Image: Tesla
Tesla’s first shipment of Model Y vehicles from Gigafactory Berlin has officially arrived in Canada. Over the weekend, several hundred German-built Model Ys were spotted being offloaded at the Dartmouth Autoport in Halifax, Nova Scotia, marking the company’s first direct imports from Europe for Canadian customers.
The sighting was first shared on Reddit by /u/ChampionshipMean628, with reservation holders confirming VINs are now being assigned. This would peg the first deliveries to begin within the next two weeks, likely starting in eastern Canada due to proximity to the port.
Until now, Canadian allocations of the Model Y have come from Tesla’s Fremont factory in California, and for a brief time, Gigafactory Shanghai. However, new tariffs — 100% on Chinese-made EVs and 25% on U.S.-made EVs — have made importing from those factories costly. By sourcing vehicles from Giga Berlin, Tesla avoids these penalties and is able to offer Canadian buyers significantly lower prices.
Back in July, Tesla slashed the price of the Model Y Long Range AWD by $20,000 CAD in Canada, bringing it down to $64,990 — about $5,000 below pre-tariff levels. That sharp drop was made possible by switching to Berlin-built Model Ys for Canada.
Gigafactory Berlin has been ramping up production since opening in 2022. Just last month, the factory celebrated building its 100,000th refreshed Model Y, highlighting how far output has scaled. Berlin also recently kicked off production of the new Model Y Performance, though that variant remains limited to Europe, Australia, and New Zealand for now. In Canada, only the Model Y Long Range is available.
For Tesla, the timing of these shipments is critical. Canadian EV sales have slumped this year, with Tesla registrations down 67% in the first half of 2025. The arrival of lower-cost Model Ys from Germany could help the company claw back lost market share and stabilize demand.
