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Sparks

In 2024, America’s EV Subsidies Will Be Available Instantly

No more waiting for that $7,500 tax credit to kick in.

Money in a wallet.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Starting next year, Americans will be able to get a big discount on a qualifying electric vehicle right when they buy it at the dealership, the Treasury Department announced today.

It’s one of the final — and most important — tweaks made to the EV tax credits under President Joe Biden’s climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act.

The new program will let people instantly use the $7,500 tax credit for new EVs and the $4,000 credit for used EVs at purchase. In essence, buyers will transfer their tax credit to the dealership at the moment of sale, allowing dealers to give them a direct discount on the price of a vehicle, according to new Treasury Department rules.

Before this, Americans couldn’t get the tax credit until they filed their taxes the following year and received their rebate from the IRS. That meant, among other things, that people couldn’t use the discount before financing the car, effectively increasing their month-to-month payment.

A study published last year — coauthored by researchers from George Washington University and Volkswagen — found that Americans placed vastly more value on an immediate rebate over having to wait til next April. Poorer households and used-car buyers especially valued the instant access to a discount.

The point-of-sale rebate is one of a slew of changes made by the climate law to America’s EV subsidies. In January, the law placed price caps on which cars qualify for the EV tax credits, eliminating subsidies for six-figure luxury vehicles like the Hummer EV. It also opened the $4,000 tax credit for pre-owned EVs.

In April, sweeping new rules that limited the subsidies to North American-made vehicles kicked in. Check out Heatmap’s list of which EVs qualify for the $7,500 tax credit under those new rules.

We’ll have to see how widely automakers and dealerships will choose to participate in the new instant-rebate program. To join the scheme, a dealership or seller will have to register with the IRS ahead of time on a new website. After someone buys an EV, the seller will receive a payment for the credit within 72 hours, according to the agency.

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Robinson Meyer profile image

Robinson Meyer

Robinson is the founding executive editor of Heatmap. He was previously a staff writer at The Atlantic, where he covered climate change, energy, and technology.

Sparks

Why the Vineyard Wind Blade Broke

Plus answers to other pressing questions about the offshore wind project.

A broken wind turbine.
Illustration by Simon Abranowicz

The blade that snapped off an offshore turbine at the Vineyard Wind project in Massachusetts on July 13 broke due to a manufacturing defect, according to GE Vernova, the turbine maker and installer.

During GE’s second quarter earnings call on Wednesday, CEO Scott Strazik and Vice President of Investor Relations Michael Lapides said there was no indication of a design flaw in the blade. Rather, the company has identified a “material deviation” at one of its factories in Gaspé, Canada.

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Trump’s Suspicious Pivot on EVs

Elon Musk pledged a huge campaign donation. Also, Trump is suddenly cool with electric vehicles.

Trump’s Suspicious Pivot on EVs

Update, July 24:Elon Musk told Jordan Peterson in an interview Monday evening that “I am not donating $45 million a month to Trump,” adding that he does not belong to the former president’s “cult of personality.” Musk acknowledged, however, that helped create America PAC to promote “meritocracy and individual freedom,” and that it would support Trump while also not being “hyperpartisan.”

When former President Donald Trump addressed a crowd of non-union autoworkers in Clinton Township, Michigan, last fall, he came with a dire warning: “You’re going to lose your beautiful way of life.” President Biden’s electric vehicle transition, Trump claimed, would be “a transition to hell.”

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Sparks

Wind Is More Powerful Than J. D. Vance Seems to Think

Just one turbine can charge hundreds of cell phones.

J.D. Vance.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

It’s a good thing most of us aren’t accountable for every single silly thing we’ve ever said, but most of us are not vice presidential running mates, either. Back in 2022, when J.D. Vance was still just a “New York Times bestselling author” and not yet a “junior senator from Ohio,” much less “second-in-line to a former president who will turn 80 in office if he’s reelected,” he made a climate oopsie that — now that it’s recirculating — deserves to be addressed.

If Democrats “care so much about climate change,” Vance argued during an Ohio Republican senator candidate forum during that year, “and they think climate change is caused by carbon emissions, then why is their solution to scream about it at the top of their lungs, send a bunch of our jobs to China, and then manufacture these ridiculous ugly windmills all over Ohio farms that don’t produce enough electricity to run a cell phone?”

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