President-elect Donald Trump has a plan to crush President Joe Biden’s electric vehicle plans after he is inaugurated.
One of the first things the president-elect is looking to do is get rid of the $7,500 tax credit for purchasing or leasing certain EV and plug-in hybrid models that was included as part of Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, Fox News reported.
The price of electric vehicles is too high for many customers and the tax credit was a way for some to afford them.
“The EV tax credit was intended to make electric vehicles more affordable for the average consumer and they have,” Scott Kunes, COO for Kunes Auto & RV Group said to Fox News. “We’ve seen EV sales and leases increase significantly as a direct result of the federal tax incentives. Their repeal would once again put those vehicles out of reach for the average consumer.”
Emporia Energy CEO Shawn McLaughlin spoke to Fox Business and said that many customers used the tax credit to purchase the vehicles as a way to do their part for the environment.
“A rollback in government support and incentives for EV adoption will slow the growth of EV sales over the next couple of years by making the current offering of EVs less price competitive,” he said.
But the CEO said that the end of the tax credit would not stop the sale of electric vehicles.
“With improvements in battery technology and manufacturing, the unsubsidized cost of EVs will reach cost parity of ICE vehicles in 2026-2027, which will start attracting the more cost-sensitive buyers, regardless of the federal EV tax credit,” he said.
Kreg Peeler, founder and CEO of EVject, said that the tax credits are not going to matter as vehicles that drive themselves become mainstream.
“Over the next 10 years, it won’t matter what consumers think of EVs,” he said to Fox Business. “It is AVs (autonomous vehicles) that win.”
“As full autonomy rolls out, car buyers will no longer be the drivers. Fleets will become mainstream,” he said. “The majority of travelers will pay for their rides per mile or minute and will not purchase a vehicle of their own.”
In March, during the p[presidential campaign, when President Biden was still the Democrat candidate, he announced new regulations against gasoline-powered vehicles that got the attention of Trump.
The administration finalized regulations for gas-powered vehicles that many critics say would effectively force customers to purchase expensive electric vehicles, Fox News reported.
“Joe Biden’s extreme electric vehicle mandate will force Americans to buy ultra-expensive cars they do not want and cannot afford while destroying the U.S. auto industry in the process,” Karoline Leavitt, a spokesperson for the Trump campaign, said to Fox News. “This radical policy is anti-jobs, anti-consumer and anti-American.”
“It will destroy the livelihoods of countless U.S. autoworkers while sending the U.S. auto industry to China. President Trump will reverse Joe Biden’s extreme electric vehicle mandate on Day One,” she said.
Fox News reported:
Meanwhile, under the regulations unveiled Wednesday, the federal government will enforce the most stringent tailpipe emissions restrictions ever finalized beginning with model year 2027 light-duty and medium-duty vehicles. Those regulations are slated to progressively ramp up through 2032, forcing most new car purchases to be battery electric and plug-in hybrid within that time frame.
In one “low cost” model EPA outlined in the rule, administration officials said automakers would be forced to ensure 56% of light-duty car sales are battery electric and another 13% are hybrid by 2032, meaning nearly 70% of new cars would be zero-emissions or low-emissions by then.
American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers President and CEO Chet Thompson and American Petroleum Institute President and CEO Mike Sommers have asked Congress to step in and block the plan.
“At a time when millions of Americans are struggling with high costs and inflation, the Biden administration has finalized a regulation that will unequivocally eliminate most new gas cars and traditional hybrids from the U.S. market in less than a decade,” the two men said.
“This regulation will make new gas-powered vehicles unavailable or prohibitively expensive for most Americans,” they said. “For them, this wildly unpopular policy is going to feel and function like a ban,” they added.
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