A Quebec judge ordered Tesla to repay C$161,700 after a Model X burned

Tesla Canada must reimburse the insurer Intact C$161,700 for a 2020 Model X that burned to a shell in Montreal in March 2023, after Quebec Superior Court Justice Ian Demers refused to reopen a default judgment against the company. Tesla had argued that car fires are usually the product of misuse or vandalism, and the judge found it offered nothing to back that up.

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The ruling decides a procedural question, not the cause of the fire, but the reasons Demers gave for rejecting Tesla’s request are blunt enough that the case drew coverage across Canada this week.

A fire that took about five minutes

As Electrek reported on Oct. 12, the fire began around 1 a.m. on March 5, 2023, in the Ahuntsic-Cartierville borough. Driver Sacha De Santis and his girlfriend were in the SUV when smoke filled the cabin shortly after they turned on the heat. They stopped and got out, and within about five minutes the vehicle was gone. Montreal police concluded the fire was not criminal.

Intact, which insured the car, paid De Santis C$161,700 and then sued Tesla Canada to recover the money. Insurance Business reports that the SUV was declared a total loss.

According to Insurance Business’ account of the decision, Intact’s expert report placed the origin of the fire on the passenger side of the dashboard and called a premature electrical failure the probable cause. The report ruled out the high-voltage battery. The fire came about three years into the car’s service life, inside the four years or 80,000 kilometres of coverage that Tesla lists as the basic limited warranty for the Model X in Canada, which is the basis for Intact’s claim that the defect was Tesla’s responsibility.

How a default judgment turned into a vandalism argument

Tesla Canada did not file a defense in time, and Intact obtained a default judgment in June. The company then asked the court to set it aside, and in that request a Tesla employee stated that car fires are generally caused by misuse or vandalism. Tesla did not file a competing expert report or supporting data, which is where the request fell apart.

Demers wrote that Tesla had not raised “the slightest serious” defense, and Electrek’s translation of his reasons says the vandalism or misuse claim was made “without relying on any data whatsoever.” The only expert evidence before the court was Intact’s. The judge was not asked to decide who was right about the fire, only whether Tesla had earned a second chance to argue the case, and the answer was no because the defense it described was an assertion rather than a case. That distinction matters for anyone reading the dollar figures: the order stands on Tesla’s failure to respond in time and to produce anything beyond a statement from an employee.

The decision was reported in Quebec press before it reached Electrek: CTV News Montreal published its own story on Oct. 13, and Le Journal de Montréal had first reported the case. Tesla Canada did not respond to Le Journal’s requests for comment, according to the account in Insurance Business, and Intact declined to comment and said its appeal deadline had not yet passed.

What Tesla’s own fire statistics say

Tesla’s public numbers on fires are the context Electrek supplies. The company’s Vehicle Fire Safety Report says one Tesla vehicle fire occurred for every 140 million vehicle miles traveled from 2012 through 2024, against about one fire per 17 million miles for the average American vehicle, citing the National Fire Protection Association and the Department of Transportation. Tesla notes its count includes fires from outside causes such as structure fires, wildfires and arson, and that the two data sets are not directly comparable.

Electrek’s own reading is that the trend has moved the wrong way: the current figure is worse than the 2019 one, though still better than the gasoline average. In 2019, Tesla reported one fire for every 170 million miles, and Electrek’s coverage of that report called the data promising but not perfect, while noting that outside causes such as arson made up about 15 percent of the fires in that period.

None of that says anything about this particular Model X. Electrek’s author argues one fire does not make the vehicle unsafe and that electric cars burn far less often than gasoline ones, but he faults Tesla for leaning on a default and an employee’s assertion rather than evidence. The window for appeal is open, so the C$161,700 order could still be contested, and a full trial on what caused the fire has not taken place. Until a court hears evidence on both sides, the expert report’s finding of a probable premature electrical failure remains an allegation tested only by default, and Tesla’s vandalism theory remains an unsupported claim.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.

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