More Cash Could Be on the Way for California Electric Car Buyers

Steph Willems
by Steph Willems

Just as one incentive prepares to fade away, another green vehicle bonus looms on the horizon. California is considering upping the amount of cash buyers of electric vehicles stand to gain from their state government at purchase time — boosting the subsidy from today’s $2,500 to $4,500.

The potential change comes after Tesla reached the 200,000 limit for the full federal EV tax credit in July, with General Motors and Nissan trailing not far behind.

The boosted incentive is just one issue California lawmakers and regulators plan to discuss in hearings this week, Bloomberg reports. Much of the discussion will surely concern the state’s continued ability to set its own clean vehicle and emission mandates — a situation the Trump administration would like to see changed.

Currently, the California Air Resources Board’s Clean Vehicle Rebate Project (CVRP) offers buyers of battery-electric vehicles a $2,500 incentive, which can be combined with the $7,500 federal tax credit. Buyers of hydrogen fuel cells see $5,000 under this state program, while plug-in hybrid owners gain $1,500. Since the program’s inception in 2010, California has handed out over $572 million in incentives. Roughly 75 percent of eligible buyers tapped into this MSRP-reducing fund during the first five years.

As the federal government hasn’t renewed the Obama-era federal tax credit program, Tesla buyers stand to see their federal incentive halved starting on New Year’s Day, then halved again on July 1, 2019, before disappearing at the end of the year. GM and Nissan, makers of the Chevrolet Bolt and Nissan Leaf, should come up against the 200,000-vehicle threshold within a year. Obviously, losing an incentive could lead to fewer people getting into PHEVs or EVs. California doesn’t want that.

Funding for the existing state incentive program comes from California’s cap-and-trade program, but the additional $2,000 per vehicle, if approved, wouldn’t. That cash would come from the Low Carbon Fuel Standard, also overseen by CARB. Under that program, simply put, petroleum-based fuel providers that can’t meet the state fuel carbon standard buy credits from cleaner companies to offset carbon emissions. New revenue is available from this source, Bloomberg reports.

Because it’s coming from a different source, the money might reach buyers at the point of sale, rather than after the purchase. It’s not a done deal yet, however. We’ll update you later this week on whatever California decides.

[Image: General Motors]

Steph Willems
Steph Willems

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  • Redapple Redapple on Sep 26, 2018

    Minimize your footprint. Double GAS taxes. All cars on the road will drive less. 54 MPG Fed Standards will take a decade+ to make a small impact. BroDozers disappear. Yeah!

    • See 3 previous
    • MoparRocker74 MoparRocker74 on Sep 26, 2018

      This kind of fascist crap is why everyone hates greenies so much. Who are you to tell others what theyre supposed to drive, or that our buying habits should be 'modified'? Go live in some 4th world commie/socialist hellhole if that's what you want...there are PLENTY of those.

  • MoparRocker74 MoparRocker74 on Sep 26, 2018

    Nice work, idiots! Doubling down on trying to bribe people into driving horrible ugly weenie pods they don't want! FAIL!!!

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
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