Depending on who you talked to, the looming removal of the $7,500 federal tax credit for electric vehicles was either no big deal, or akin to the firebombing of Mother Earth. Much disagreement existed even among the ranks of environmentalists and EV proponents.
Well, worry no more, EV fans. You too, automakers.
The GOP’s revised tax bill, released late Friday, does not do away with the EV tax credit. The public will continue footing part of the bill for every Tesla Model 3, Chevrolet Bolt, etc, for the foreseeable future. At least until an automaker reaches its 200,000-vehicle cap.
In the wrestling match that ensued over the proposed elimination, it looks like the Senate pinned the House.
It was House Republicans who initially proposed cancelling the credit as part of a broad range of tax reforms. Nuh uh, said the Senate in its own tax reform bill. Like many EV proponents, as well as a coalition of automakers, senators felt the elimination of the EV tax credit would cut a fledgling technology off at the knees.
With electric vehicles still not in the mainstream, losing the incentive could have crippled sales of EVs and negatively impacted the automakers — domestic and foreign — currently building (or planning to build) EVs in the United States. Limited range, a lack of fleshed-out charging infrastructure, and a higher sticker price remain chief concerns for buyers. Prices are falling as battery technology advances, but it’s a slow ramp-up.
Under a law passed by President Obama, EV buyers are eligible for a $7,500 federal tax credit (in addition to state or local incentives) until that particular automaker builds 200,000 of them. New buyers can receive the credit for three months after the automaker reaches the cap, after which the credit is halved, then halved again, then eliminated. Tesla and Nissan, having sold the highest number of EVs in the U.S., are furthest down the road to elimination.
Sales of battery electric vehicles rose 24.3 percent in November, pushing the segment’s take rate to 0.61 percent of the market. Over the calendar year, the EV take rate is 0.58 percent. Small potatoes in the grand scheme of things, but higher than 2016’s 0.45-percent take rate.
Sales of plug-in hybrids, which are not eligible for the full tax credit, rose 2.5 percent in November. The take rate last month was identical to that of EVs. Put together, the amount of vehicles sold with a charging plug in November stands at 1.22 percent of the U.S. market.
[Source: Reuters] [Image: General Motors]
It is shockingly hard to ween people off the government teat.
“The public will continue footing part of the bill for every Tesla Model 3, Chevrolet Bolt, etc, for the foreseeable future.”
Please explain exactly how the public footing the bill by allowing car buyers to keep more of their own hard earned money?
Someone has to pay for those cars. Better it be the people who drive them.
These charlatans were elected to roll back the Obama regime’s fascism. They’ll be gone soon, and the pedophile party will retake the reigns of government. What a pathetic country it is when Roy Moore can be taken out by people claiming he is guilty of their driving passion. Watch and see as the accusers crawl back under their rocks and Alabama’s electorate can never again rise above the tyranny of illegal alien, refugee, leech, imaginary and dead voters. It’s already happened in Virginia.
Your comments are either ignorant, imagined, or sarcastic. Hard to tell.
Maybe you can convince yourself my comments are any of those things, but it won’t help you or anyone else that doesn’t have armed security while the country crumbles.
Todd,
You need to do two things stat.
1. Take your meds now!
2. Turn off Fox news.
You should feel better in a few hours after doing this.
Well, he’s right about the country crumbling, but that’s happening because of the petulant child in charge and the alt right that is trying to take over the GOP. The shooting down of The Child Toucher should help slow that down – I hope.
I suppose believing the allegations of paid progressives isn’t that much to swallow for someone who still thinks socialism can work. That you believe there’s any difference between Fox News and the bunch of imbeciles who are currently getting caught creating fake news every other day says it all. How much Diet Coke does the President drink? Dead brains want to know!
I don’t know . Is the tax credit ‘refundable’ to the buyer if the buyer has no tax liability otherwise?
Why is it only EV buyers are considered “special” enough to be allowed to keep more of their own money?
It’s not just the EV owners who get to keep more of their money. Golf course owners and private jet owners will get to keep lots more of their money, too.
And folks in high tax states like me get screwed. Any Republican from states like mine should be voted out of office in the midterms. I hope the Dems don’t blow it, but a sweep and a restoration in the balance of power would do this country good. Imagine passing legislation that has support from all the moderates in both parties…hell our country might actually function like it was supposed to!
“And folks in high tax states like me get screwed. Any Republican from states like mine should be voted out of office in the midterms.”
