Colorado Now the Best State for Tax Dodgers to Buy EVs

Electric cars take considerable flack from average consumers for being far too expensive in comparison to gas-powered competitors — and that’s before you realize it takes years to make that money back in fuel savings. Combine those two points with range anxiety and you’ve summarized the major hangups normal folk have with electric-vehicle ownership today.

The U.S. Federal government offers tax incentives, in the form of income tax rebates, to ease the monetary pain of EV ownership for average buyers. Individual states have joined the rebate incentive bandwagon, too. However, the state of Colorado is changing its tune, and will now gift you an incentive before you even drive off the dealer lot — no tax return required.

While the Federal government already offers a massive $7,500 tax break to EV buyers, that money is a reimbursement and comes after the sale. Colorado’s solution to make the initial purchase easier is a new $5,000 incentive that can be used as at the point of sale.

The new bill, HB1332, passed on the fourth of this month and offers a major improvement to how the states handle tax breaks. This replaces the old method of income tax breaks, which were due to expire in 2022.

The old method used a formula to calculate the girth of your incentive, from zilch all the way to $6,000. With that gone, a subset of Coloradans will lose out on another grand of savings, but the average consumer still saves more.

The new incentive works like this: instead of a complex formula determining what each purchaser receives, the bill creates a flat $5,000 credit. In addition to that, it allows the credit to be assigned to a dealership or finance company, which turns it into a discount that can be taken directly off the sticker price of the car. The total discount available to car buyers in the state of Colorado is $12,500, a total coup for the electric-vehicle market.

While the Leaf looks to be the cheapest option, and comes with free public charging, these discounts apply to every electric car available for sale in the state of Colorado. You can wrangle an amazing deal on anything you desire — as long as what you desire has a battery sending power to an electric motor that drives the wheels.

Where’s my electric Miata already?

[Images: Nissan]