Want A Big Fat Check With Your EV Purchase? Texas Has You Covered — Huge Rebate Program Starting Up

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If you think that receiving a very substantial (up to $2500) rebate with your electric car purchase sounds very nice, well then, maybe you should move to Texas.

The Lone Star state is set to soon begin the implementation of a new rebate program that will see plug-in electric car owners receive up to $2500 in rebates. Not a bad state-rebate program at all. 🙂

Green Mountain Energy introduces wind power program for charging electric vehicles in Texas

The program — which was given the go-ahead by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality last November — is set to begin sometime in “spring 2014.” So… presumably any time now.

Both EVs and PHEVs will be eligible for the full rebate, the only sticking factor is that the battery needs to exceed 4 kilowatt-hours in size. Other types of vehicles are eligible as well, including “natural-gas powered cars, and bi-fuel vehicles that can run on both natural gas and gasoline.”

Unfortunately, the rebate program is only slated to last until around August 31, 2015 — and rebates are capped at 2,000 each for EVs (+PHEVs) and natural-gas vehicles.


GreenCarReports provides more:

That date hasn’t been finalized, but a Texas Commission on Environmental Quality representative told us the agency hopes to begin accepting applications in the next couple of weeks.

Purchase rebates won’t be the only electric-car incentive in Texas, which — despite its reputation as the land of big pickup trucks and Big Oil — is among the friendliest states to plug-ins. There are already around 5,000 electric cars registered in Texas, and that’s largely due to a comprehensive network of charging stations supported by utility companies.

The state government allows utilities to operate these public charging stations, which the companies view as a potentially lucrative source of revenue.

In addition to the network supported by the utilities, Tesla has a presence in the state as well — currently five Supercharger fast-charging stations are in place, and plans have already been laid for a fair number more.

And in a perhaps more interesting bit of news, it appears that Tesla is planning to begin construction on the first of at least two “Gigafactories” to be constructed for the production of EV lithium-ion batteries. There’s still a real possibility that one of these plants may end up located in Texas — as the state is one of the four currently being considered.


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James Ayre

James Ayre's background is predominantly in geopolitics and history, but he has an obsessive interest in pretty much everything. After an early life spent in the Imperial Free City of Dortmund, James followed the river Ruhr to Cofbuokheim, where he attended the University of Astnide. And where he also briefly considered entering the coal mining business. He currently writes for a living, on a broad variety of subjects, ranging from science, to politics, to military history, to renewable energy.

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