In yet another middle finger to the Trump administration, lawmakers in the state of California are considering funding its own take on the soon-to-be-eliminated electric vehicle tax credit.
According to those in the know, America’s most populous state may launch a replacement for federal EV tax credits which are scheduled to vanish next month. That’s the program which indirectly lopped $7,500 of the price of a new EV and $4,000 off a used one. A report dated today from the California Air Resources Board cited the recommendation of “point-of-sale rebates, vouchers, or other credits” which could be deployed to juice sales.
This is not a done deal, of course, with talking heads at CARB saying any such program would be “contingent upon available resources” and “scaled to match our resources and policy goals.” That’s a long way of saying it would like to proceed with this plan so long as there’s money in the hopper and a political appetite exists at the state level.
“As federal agencies move backward, we are moving forward with a set of actions to expand clean and zero emission vehicle adoption across all vehicle types,” said Liane Randolph, California Air Resources Board Chair. That’s a quote from CARB made during a call with reporters as described by Automotive News.
None of this is likely to ingratiate these people with the current White House occupants, not that either side seems to care about such minutiae. Those presently running the reality show in DC have long criticized CARB as creating regulations which limit consumer choice and harm the domestic auto industry. But given the fact that companies like General Motors say they’ve lost over a billion dollars in a single quarter due to new tariff taxes, we’d argue DC is doing a fine job of harming the domestic auto industry all on its own.
As for California’s musings about picking up the slack on EV incentives, it seems the state might be taking a cue from the Great White North. When that country had money on the table for EV purchases, it had caps on vehicle MSRPs and other qualifiers. Should Cali’s plan come to pass, expect something similar in the fine print.
Images: [Elena Berd / Shutterstock.com]
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