Tesla has been removed from participating in this week’s Vancouver International Auto Show over safety concerns, the event’s executive director said Tuesday.
Eric Nicholl said in a statement that the show asked the electric carmaker to withdraw because of a “primary concern” for the safety of workers, attendees and exhibitors.
Nicholl said Tesla was provided “multiple opportunities to voluntarily withdraw.”
“This decision will ensure all attendees can be solely focused on enjoying the many positive elements of the event,” the statement said.
The show at the Vancouver Convention Centre begins Wednesday and will end Sunday.
The automaker’s removal comes after so-called “Tesla Takedown” protests over the weekend, including in Ottawa and Vancouver, that denounced Tesla CEO Elon Musk and his role advising U.S. President Donald Trump, who has infuriated Canadians with talk of making Canada the 51st U.S. state.
About two dozen protesters had gathered outside a Tesla dealership in Surrey, British Columbia, on Sunday, the day after a similar protest in Vancouver, holding signs with messages including “elbows up,” “Elon be-gone” and “democracy dies in apathy.”
Pat McCutcheon, who attended the Surrey protest, said in an interview on Tuesday that the organizers of the auto show did the right thing by removing Tesla.
“Given the temperature of the situation, there are people, unfortunately, out there that are very annoyed with the Tesla situation and the Elon Musk situation,” said McCutcheon.
He said he had heard nothing about any protests at the auto show, but said there was a “fair amount of emotion” surrounding Tesla.
“The last thing you want (for) one of your organizations is for there to be some vandalism or some physical confrontation. So, I think they made the right decision,” he said.
McCutcheon said he is organizing a protest outside a Langley, British Columbia Tesla dealership this weekend.
“Elon Musk is using his extraordinary wealth to basically corrupt democracy and do what he wants to do, and citizens, both in the United States, Canada, globally, need to push back on this,” said McCutcheon.
Last week, British Columbia Hydro banned Tesla products from its electric vehicle rebate program as part of the provincial government’s move to give preference to Canadian goods and exclude U.S. ones from rebates if practical amid the ongoing Canada-U.S. trade war.
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28 Comments
Cephus
"The automaker’s removal comes after so-called “Tesla Takedown” protests over the weekend, including in Ottawa and Vancouver, that denounced Tesla CEO Elon Musk and his role advising U.S. President Donald Trump, who has infuriated Canadians with talk of making Canada the 51st U.S. state."
I always thought Canadians are kind mature people. I bet I was wrong.
dmhondz
finally rich
left is left
Daniel Neagari
wow.. may I be able to reach a new goal of having over 20 negative votes !!!
Jokes aside, weren't most of the now Tesla deffenders, agains EVs just about a year or so ago???
Seawolf
Looks like there are lots of people on JT today who invested in Tesla stocks :-)
Ricky Kaminski13
Idiot activists who were supposed to care about the environment ( and be FOR the increase of electric vehicles remember! ) now going on an intimidation campaign, harassing, damaging, destroying and even burning Teslas to the ground, degrading their beloved environment is such a sick sign of the times and one that our leftist friends will be quite comfortable with. You dogwhistle the musk derangement syndrome and then step back and say yes it’s regrettable but…
This Canadian Auto show kowtowing to the mob also a sorry sign of the times. Reeks of weak spirited expediency. Remember, you can never appease a mob, only encourage them to get worse by backing down to them. From behind their masks of hatred and instincts to destroy they will feel that their efforts have been rewards and even feel enabled to up the stakes. It’s a ripple effect.
Well done Canada. Got it wrong here, again.
chotto_2
What a shame
Next.
virusrex
Kindness and maturity do not make people blindly tolerate extremism and abuse of power.
Blacklabel
Why do I need to tolerate something I don’t agree with?
you don’t. Why would I?
me? I use my vote at the ballot box in a democracy to get what I want.
HopeSpringsEternal
Elon will be very popular once taxpayers start receiving their $DOGE refund checks sometime next year!
FYI, Musk doing a podcast called "The Verdict" with Sen. Ted Cruz and Ben Ferguson, two parts, part 2 airs tonight in Japan. you can easily find part 1 now.
Find out from the source, Elon, himself. He's uncovered some amazing amounts of fraud and waste within the US Govt., due to this digital audit, believes the savings will amount to $1Trillion or more for FY26, staring Oct 1st.
Certainly, some powerful people are none too happy about DOGE, but the wider public supports DOGE's efforts to reduce waste, fraud and abuse of their tax$.
Daniel Neagari
And there lies the difference with a real human being and a extermist (right or left no matter).
it is always "me, my, mine, I", where you should try most of the times to choose the option that benefits "us, you, they"
Jimizo
Hope our patriotic MAGA supporters bought a Tesla or even two. Sales don’t look so rosy.
Many of them claim to be millionaires so no real hit to the bank balance.
Enjoy your EVs. They are cool now.
Blacklabel
so that option involves lighting the Teslas of other people on fire?
Jimizo
That’s disgraceful behaviour but I was told they catch fire anyway by people who didn’t like EVs.
How’s your Tesla running?
