I’m all for government incentives to buy vehicles that are better for the climate but here’s the thing, companies are greedy. If a company can sell a car for $20k and make a profit, but the government suddenly is going to give me $5k to buy that car, that car will somehow mysteriously become $25k and that same company will advertise that car for $20k with a tiny little asterisk next to the price.
It will be interesting to see what companies like Rivian, Tesla, BYD, Volkswagen, etc. do with pricing once these incentives go away, and they will go away unfortunately.
There needs to be a better way to incentivize this so that the “savings” doesn’t immediately get funneled into billionaires pockets. I know that any incentive needs to be a slow burn and require some work so that the owner is motivated to go through the trouble because they have something to gain. I have no idea how to do this. Maybe remove property tax on the vehicles over 5 years? Yearly income tax credit? Government subsidized car loans? Extended warranties? Reverse road tax (you get more money the more you drive it)? Free oil changes for the life of the car (/s)?
I mean what you really want to do is get people to drive these vehicles, not just purchase them. One generally follows the other since nobody buys something that expensive and lets it sit. But the idea is to get people away from fossil fuel ICE engines, not really get people to buy EVs.