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The company is now selling a Model 3 vehicle with a range of just 150 kilometres, far less than the 386 kilometre range listed for the standard base model. That new ultra-short-range model comes in at $44,999.

But the price-tag contortionism doesn’t stop there. The federal program specifies that vehicles with a base price of less than $45,000 qualify, even if they have add-ons of up to $10,000, bringing the total price of the vehicle to $55,000.

This means that a standard Tesla Model 3 with a retail price of $53,700 will also qualify for the rebate.

The federal government appears to endorse this pricing scheme because the Model 3 is now officially listed among the vehicles that qualify.

John Zhang, an analyst with research firm IDC, said that Tesla is going out of its way to convince customers that they absolutely should not buy the 150 kilometre car.

“The 150 km range is really just a deterrence that Tesla is trying to create in order to minimize the number customers purchasing these 150 km range Model 3s. Because there needs to be a base model that’s under the $45k mark in order for the higher priced variant to qualify for the rebate as well, that’s essentially what Tesla did,” Zhang said.

“Another piece of evidence that Tesla is deterring customers to buy this model is that you can’t order that specific car online. The order needs to be placed either over the phone or at a Tesla store. So essentially, Tesla wants customers to purchase the higher priced Standard Range Plus model, which has a range of 386 km.”