By Liam Sigaud, opinion contributor — 11/27/18 02:00 PM EST
The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the view of The Hill
In 2008, in an effort to coax more Americans into buying “green” vehicles, the federal government instituted the electric vehicle (EV) tax credit.
By law, the EV tax credit begins to phase out – and eventually expires – once a manufacturer has sold 200,000 qualifying electric vehicles. Tesla has already reached this threshold, and General Motors is expected to cross it before the end of 2018. Understandably, these large electric vehicle makers are fighting to maintain this government handout, and some lawmakers have proposed removing the cap on the EV tax credit altogether.
Not only should Congress reject proposals to uncap the EV tax credit, lawmakers would do well to repeal it entirely.
The EV tax credit is anti-competitive and prevents the free market from operating correctly. By favoring certain vehicles through the tax code, the federal government picks winners and losers.
Thanks to the EV tax credit, car buyers can qualify for up to $7,500 in government subsidies when buying an electric vehicle. In 2016, 57,066 individual taxpayers claimed $375 million in EV tax credits. These subsidies overwhelmingly benefit the wealthy. Tesla buyers, for example, had an average household income of $293,200 in 2013. A study in 2015 found that electric Ford Focus buyers had an average household income of $199,000. By contrast, the median household income in the U.S. in 2015 was $56,516.
Overall, the top 20 percent of income earners receive about 90 percent of EV tax credits. Additionally, data from 2014 indicates that over 99 percent of total EV tax credits went to households with an adjusted gross income above $50,000.
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One point in favor of EV and PHEV’s which I never see brought up is the ease of obtaining energy for these vehicles. Any thing that can produce electricity can be used for fuel for them. And, the fuel can be transported fairly easily.
I have been watching https://gridwatch.templar.co.uk/ and downloaded a bunch of data.
The French interconnector runs on the average at 1.5 GW but can go to 2.0 GW. Over an hour, that amounts of 1.5 E6 kwh. The conversion is 36.6 kwh per gallon of gas, so each hour France exports the equivalent of about 40 thousand gallons of gasoline to the UK. That would take at least 4 large tanker trunks to haul, every hour. So, on a daily basis, that would be 96 trucks dispatched across the Channel. They could increase that by 33% just by running the interconnector full blast. Over the course of just one year, that would amount to the equivalent of 47,868 tanker trucks sent across the channel from France. And, they have to come back empty.
I am an amateur. If anybody is interested, they should check my math.
I know a lot of people say that the grid could never handle a lot of plugin in vehicles. Maybe so. But, a PHEV can easily charge overnight on a 120 volt outlet and it is hard to see how that would overload the grid at night in the USA. PHEV’s allow you to plug it in and schedule when the car charges. People could have assigned times to charge their cars to avoid overload, if that were necessary.
In England the power demand drops from 35 to 20 GW at night, so there is plenty of slack at night in the grid. 220 volts are standard in europe, and could charge my car in under 3 hours.
I think a lot of the negative attitude towards electric cars comes from the all EV car with numerous issues with recharging on the go. None of those issue matter to a PHEV.
Anyway, owning a PHEV has really changed my attitude to this technology.
Don’t talk to me about “efficiency” until you’ve added into the calculation how long I have to work to pay for ALL of my road transport.
If I have to own two vehicles, because the EV won’t do everything that I need – whether it is doing long trips or crashing heavy loads, then take that into account.
If it cost extra to purchase and depreciates faster , then that must be accounted for.
Conversion of fuel into motion is not the most important criteria.
I’m also willing to bet that those banging on about efficiency do not apply that criteria to their time…. if they did, they would not be wasting it, posting here.
If I have to own two vehicles, because the EV won’t do everything that I need – whether it is doing long trips or crashing heavy loads, then take that into account.
That rather depends on the individual. Everyone is different and what your automotive needs are and what other peoples automotive needs are can and will be different. The vast majority of car owners aren’t routinely making heavy hauls or taking long distance trips.
for those who routinely commute short distances (say 40 miles tops round trip) and only rarely take long trips or haul heavy loads, it *could* make sense for you to own an EV and rent an ICE for those rare occasions when you want to make a long trip or haul a heavy load (much like people don’t own both a car for their everyday use and a U-haul truck for moving stuff but instead they own a car and rent the U-haul on those rare occasions when they need it to move stuff).
Where as, on the other hand, if you routinely take long trips and/or do a lot of heavy hauling, then an EV doesn’t make sense for you and you should stick with ICE vehicles for ownership.
Do tax payers get to pay to dispose of all those failed batteries too ?
You can only hide the true costs for awhile .