So your state votes for higher taxes than less brain-washed electorates, but you don’t want to pay higher taxes than less subservient states? Here’s a thought: get rid of all the Democrats who raised your taxes, or pay for your inability to stand on your own two feet. Thanks for the glimpse into the Democrat-manipulated mind. It was just the laugh I needed.
clutch…
i think the implication is all of those are/can be rolled into one person.
that’s always the issue here. the expensive are owned by the richer.
am always hoping the tax laws will one day just be a flat tax and stop all this dummyriggin of the code.
ToddAtlas – while I don’t know what state you live in, I’ll bet my state contributes more to the economy by far than it gets back from the feds. As for getting rid of the Democrats that “raised your taxes”, we have a look right now what that would look like by watching the petulant child that is trying to do just what you want. And that is no America I want to be part of. Get your head out of Breitbart’s dupa – you might find the air a bit better – that is until your regulatory warriors get finished kissing Big Coal’s corporate butt. I knew the alt right was way short on brainpower but I appreciate the confirmation. No wonder such a dumbass got elected.
Are you in ISIS? Everyone else is better off today because Donald Trump replaced Barrack Hussein Obama in the White House.
Oh I’m sorry. Did mommy forget to remind you what a special snowflake you are?
Kiss it snowflake, I’m tired of supporting your glorified golf carts with my money.
Volvo-
Education on subsidizes here-
http://uca.edu/acre/2016/08/30/how-tax-breaks-and-subsidies-cost-you-and-the-government-money/
Because it is not all car buyers that are getting to keep more of their hard-earned money. Only those purchasing a few products specifically blessed by a gang of violent, psychopathic thugs and control freaks.
Cry me a river, peasant.
because you don’t get to keep more of your money unless you buy something they want you to buy.
they keep that portion of everybody else’s money,…only you get this portion back
“It is shockingly hard to ween people off the government teat.”
Yeah……… ask any billionaire!
@dwford
This particular government teat has always had a built-in phaseout. It’s self-weaning.
“It is shockingly hard to ween people off the government teat.”
It will happen naturally when Government finally collapses under its unsustainable obligations. Saying that as someone who survived that collapse in early 90s. It will not be pretty esp in USA. Super rich will not be affected of course and even may profit immensely from new opportunities.
No, the rich and super-rich will lose big time if/when the federal government goes under. Our currency is longer backed by anything like gold, and our coinage is no longer silver. Even our pennies are copper coated zinc.
Our money is fiat money – it’s good as long as the “full faith and credit” of the government is good. If the government goes under, the paper in your wallet and the ledger wealth in the banks is worthless.
Everybody loses, and there’s no place to go. The US is the engine that drives the world economy, and the dollar is the world currency. Only the very, very few who own physical gold, silver, platinum, or copper will get by.
If the government goes under, the paper in your wallet will be the least of your worries, son. The few who own physical gold, silver, platinum, or copper will get robbed, raped and murdered because the government will no longer be there to protect your panzy ass.
“Under a law passed by President Obama”
President Obama never passed any laws. He signed legislation passed by Congress that made it a law.
well…he had a little bit of executive decisions and sneaky executive appointments.
they have become pretty good at this end around move.
If they could cap the mortgage interest deduction they could certainly have done something about limiting the EV credit. People buying cars that start at $65 thousand neither need nor deserve help from the treasury paying for them.
I agree. It shouldn’t be available to higher income levels or for high-end cars. My original EV credit ended up getting donated to charity. It’s kind of ridiculous that under the new deficit-increase bill, not only will I get the $7,500 credit, but I’ll probably get a fully loaded Porsche Mission E paid via the new tax reductions and nobody gets upset with that. Even worse, probably no credit available for the American Tesla when I buy, but I’ll get it for an imported Porsche.
Of course, the original reason for the credit was to encourage automakers to build electric cars. Automakers at this point have announced well over 120 electric models due out in the next several years. The goal has been acheived, but, of course, it had very little to do with the tax credit. It was due to the reduction of the cost of lithium batteries – Tesla’s first Model s had a $45,000
batery pack. It would cost less than $10,000 today.
Elon Musk desperately wanted to kill the tax credit extension. Its extension
is a very bad deal for Tesla – they will reach 200,000 units early next year,
and then the phaseout begins for them, completing before the end of 2018. It’s also not too good for GM or Nissan either,as those automakers will reach
their 200,000 limit sometime next year. All three will have to compete against the 100 plus electric models comeing ot showrooms, each of which will sport a $7500 (or $3750) price advantage against cars which have lost their tax credit.
