Tesla Canada has been ordered to reimburse Intact Insurance $161,700 for a Model X that caught fire in Montreal, after a Quebec judge refused to reopen a case the carmaker had allowed to go to default judgment.
Tesla told the court that vehicle fires generally result from vandalism or misuse but offered no evidence for that opinion. Intact’s file contained an expert report blaming an electrical fault in the dashboard, a police finding that the fire was not criminal, and proof the vehicle was still under its factory warranty.
Sacha De Santis was driving his 2020 Model X through Montreal’s Ahuntsic-Cartierville borough at around 1 a.m. on March 5, 2023, with his partner in the passenger seat. Soon after they turned on the heat, smoke started coming into the cabin. They stopped, took their belongings and got out, and within about five minutes the SUV was on fire. It was later declared a total loss.
Montreal police investigated and found no criminal cause. Intact paid De Santis $161,700 and then sued Tesla Canada to recover the payment.
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Intact argued the SUV was still covered by the manufacturer’s warranty. In Canada, the Tesla Basic Vehicle Limited Warranty runs for four years or 80,000 km, whichever comes first, and the fire happened about three years after the vehicle went into service.
An expert report filed with the court placed the origin of the fire on the passenger side of the dashboard and found a premature electrical failure to be the probable cause. On that evidence, the high-voltage battery was not the source.
Tesla did not file a defence in time, and Intact obtained a default judgment in June. Tesla then applied to have the judgment set aside. In support, a Tesla employee told the court that, in their experience, car fires are usually caused by misuse or vandalism.
Justice Ian Demers of the Quebec Superior Court dismissed the application. He found Tesla had not raised a serious defence and said its vandalism-or-misuse theory was not backed by any data.
The decision dealt only with whether to reopen the default judgment. There was no full trial on what caused the fire. Intact declined to comment and said the deadline to appeal had not yet expired. In Quebec civil matters, an appeal generally has to be filed within 30 days of the judgment. Tesla Canada did not respond to requests for comment from Le Journal de Montréal, which first reported the case.
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Quebec sales law helps explain why Tesla leaned on misuse. Under article 1729 of the Civil Code of Québec, when goods bought from a professional seller break down or deteriorate earlier than comparable goods, a defect is presumed to have existed at the time of sale. The courts have read this as a triple presumption covering the defect, its existence before the sale, and its role in causing the failure. A seller can rebut it by showing the buyer used the goods improperly, but has to prove that.
Insurers have relied on the presumption before. In December 2024, Quebec’s Court of Appeal overturned a decision against AIG in a $255,275 subrogation claim over a burned forestry excavator. The appeal court held that the burden was on the manufacturer and seller to prove improper use, not on the insurer and buyer to prove what caused the fire.
Reports on the Tesla case describe Intact’s claim as warranty-based, and it is not clear whether article 1729 was argued. Article 2474 of the Civil Code also gives an insurer that pays a claim the insured’s rights against whoever caused the loss.
Tesla publishes its own fire figures. According to its Vehicle Fire Safety Report, there was about one Tesla vehicle fire for every 140 million miles (roughly 225 million km) travelled between 2012 and 2024. National Fire Protection Association and US Department of Transportation data put the rate at one fire per 17 million miles (roughly 27 million km) for all vehicles in the US. Tesla says its total includes fires it did not cause, such as arson and wildfires.
Claims data from the Highway Loss Data Institute shows a similar pattern, with EVs generating 0.19 non-crash fire claims per 1,000 insured vehicle years compared with 0.20 for conventional vehicles.
Canada does not collect EV fire statistics nationally. Montreal’s fire department recorded 71 lithium-ion battery fires in 2024, up from 24 in 2022, though that count covers all battery-powered devices, including e-bikes and household electronics. Aviva Canada has said it is seeing more claims involving lithium-ion batteries, including from EVs.
Averages of this kind were not at issue in the Montreal case. The court was dealing with a single vehicle and an expert report on that vehicle.
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EV fire losses are often total losses, which makes recovery from manufacturers more valuable for insurers. Costs are already reflected in pricing: Canadian EV insurance costs well above gas-powered equivalents, with one marketplace study putting the difference at 36.8%.
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The ruling also comes as Tesla is laying the groundwork for its own insurance offering in Canada.
Intact’s recovery depended on keeping the wreck for inspection, commissioning a cause-and-origin report and establishing that the vehicle was under warranty when it burned.
