The first two weeks of the Trump administration have been chaotic for the clean energy industry, to say the least. Offshore wind permitting is on hold and state governments are canceling plans to sign new contracts. Trump’s federal funding freeze was on, then off-but-actually-still-on, and then technically off again. Despite a court injunction on the pause, many grant recipients still seem to be locked out of their funding portals.
But one climate initiative that’s also one of the president’s biggest bugbears has escaped his meddling thus far: The federal tax credit for electric vehicles is still functioning normally.
Former President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act created a tax credit of up to $7,500 for new electric vehicles and $4,000 for used vehicles. As of January of this year, about 16 EV and plug-in hybrid models were eligible for the new vehicle credit, which is limited to models that are assembled in North America and meet certain battery sourcing requirements. A loophole in the rules also allows dealers to apply the tax credit to any electric vehicle lease, meaning dealers can offer lessees a discount on a much wider range of options.
Trump attacked the subsidy on the campaign trail, and his transition team was reportedly planning to kill it. One of his first executive orders took aim at a number of electric vehicle-related programs, ordering the Environmental Protection Agency to revoke waivers that allow California and other states to pass stronger emissions standards for vehicles than the federal government’s. His funding review and freeze specifically called out the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Formula Program, a $5 billion program to fund EV charging infrastructure. But even though EV charger grantees couldn’t access their funding, car dealerships around the country did not have any trouble getting into the Internal Revenue Service’s portal to log their electric vehicle sales and file for reimbursement for the tax credit.
When someone purchases an eligible electric vehicle, the buyer can either claim the tax credit on their own tax return or they can “transfer” it to their dealership, allowing the dealer to take the credit amount off the sale price. Dealers can then file for a direct reimbursement from the Internal Revenue Service.
I reached out to the National Automobile Dealers Association, which represents new car dealers, to ask if they had heard from any of their members about issues with the advanced payment program for the EV tax credit. “We checked into this earlier in the week, both on the dealer end and with Treasury,” Jared Allen, the vice president for public affairs told me on Friday. “Nothing has changed with the availability of advanced payments to dealers for EV tax credits.”
The president does not have the authority to end the EV tax credit program on his own — changes would have to come through Congress. Before Trump’s inauguration, Republicans on the House Budget Committee circulated a long list of potential cost-cutting measures that included eliminating many Inflation Reduction Act programs. One menu item recommended cutting all clean energy tax credits, but a separate proposal explicitly suggested keeping the EV tax credit and closing the leasing loophole. The Committee is aiming to present a first draft of a budget reconciliation bill by the end of this week, according to E&E News, at which point we’ll see what made the cut.
