3 Electric Vehicle Tax Credits Now Gone

January 2nd, 2012 by Zachary Shahan

It doesn’t come as much surprise — this Congress has set the record for its anti-environmental efforts — but if you haven’t heard, Congress has let three tax credits for electric vehicles expire… to “save the government” money, presumably (as if keeping us addicted to oil saves us any money). Here’s more:

The End of 2011 Brings the End of Three EV Tax Credits (via Gas 2.0)

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Tags: electric vehicle tax credits, EV tax credits, quickies, tax credits EVs

About the Author

Zachary Shahan spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as the director/chief editor. Otherwise, he's probably enthusiastically fulfilling his duties as the director/editor of Solar Love, EV Obsession, Planetsave, or Bikocity. Zach is recognized globally as a solar energy, electric car, and wind energy expert. If you would like him to speak at a related conference or event, connect with him via social media. You can connect with Zach on any popular social networking site you like. Links to all of his main social media profiles are on ZacharyShahan.com.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Nathan-Scandella/100000532399441 Nathan Scandella

That’s classic Obama-esque thinking right there. Give in to the conservatives, in the hope that such compromise will be met with reasonable reciprocation on their part. Sorry, but that’s not the way the conservative mindset works.

Electric vehicles should stand on their own two legs now? EVs are still brand new. Last year was basically the first year they were available, and this year will be the first year they’re available (nearly) nationwide, like every other car. It’s unrealistic to think that a new technology can stand on its own immediately.

Traditional autos have been around for 100 years, and they still aren’t standing on their own. The government had to bailout a couple of the country’s largest automakers (who were deep in the red even before the 2008 financial crisis), and we provide billions in subsidies for oil companies per year.

If you look at the target demographic for current EVs (upper middle class or up), those people have a (taxpayer) share of the cost of our recent middle east wars equal to about $10k, over the last 10 years. Seeing as how the Afghanistan war, and the satellite wars in Yemen, Pakistan, and Somalia, won’t be ending for years to come, and the after-war health care costs in the next 10 years will approach the direct costs to date (about a trillion dollars) … it’s pretty reasonable to say that the government is subsidizing internal combustion engine vehicles to the tune of about $10k per upper middle class taxpayer per 10 years. 10 years is about the lifetime of a car, so the EV subsidies are in fact pretty darn close to the same size as the subsidies the government provides for any other vehicle.

So, no, I don’t think it’s reasonable to give up on any of the existing EV programs. Given the opportunity, Republicans will kill them all, or whatever their oily overloads tell them to do.