’s claim (translated by moofunk):

“I’ve received a message from the tax department, that 2500 luxury cars have been registered, likely from Tesla, and something indicates, this is a circumvention of the law of tax deduction for electric cars.”

Lauritzen says that once registered, the cars could remain in storage in order to be sold next year when the tax increase will be in place, which could lead to a loss in tax revenue of up to 1 billion Danish Kroner ($140 million).

He added that he doesn’t believe this could be the result of individual buyers:

“I can’t say who’s behind this, but I really doubt that 2500 Danes had this idea.”

Tesla representative Esben Pedersen denies the claim that the company would have anything to do with a surge of this magnitude in EV registrations:

“I cannot recognize the numbers provided by the tax minister. We did not register that many cars.”

Pedersen claims 114 Model S’s were registered in Denmark last month, which is in line with the 113 registrations we reported for October. He added that since the October 9th announcement of the end of the tax break, the company sold 144 cars in the country, which is an increase over last year, but not even close to what the minister is suggesting.

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Comments

  1. Sebastian - 8 years ago

    Well, I’m impressed, Tesla. Keep up the good work!

  2. Bob - 8 years ago

    And the tax-minister had to appologize this morning.

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Avatar for Fred Lambert Fred Lambert

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