New bill to remove limit for $7.5k electric vehicle federal tax credit

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Jack said:
Just for the record I don't think any company should benefit from the credit- I don't think it should exist- but since companies do benefit, I'm glad theirs a fair limit for the incentive across all companies. I still believe Tesla would have made EVs cool without tax benefits. Natural growth is often slower, but it's naturally fair.
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Without tax credits including CARB ZEV credits which Tesla sells to other auto makers, Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning probably wouldn't have even tried to start up Tesla, and if they had, it probably would have failed shortly after putting the Roadster into production, due to expenses far exceeding income.

The road to selling EVs in the U.S. or Europe, for a startup company, is a hard and rocky one. The new car market is highly competitive. Just look at CODA and Th!nk, for example. The latter went bankrupt no less than four times before investors gave up on the company!

And let's not forget that in the U.S., EVs have a very unfair disadvantage in competing with gasmobiles, since massive amounts of U.S. taxpayer dollars go to using the U.S. military to support a falsely cheap price at the pump for gasoline. As I've said many times, if it wasn't for the trillions of dollars which go to support Big Oil's supply lines, and support the Arab countries which sell us much of our oil, then the pump price for gasoline would be so high that most of us would already have been driving EVs for decades.

Complaining about the cost of the EV tax credit while ignoring the massive indirect subsidy for Big Oil is like complaining about the molehill being too tall while ignoring the mountain.

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My understanding is two companies have or are about to bust the 200,000 EV trigger:
The purpose of the incentive was to 'boot start' EV production and sales. It has accomplished that goal so time to "pull up the ladder." Phase out the $7,500 over 2019 and I have no problem. Tesla and GM have already put out enough competition. If the other car makers haven't 'gotten a clue' by now, let competition strike them with a "clue by four."

Bob Wilson
 
Pushmi-Pullyu said:
It never ceases to amaze me when EV advocates argue that Tesla cars should not benefit from the EV tax credit. Just what would be the state of the art of EVs today if Tesla wasn't around? It was Tesla who inspired GM to make the Volt, and inspired Nissan to make the Leaf.

Without Tesla, I think it's safe to say that mass produced EVs would not have been seen for about another five years, and even after that, things would have progressed very slowly. It was Tesla that made EVs "cool", sexy and desirable. Without Tesla, the image of an EV would still be a car which "only tree-huggers could love" like the Prius!

Without Tesla, what would the EV market look like today? It would be the i-MiEV and perhaps a few similar cars, and a few compliance cars from several auto makers. That's all. No Chevy Bolt EV, no Jaguar I-Pace. Perhaps Nissan would eventually have put the Leaf into production, maybe five years later than it did. So the Leaf would perhaps have debuted in 2015 and we'd be up to the equivalent of the 2013 model year by now.

Now, how in the world can any EV advocate claim this would benefit those who are not rich?

And here's another reason that argument is totally wrong-headed: Those in the lower income classes never buy new cars; they only buy used cars. So those expensive new EVs need to have been on the market for at least a few years before they start appearing on the used car market... which is when those who could never afford a Tesla car might be able to start looking at used EVs. Furthermore, the fact that the more expensive EVs get that same tax credit means that their resale value is lower... which again benefits the less wealthy who only buy used cars.

Please, EV lovers, please! We need to put our thinking caps on here, and apply some critical thinking before we start complaining about "rich" people benefiting from the EV tax credit.

The purpose of the tax credit wasn't to benefit the poor or the middle class over the rich. The purpose was to give an incentive to auto makers to start mass producing EVs. The fact that the incentive was set up to use taxpayers as the middleman for "priming the pump" of EV production should not distract us from the actual purpose of that tax credit.

Tesla Motors aka Tesla Inc. is exactly the company which should benefit the most from the tax credit, not benefit the least!
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The error in your thinking from my vantage point is your underlying assumption that Tesla would have failed without the incentives. I think that thinking is erroneous. The overwhelming majority of buyers would still have bought the car without incentives.

Tesla would have been there as would the example they set with or without tax credits.
 
bwilson4web said:
My understanding is two companies have or are about to bust the 200,000 EV trigger:
The purpose of the incentive was to 'boot start' EV production and sales. It has accomplished that goal so time to "pull up the ladder." Phase out the $7,500 over 2019 and I have no problem. Tesla and GM have already put out enough competition. If the other car makers haven't 'gotten a clue' by now, let competition strike them with a "clue by four."

Bob Wilson
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I partially agree with you, once, GM, Nissan,and Tesla phase out, lets just end the tax credit, as EV's can now survive on their own, and uncle scam should re-allocate those funds to EV transit buses, and school buses, government vehicles. Lots of progress can be made on emission reductions in those areas.
 
Subsidies definitely have a place to get new technology up and running. We wouldn't have the internet if it wasn't for the government support. Not quite a subsidy, but definitely not started through free market. Also, the subsidies do help the less well off eventually. Without giving Tesla a boost, there would be virtually no electric car industry, at least in this country.
 
WalksOnDirt said:
No committee has a majority of Democrats on it that I'm aware of. It's set up that way on purpose.
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That's correct. The majority party (GOP at the moment) carries the majority in committees. One more thing of which to be aware when you vote. [emoji16]

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