EV Incentives are unfair and needs to be changed!

agreed. unfortunately, government incentives are always limited by budgetary constraint. can the same amount of money be reallocated to make more sense?

 

i like it, i'll pass along to ed markey.

 

Good point. It would have been better to limit it to the first 1,000,000 sold across all manufacturers.

 

No incentive program is perfect.

To me, per manufacturer incentives are better than an across the board incentive.

The first movers still have other advantages of being first.
Experience in producing the new technology leads to price breaks. Yes, some of those advantages are available to the late-comers, but not all.

An across the board quantity limit dissuades late comers, lowering choice and competition.
Yes, the late-comers have less risk, however they have given away market share, name recognition and experience.
They are also entering a market with a lot more competition. They may get a price advantage, but that is about it.

 

Incentives are being given to the highest bribe. That's why CARB has the deck so seriously stacked towards fuel cels. The post below was borrowed with permission from another board:

 

EV incentives are unfair? Yes. Cancel all incentives, level the playing field. D.O. for preferred parking for EV's.

 

Every manufacturer has the same opportunity. Some choose to enter the segment later. Some choose to not play. If Nissan NEEDS a $7500 tax credit to sell cars then they NEED to remove $7500 worth of cost from the finished unit or discontinue the product.

I'm sure if enough registered voters contact the members of the next House & Senate asking for the repeal of tax credits they can get something done.

 

'enough' being the key word. and let's do the same with deductions.

 

Neither Nissan nor GM have reached 100,000 yet. So ending soon will be a few years off still. Then the prices have already dropped since these cars have been released, and we still haven't seen the gen2 pricing yet.

As to competitors getting an unfair advantage when the credits end for Nissan, GM, and Tesla, I don't think they'll see it that way. They'll be looking at it as Nissan, GM, and Tesla have sold so many more than they have, while also establishing a manufacturing and supply network. GM and Nissan didn't just sell 200k cars, they invested in the means to do so. The others still need to do that while hoping Congress doesn't decide to end the program.

Also don't forget the issue of patents. Just because Toyota sold their limit on the Prius, didn't mean they lost their IP edge with hybrids. Some of the late comers for those hybrid credits never got the full benefit before it ended either.

As for dealers jacking up the price before the end of the full credit, don't to business with them, and spread the word about them here and elsewhere. The internet makes it easier for you to find a dealer willing to work with you. If that doesn't work call the manufacturer and tell them why you aren't buying from them. Then support Tesla against the dealer associations.

 

Hmm, I could've sworn that it was the first 200k vehicles per manufacturer, or when there were a cumulative 1 million EV's sold across the board, that the tax credit would be phased out, whichever came first. Or did I read it wrong and it's 200k per manufacturer only?

 

I see no mention of an overall limit of 1,000,000 cars.
http://www.irs.gov/irb/2009-48_IRB/ar09.html

 

First these incentive plans are rarely perfect but the plug-in program does a number of things better than the hybrid program. The DOE learned the hybrid program was mainly a waste of money.

The hybrid program did not fail because it didn't funnel toyota enough money, and that they didn't get their fair share. The problems were many, but it was late, and at a time of rising gas prices and constrained prius production. That meant that at least for the prius, the money simply went to inflate prices which means more dealer money. It definitely didn't make the prius more popular or get toyota to build prii in the US. A worse program cash for clunkers probably did sell more prii, but of course that was not its intent..

In a similar way nissan capping out at $1.5B is not a problem with the program. It may be too high. The purpose of the program is to get car companies to invest and bring these plug-ins to market, and drive battery prices down. Looking at it from an objective point of view it is much more sucessful than the hybrid or cash for clunkers or california zev program to get these cars developed and decrease the cost of batteries and motors.

Yes there is a program cap at 1M cars. That means if things continue the way they have Nissan, GM, Telsa will recieved their maximum subsidy of $1.5Billion. These are the companies that have invested the most. GM with its LG partnership appears to be driving lg batteries down to around $275/kwh. Tesla with its gigafactory and partnership with Panasonic may provide bellow $200/kwh.

This leaves the other big players in terms of current sales ford, toyota, bmw and mercedes to split the last 400,000 units.

In total the program will provide about $7B of which around half will be paid by the end of 2015.

 

I haven't seen dealers "jacking up the price" because a tax credit was/is available. When the Prius was selling for MSRP (or more) demand exceeded supply because people were concerned about "high" gas prices. When I bought the 2006 my dealer did not say one word about the credit.

News of the credit expiring did shift demand especially around the reduction dates. I'll say the same thing happens at the end of every sale or rebate.

Around here Nissan & their dealers are NOT getting anything close to MSRP for a LEAF even though there is a Federal tax credit available and the car is not subject to the state's 7% sales tax and $6 tire tax.

 

Being same is the problem. What's the incentive?

Setting a due-date is quite reasonable. You get the choice, but it should expire for everyone at a set date... rather than going on for years and years.

Lack of encouragement to compete is a big deal. Having set an across-the-board expiration would achieve that.

 

Could you give me a reference to this?
It makes sense, and I like the idea. However I could not find mention of it.