Canada has eliminated its 100% tariff on Chinese-made electric vehicles, allowing up to 49,000 units annually to enter at a 6.1% levy, with that quota set to rise to 70,000 within five years. Tesla began shipping vehicles from its Shanghai factory to Vancouver in early 2023, driving a 460% surge in Chinese imports to the British Columbia port. The company operates 39 retail locations and service centres across Canada and already produces a lower-cost Model 3 variant in China that comfortably exceeds the C$35,000 price threshold for quota allocation. Tesla’s early market entry and the recent development of a Canada-specific Model Y have positioned it to adjust pricing and logistics more rapidly than potential new entrants, giving it a clear first-mover advantage over Chinese competitors that have yet to establish local sales networks.

On January 17, Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk announced that the design of Tesla’s next-generation AI5 training chip is nearly complete, clearing the way to restart work on the Dojo3 supercomputer. The AI5 architecture is expected to deliver a 3× performance improvement over its predecessor and is slated for validation testing in the second half of 2026. Dojo3’s planned peak training capacity of 50 exaflops—up from 10 exaflops on the current system—will underpin advanced full-self-driving development and Tesla’s Optimus robotics program. The decision to reopen Dojo3 follows extensive internal simulations and lays out a road map toward an eventual AI6 cycle, reinforcing Tesla’s strategy to vertically integrate chip design and supercomputing infrastructure.