TL;DR: EV cars & SUVs will face an average 16% effective price increase, with the lowest cost model up more than 28%, if the law passes the Senate and goes into effect as written.
It’s hard to imagine any way this doesn’t throw a huge wrench into the adoption of sustainable car technology for the USA.
Only about 8% of new cars sold last year in the USA were electric, compared to 13% for the EU or 25% for China. Seems like exactly the wrong moment to cut tax incentives for the tech.
This was always my gripe with these credits. They were just a subsidy for car manufacturers and dealers. The consumer didn’t save a penny.
My better half and I were actually discussing exactly this.
I’m shopping for an EV used, and magically, the price is exactly the same for EVs that are eligible for the credit and the ones that aren’t.
The dealerships treat the rebate as basically a manufacturer spiff, I pay the same either way.
So yeah, I agree. Pulling all of them at once might cause some market disruption, though, and legacy autos are already not committed to EV transition, so it will worsen an already problematic tendency, I think.
Which caused the manufacturer to want to sell more and pivot to marketing and manufacturing them more as they had a bit of an extra margin.
It is what was and probably still is needed, tapering off is a better idea but America doesnt accept those.