He who lives by the Federal handout, dies by the Federal handout. Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy than blowhard Elon Musk, or his obnoxious customers.
Worth it to drill in ANWR.
But an electric car subsidy is corporate welfare for well heeled consumers. But it’s a token pawn for such a huge tax reform package.
There isn’t much talk about Detroit’s complete reliance on pickups with beds over six feet in length being eligible for the full section 179 deduction. Ever wonder why there are sixty to a hundred thousand dollar pickup trucks?
http://www.section179.org/section_179_vehicle_deductions.html
Whatever the government claims they’re doing for the environment through subsidizing rich people’s third car purchases they’re undoing through subsidizing rich people’s second car purchases. We still need a flat tax. All of these subsidies are only for the wealthy, whether they be car company executives made successful selling stuff the market wouldn’t buy with its own money, or people with accountants who figure out how their LLCs can protect them from taxes as well as tortes.
MCS:
‘
You apparently vote against your economic interests out of generosity of spirit. “Atlas”, like
several million other paranoids, votes against his economic interests because of his fixation with capacity magazine firearms. If something happens, count on him to be “ready.”
It’s in my economic interest to keep what I earn and have the freedom to pursue the career path I desire. It’s in my spiritual interest to not outsource my charity while being nobody else’s responsibility. Your love of socialism stems from believing every lie and denying every truth. Robin Hood never stole from the rich and gave to the poor. He stole from the tax collector and returned the money to its owners. Jesus never said to hold a gun to someone’s head and make him give his products to someone who voted for the theft.
It’s in your interest to obey the law, peasant. Now get your snowflake ass back to work and pay your taxes… or else.
MCS:
You apparently vote against your economic interests out of generosity of spirit. “Atlas”, like
several million other paranoids, votes against his economic interests because of his fixation with high capacity magazine firearms. If something happens, count on him to be “ready.”
Whatever Republicans do it will be considered as the end of the world as we know it. Scary stuff.
all of a sudden debts don’t matter. neither does carving away and medicare and medicaid. just throw 1500 dollars at people to loo the other way.
Quote”Sales of plug-in hybrids, which are not eligible for the full tax credit, rose 2.5 percent in November”
Plug in hybrids care eligible for the tax credit. The amount of the credit is a function of the battery size
The tax rebate is wrong for a variety of reasons but I find it especially appalling that they failed to cap the price of the vehicles eligible for it.
Can Democrats and Republicans at least agree to the following:
1. The only way to get any real environmental benefit from EV’s is to sell mainstream models that sell by the millions. It makes scarcely little environmental impact to subsidize 80-140k+ cars as the market for those cars is a tiny percentage of the overall market.
2. The wealthy don’t need a 7500$ rebate on their taxes and it may not factor into their decision to buy a trendy electric car. People that can afford to spend 80-140k on a vehicle will probably buy it regardless of the 7500$ tax rebate. At the margins there might be a few stretch buyers depending upon the rebate, but, again, what does a few marginal buyers in a 16 million annual auto market have to do with the environment?
At a minimum, we should all be able to agree that any tax rebate should be available for cars that cost less than 50k.
And I want to emphasize that I am not in favor of the electric vehicle rebate, I am simply trying to establish that we should all be able to agree that the current rebate is wrongly structured and should be changed.
“Can Democrats and Republicans at least agree to the following:”
No they can’t. Because if some people should get a tax rebate, they all should. And it’s arguable that you need to incentivize the “rich” to buy EVs because they started off so expensive in the first place.
And frankly, the expensive cars with the big engines pollute proportinately more than the smaller cars that burn less gas. It could be argued that it’s of greater benefit to get those people (and truck drivers) into EVs, because not only do their cars burn more fuel in general, but they’re incentivized to spend more time in them and drive more since they’re such nice places to spend time in.
So the tax payers must provide incentives to the wealthy in order to reduce the environmental impacts of their prolifigate wealth?
The wealthy earned their prolifigate wealth (well, some of them did anyway). They have the right to spend it as they choose, just as us poor schlubs have the right to spend our money as we choose. You can incentive them the same way you can incentivie us unwashed masses: greed. Why? Because it works. You want to just kind of force them at gunpoint to do what you want instead? That would be the dictatorship of the proletariat. That generally doesn’t work out well for the proletariat.
So much for moderation.
What were you expecting?