The chart at the top of the post shows the number of rebates and amount of funds awarded monthly through August 2024. The reason for the dip in August is that there is only partial-month reporting available at this time.

This information is based on recent the CHEAPR board meeting.

CHEAPR Program Running Hot

As can be seen in the chart, the CT EV purchase incentive program has been running hot over the past 16 or so months. Between price cuts on the Tesla Models 3 and Y, along with new models being introduced by the legacy manufacturers, CHEAPR has dispensed $7.9 million worth of rebates this calendar year through July 30 with another $600 thousand in the processing pipeline. Last year, $8.9 million was dispensed in total and this year will clearly exceed that. Fortunately, there have been carryover funds from past under-performance, but those will be burned through by next year.

Cuts Looming

The Department of Energy and Environmental Protection has budgeted $9.2 million annually for incentive payments. Incentive payouts follow consumer demand and rebate levels, and 87% of the expenditures have been going to the Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV) standard incentive. The remainder is divided amongst PHEV rebates, along with supplemental rebates and used EV rebates for income limited individuals. A cut to the size of the standard rebate for BEVs will be used to slow the burn rate. While final action has not yet been taken, it is expected that the $2250 standard BEV rebate will be rolled back to $1500 as of January 1. Based on the first quarter run-rate, a further cut to $1000 is possible for July.

EVs are currently in over-supply and discounts are widely available. It might make sense to take advantage of the full rebate while it is still here.

Increases for Plus Rebates

If cuts are made to the standard rebate, the tentative plan is to increase the size of the plus rebates. These rebates are for people who have a household income of no more than 3 times the federal poverty rate, or are enrolled in a qualifying state or federal government assistance program, such as food stamps or free school lunches, or live in an environmental justice community or distressed municipality. (This is the page that details these criteria.) For a new BEV, the Plus incentive would increase to $3000 from $2000, for a total incentive of $4500, assuming the standard incentive is rolled back to $1500. There would be increases in the PHEV incentive, and used BEV/PHEV incentives as well.

Increasing the Plus rebates will not break the bank as there are relatively few of them.

The legislature authorized increasing the size of the Plus rebates to up to 200% of the standard rebate level, which is what this would be if the standard rebate were to be cut to $1500. It is not clear to us how the Plus incentive could be further increased without exceeding the 200% threshold.

The same legislation called for a program goal to dispense 40% of the funding to EJ/distressed communities by 2030. Currently, the closest proxy we have to that number, the Plus rebates, sits at about 6%, looking at the data since the end of June. That is a lot higher than it used to be, but nowhere near 40%. Clearly, a direction has been set for the program and we should expect to see changes between now and then.

One of the changes that has driven higher participation in the Plus rebate process is the option of a pre-qualification voucher. That way, the buyer knows they’re approved before the purchase, and the incentive can come off the invoice price (as opposed to a post-purchase reimbursement which is what it was initially).

Will The Marketplace Change In A Way That Affects This?

Much of the non-Tesla part of the manufacturing side of the industry has announced pullbacks in their BEV expansion plans and a revived emphasis on plug-in hybrids. The numbers in the CHEAPR program aren’t showing this to this point, though there is a lagging effect in terms of announcements relative to consumer adoption. The point is that if PHEVs gain market share, it will slow the burn rate. Unlike in the Inflation Reduction Act, PHEV incentives in CHEAPR are much lower than BEV incentives, $750 vs $2250 at current rates.

Fleet Incentive Postponement

A major program enhancement passed in the 2021 legislation and codified in Public Act 22-25 is the implementation of a very inclusive incentive for fleets – commercial, non-profit, municipal, and tribal. There had been $2 million budgeted for this in 2024, but the program is still in the design phase and will not launch this year. As indicated by the $2 million (which is not necessarily the number going forward), this is a finite resource. Equity will be prioritized for fleets, but it is not the only consideration. The tentative rubric that was developed for prioritizing the submissions is described in this earlier blog post from the time of the legislative session.

Rebates by Make/Model

This is the number of rebates by make/model for available Q3 data. Keep in mind that qualifying vehicles must have a base trim-level MSRP of no more than $50,000. (This is different than the Inflation Reduction Act federal incentive MSRP definition, where the price cap includes factory-installed options.)

Photo above – EV registration trends. Post and chart by Barry Kresch

Updated EV Registration Counts as of July 1, 2024

• 52,691 Registered Electric Vehicles in CT
• 33,386 Battery Electric Vehicles
• 19,211 Plug-in Hybrids
• 91 eMotorcycles
• 3 Fuel Cell

These data come from the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) and is the semi-annual update that is required by the legislature. We won’t have the full dataset that enables us to publish the dashboard for a couple of months.