Blacklabel
Not really, according to Senator (and ungrateful astronaut) Mark Kelly.
the Tesla he originally bought to virtue signal?
he just sold it, to also virtue signal. Replaced it with gas guzzling SUV.
Daniel Neagari
That is not what I am refferring, but again as you always do, dodge this issue with some other matter.
just like your idol
Cephus
virusrex,
"Kindness and maturity do not make people blindly tolerate extremism and abuse of power."
And where have you been for the last four years where DA's all over US abused their power prosecuting an innocent man? All that was okay because it was a far left government? Hypocrisy at best virusrex
Speed
Hard to imagine a car show without Teslas but Musk did bring this onto himself.
virusrex
Disagreeing is not what should not be tolerated, intolerance is, because it is against the whole contract that tolerance works with. Tolerating people about things where the rights of others are not being infringed is perfectly justified, but abuse of power? that is something that should not be tolerated.
Billions, that he had to retract when found he was lying, and then found again as soon as he hide all the information that could prove he was lying. And an exorbitant number of people accused of fraud, like zero.
What innocent man? making up things is not an argument.
Hypocrisy is to use double standards where someone is innocent no matter what, even when proved guilty, just because you like that person. But then do the opposite when the accusation ends up being baseless (but it is against your political interest to recognize it).
patkim
Well said. Why do we need to tolerate an unelected official in the WH who brings their child into the oval office and disregards any laws put forth in the Constitution, who is not even a natural-born citizen? We don't need to tolerate it, so protesting it is perfectly fine.
Well, what do you call those insurrectionists who violently assaulted Capitol police, destroyed property, stole things from within the building, and terrorized politicians? What's more, what do you call a felon as a president who actually pardoned them and had the gall to call them heroes, even though it was clear as day on television that they instigated all of that madness?
So when Trump lost the last election fair and square, it was okay for him to incite people to march on the Capitol and damage the Capitol, assault police, and steal property?
I agree that setting property on fire should not be done. It is a crime. That being said, I know for a fact that many of these people who were protesting (many of them peacefully) had unfairly lost their jobs because of Musk and his illegal DOGE team. Losing a job is way more demeaning and worse than losing a car.
I have empathy because I can imagine that if I ever lost the job I work at now, which I've been working for over 20 years now, and the decision was made not by my direct employer, but someone who wasn't even duly elected, who doesn't know a thing about the effort I put into it, then you can imagine how angry I would feel. Pretty much any sane person would feel that way.
virusrex
Which podcasts demonstrate the lies that Musk used were not lies after all? it was proved just by following the data the published. Which is why he stopped publishing any data and now just claims things that nobody can confirm.
Which is a very clear example of non sequitur, anger (justified) and threats (not that much) are also a consequence of people abusing their power and acting against the constitution, but he dismiss that because he says he is right, and to prove he is right he shows the anger and threats, circular reasoning is not an argument, it works much better to show a lack of arguments.
Daniel Neagari
@Cephus
As a person that has experience a relatively extreem right govenment and also far left government during my life time.
Biden's term (more over the US Democratic party) is not left at all... if anything is a center right party.
Left parties are such as Ecuador's govenrments during 2002 to 2008, Chilean Bachelet's govenrment (that was mor center left tough). and Venezuela's near 30 years Chavez-Maduro rule.
Canada Tudreau's government and now Carney are more center (may be leaning left).
I think when people talk regarding US politics they are talking in extreems, and moslty the extreemsim is coming from the Republicans... the more you go to one extreem (in this case right) everything looks left... but it is not so. Specially for the US case, there is no real "left party" neither a real communist movement, only a ghost and the "idea of".
Blacklabel
anger that leads to justified (in your mind) violence directed at people and property.
Just admit you support violence and intolerance of those who disagree with. It’s ok, we already know by your comments.
patkim
So who is inciting this violence? You could say that Musk is to blame for inciting this violence. If Musk didn't do a nationwide firing of federal employees, this would not happen. In fact, I can guarantee no one would burn a Tesla or protest against Musk if he just stayed out of politics.
Getting to Trump, he always likes to incite people to do violence on others. I mean just last year, he incited people to hate Haitians, or anyone who looked Haitian, and caused the closure of schools because many were calling in bomb threats. So as a result, children had to suffer due to Trump's actions.
By turning the White House lawn into a Tesla dealership / infomercial, he incited more people to hate Tesla, because people are not stupid. We know that Trump hates EV and clean energy. With one mouth, he promotes Tesla, but with his other mouth, he takes away clean energy initiatives and breaks for buying EV.
plasticmonkey
I for one support the right to demonstrate and boycott. Peacefully.
I do not condone violence, whether that be the burning of Teslas, vandalism and looting in protest against racism, or violently storming the US capitol by those who can't accept an election loss.
My MAGA friends and I are at least in accord (no pun intended) on that.
GuruMick
Hope...Elon is not a " libertarian "
Google the term.
Is he interfering in peoples lives ?
If yes, not a libertarian.
The Tesla is an ugly car anyway.
rainyday
Fragile heart of Putin supporter who cheerleads a violent war of aggression against an entire country weeps at the thought of property damage to EVs.
Details at 11.
GuruMick
Does the "Their country/company/show ...their rules " maxim, so beloved of MAGA, apply here ?