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Comment by paulhart | Hacker News Reader

"affordable" is doing a LOT of work in that first sentence of the article.

I'm surprised they didn't mention the thousands in fed, state, and sometimes local rebates. You can knock a very big chunk of change off the sticker price if you live in an EV friendly location.

https://www.irs.gov/credits-deductions/manufacturers-and-mod...

https://electrek.co/2023/06/30/ev-tax-credit-rebate-states-e...

A lot of people buying $78000 cars (even if $68000 with discounts) don’t qualify for the credits. I know I don’t.

IMHO, the fed restrictions are extremely fair. Anyone that is unable to meet these requirements should not get a $7500 discount.

https://www.irs.gov/credits-deductions/credits-for-new-clean...

The biggest requirement is that you have $7500 in taxes to offset with the credit, afaik it’s not refundable.

That was the old credit. The new credit is just a big rebate check. Many manufacturers just discount the price of the vehicle by this much and pocket the check. It will begin January 1st 2024.

Why not? The incentive is intended to increase EV adoption, not to help people buy cars generally. I don’t see how extending the incentive to all income levels would work against the goal.

> the thousands in fed, state, and sometimes local rebates

As recently as June, 85% of all EV buyers had a household income greater than $75k/year, with almost 40% making over $200k[0]. The median household income in the US is roughly $75k.

It seems wrong to me that policy is subsidizing the purchasing habits of the richer half of the population.

[0]: https://www.spglobal.com/mobility/en/research-analysis/first...

>It seems wrong to me that policy is subsidizing the purchasing habits of the richer half of the population.

It isn't? There is no minimum income on the rebate. This is a red herring argument.

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