A tax credit for electric cars that Tennessee Republican U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander is pushing for could cost taxpayers nearly $16 billion, critics reportedly said in a new study.
This, according to a new article in Bloomberg.com, which identified Alexander and Maine Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins as two of the bill’s main backers.
The proposed legislation would grant automakers a $7,000 tax credit for an additional 400,000 vehicles. Members of the Washington, D.C.-based American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers commissioned the study, Bloomberg reported.
“This study confirms that expanding the EV tax credit would make an already expensive and inefficient policy even more burdensome for U.S. taxpayers,” the website quoted Chet Thompson, AFPM’s president and chief executive officer, as saying.
“Simply put, working families should not be asked to subsidize luxury vehicles for the wealthiest among us.”
As reported, Alexander told The Tennessee Star last month that there are more electric cars on the road now versus a decade ago. He also said these electric cars travel a greater distance than they did 10 years ago.
Alexander also said investing in electric vehicles “is one way to help our country and the world deal with climate change.”
As The Star reported in February, research shows electric car manufacturers wouldn’t make a tidy profit in a pure free market system because, at least right now, there isn’t enough demand for that product.
As reported in 2015, Tennessee had 2,568 registered EVs on the road.
In three years, that number has increased, slightly, to 3,735 EVs. Davidson County, meanwhile, currently has 746 registered EVs, according to the Tennessee Department of Revenue.
Also, as The Star reported last fall, taxpayers have paid millions of dollars to help electric vehicle manufacturers not only get their products out on the road but also furnish electric car charging stations all over Nashville.
Prior reporting shows few people around Nashville appear to use these charging stations.
– – –
Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star. Follow Chris on Facebook. Email tips to [email protected].
How about credits for public transit vehicle manufacturers instead of four private automobiles? Automobiles, even electric powered clean ones, fail to address the major problem our state and cities face: gridlock on our city streets and on our Interstate highways. We need to find incentives to get people to minimize the use of their cars and to rely on public transit for most of their transport needs. That requires a public transit system that will serve all neighborhoods at convenient hours, incentives for companies to produce several modes of transit such as motorbus, light rail, trackless trolleybus, streetcar, or even river transportation. It requires rights-of-ways with synchronized traffic lights. People who use public transit on a regular basis should also get special discounts on their car insurance as a show of appreciation for their leaving a smaller carbon foot print. A transit vehicle can carry at least five times the number of people that a single family car can. Tennessee, both rural and urban/suburban desperately needs a good mass transit system to reduce the state’s dangerous over-dependency on the private automobile. Oh, and another thing, let’s have none of this nonsense by Malcolm Getz and others about having flying private automobiles soaring over other people’s neighborhoods with high accidents likely!
Lamar no longer has a command of common sense. Subsidizing coal burning cars is stupid. I want to chose my vehicle without the interference of government beaurocrats.
Still trying to get the smoke out of the Smoky Mountains, I see. Shakonohey! Land of the Blue Smoke.
Subsiding the electric car industry is a very bad idea. Just like under Obama who subsidized the solar panel industry that was a complete failure financially. Electric cars have a very limited usage. On the average you get about 200 miles before you have to recharge and it takes hours to charge the batteries. There there’s the fact that the batteries have a limited life span, after which they must be disposed of. And on top of that they are very expensive. Electric cars are one part of the fallacy of the New Green Deal that the liberal democrats are pushing. Senator Alexander should be spending his time on legislation that will benefit all of us. Climate change is not the catastrophic dooms day that is going to wipe out all life on earth as currently being foretold by the UN and the liberal socialists.
Another nutty idea from the lame duck.
Go away Lamar – quietly.