Featured Toyota Likes EV Incentives

The letter was also signed by GM, Ford, and Stellantis.

 

An automaker likes tax money being funneled to automakers exclusively for luxury vehicles? This is surely newsworthy!

Tell me when any automaker comes out in favor of Germany making trains free or Switzerland mandating rail connections for freight warehouses, now that would be praiseworthy.

 

it's better than nothing, and many here have taken advantage of it. i got $1,500. when buying my first plug in, and it was part of my decision process.

 

Assuming the purpose of the EV tax credit was to encourage adoption of EVs, I think they've served they're purpose and should be allowed to sunset. I'm not saying we're done but given current fuel prices, I see no need to continue to incentivize EV adoption.

I just don't think someone that can afford a $60k+ Tesla should get a tax credit. Yes, call me a hypocrite. Every US tax payer helped pay for my Prius Plug in to the tune of $2500 in 2012.

Here's an easy way to increase EV buyers. Increase gasoline tax to fund public transportation infrastructure. Done.

 

I agree that would be a better way to do it.
Congress won’t though, the political will just isn’t there.
We also are running out of time to lower emissions. As such, I would suggest leaving the federal EV rebate in place (perhaps with a cap of $75,000 or so) until a carbon fee & dividend is put in place.

 

Surprising to me that Toyota is signing on...but I guess we should say Toyota USA is signing on, which is less impressive.
Toyota Japan I think favors hybrids, but USA policy is essentially anti-hybrid/pro-EV, so I can possibly see where Toyota USA is coming from...they lost the politics battle for hybrids in USA, so they feel they can compete in the EV space.

I think it's a mistake to force everyone in USA to EV's, there is not enough Lithium, Copper, etc etc to have all Americans on EV's. Believe energy starved countries (EU) needs to look more like Japan with diversified solutions, as opposed to political winners and losers, which may turn out to be scientific mistakes in terms of available earth resources.

 

Absolutely. Look at all the dealer gouging and tesla (don't have dealers to gouge) price increases. It is going to take 3 years to build the manufacturing facilites to make all the plug-ins (phevs and bevs) that the market is asking companies to make.

The incentives were needed to get companies to produce enough vehicles to see demand. This greatly lowered battery prices. The teslas are what people want to buy. And allowed them to invest in factories and drive down battery costs that all car manufacturers are benefiting from now.

If you didn't notice the infrastructure bill that passed last year greatly funded public transportation. It wasn't going to pass the senate with a gas tax increase. Individual states can raise gas taxes but many are adding taxes to plug-ins instead. California raised gas taxes and indirect gasoline costs. The public transport still is not doing well. They used some of the money for hydrogen, most went to other departments and the general fund. They still have ev incentives on top of the federal government. I can't see how that makes much sense. Texas has ev incentives for everyone but tesla since the dealer lobby in the state is so strong.

 

and right now politicians are temporarily eliminating gas taxes, or trying to.

they almost always do the wrong thing, but votes are more important than progress

 

if you look at the percentage of plugs ins on the road, you'll find you have nothing to worry about.

who can afford a tesla? some states already have income limits

 

So far? I believe about 500k Americans and about 1 Million worldwide (and growing).

 

my point is that the incentives should be based on income, not on brand or price, if any restrictions are required at all.
personally, i used to think income or price restrictions should be applied (and horsepower), but was convinced otherwise by someone here that for now, it is more important that we get more ev's on the road.
but i think the perspective in cali is skewed compared to the other 49 states.

 

Perhaps. I do believe an income limit is preferable over a vehicle price limit.
I also believe that, when trying to help a new tech get a foothold in the market, there should be no such limits.
However, I think we are beyond that point when it comes to EVs, so some limits are reasonable.

I also believe that helping lower income people get into electric cars is more important than preventing high income people from getting subsidies. Doing both is also good, but if you are only going to do one, help the lower income folks.

 

An expensive EV will soon become an affordable used EV. Getting more EVs on the road means more used ones available. It also grows the manufacturing base, which is needed for affordable new EVs to come to market.

The federal incentive should never have had a number sold cap. That just encouraged fence sitting. It should be extended or ended for all. Where demand is at, I'm leaning end it. Unless it is geared to helping lower income buyers.

 

it should have been total sold, regardless of mfg.

used ev's for poor people, i'd want a system in place for quality and repair.

 

I'll bet that in the late 1800s when Edison wanted to sell light bulbs to every home some wise man said that there wasn't enough copper wire to connect every home to this thingie you call the grid.

Mike

 

I agree with this.

But...

This is a populist opinion but I doubt it would do much to accomplish what I think is the primary goal -- build up the technology and the supply chain that feeds it and to ramp up factories to supply EVs (actually any zero tail pipe emission cars). To date only Tesl has achieved this goal because, without exception, all the legacy car makers SAT ON THEIR HANDS once Tesla released the Model S 10 YEARS ago.
None of them (except maybe VW) has any significant capability to produce ZEV, in models customers want, in volume and service them and allow them to charge on long trips. The VW exception only happened because of the diesel scandal IMO.

Tesla launched all this because of their strategy of starting at high prices and then lowering them while still making enough of an actual profit on each car that they could use this money to build more factories. You don't do this by making new cars for low income people. Low income people don't spend enough, in total, on new cars to fund new factories.

Mike

 

You're correct. I wasn't clear about the low income incentive comment. I meant that should be the aim of any plug in incentives going forward.

GM squandered their early entry into the market by not building up production, but all the Volts and Bolts they sold did help in driving down battery costs and making advances. Same with most of the others. Tesla's actions alone could not have done this.

VW was working on EVs before. They probably knew the diesel party would eventually end, and China was pushing electrification. Dieselgate forced their hand. It sped up VW's EV timeline, and likely expanded the scope of the plans. The Electrify America fine will help adoption of all EVs.