The increase over the past 12 months has been 57%. Despite the frequent gloom and doom reporting in the general press around EVs, we are just not seeing it in the CT registration data. The sales data are pretty positive, too. According to Kelly Blue Book, EVs as a percentage of total car sales was 8% nationally, a record, exceeding the previous record of 7.2% set in the second quarter of last year.

EV Makes

Just one caveat as we look at some of the top performers. This is a relatively unclean dataset. For example, Subaru is spelled 3 different ways and shows up as 3 separate totals. I have not cleaned this up. I do this for the main dashboard. Also, the file does not enable the cross-filtering that can be done in the dashboard.

Tesla still maintains a far larger share than any other manufacturer but it is slipping. At 19,117 vehicles, its share of all EVs is 37.7%, down from 39.7% 12 months ago. Keep in mind, this is net registrations, so there is a lagging effect due to the historical base. Its share of BEVs is 57.3%, down from 63.8% one year ago.

The next two automakers, Toyota and Jeep are riding their successful PHEV models. In the case of Toyota, it is the RAV4 Prime and Prius Prime. Jeep has climbed to the third position as a result of its PHEV Wrangler and, to a lesser extent, the newer PHEV Grand Cherokee.

Hyundai has moved into fourth position with models such as the Ioniq, Ioniq 5, Kona, and some PHEV models.

The other makes with at least 1000 registered EVs are Chevrolet, Ford, BMW, Kia, and Volvo.

Models

The Tesla Model Y is the most widely registered EV in the state, overtaking the Model 3. As noted by Kelly Blue Book, the Model Y is now the best selling vehicle in the world (including ICE vehicles). In CT registrations, it jumped 67% from 12 months ago, so it is clearly selling well locally. It is also single-handedly buoying Tesla. The Y increased 29% from 6 months ago. Tesla overall grew 15%. If we exclude the Y from the base, the rest of Tesla grew only 5%.

The Jeep Wrangler also grew by 29%, though off a much lower base. The Toyota RAV4 Prime, the third largest EV with 2553 units, increased 16%.

The models with greater than 1000 registrations in rank order are the Tesla Model Y, Tesla Model 3, Jeep Wrangler PHEV, Toyota RAV4 PHEV Prime, Toyota Prius Prime PHEV, Tesla Model S, Chevy Bolt, Jeep Grand Cherokee PHEV, Tesla Model X, and Ford Mustang Mach-E.

CHEAPR Program Running Hot

The program has been setting records in terms of rebates awarded with each new month. January 2024 was a new high point with 708 rebates as seen in the chart at the top of this post.

CT saw a 47% increase in registered EVs in 2023 relative to the prior year and now a strong start to the year from the perspective of the rebate program. This comes amidst reports of a slowdown in EV sales, a first quarter miss in expected deliveries by Tesla, and a retrenchment announced by Ford and GM. The robust CHEAPR rebates and slower sales can both be true. There is the difference between local and national numbers. And CHEAPR is driven by supply as well as demand, meaning that recent EV price-cutting has enabled more vehicles to be eligible by virtue of now having an MSRP under $50,000.

The other trend in the national reporting is automakers, led by Toyota, shifting emphasis to PHEVs. That is certainly not showing up in the rebate data to this point. Of the 708 rebates in January, 640 of them were BEVs.

Still Waiting for Fleet Incentives

CHEAPR was redesigned in 2022 and there is still one component of the program that is not yet implemented, namely the incentive for fleets. Expectations were that it would go online this spring, but at the board meeting in March, no date was given.

The fleet incentive is potentially a big deal as it applies to municipalities, businesses, non-profits, and tribal entities. A fleet will be eligible for up to 10 incentives in a given year, capped at 20 total. This is only for new vehicles and the MSRP cap applies.

Not everyone will be able to obtain a fleet incentive. With the consumer part of the program running hot and the potential for a high number of fleet incentives, DEEP is prioritizing who can get them. These are the rules that have been developed. The slide was presented at a meeting in December, so never mind about that date.

The next board meeting is in June. We will publish if there is an update.

Summary of 2023 Rebates by Model

Remember, the CHEAPR MSRP cap applies to the base trim level cost of a model, i.e. options not included. This differs from the MSRP cap definition in the federal incentive which includes factory installed options. Not all trim levels of a given model will be eligible. A dealer or manufacturer offering a discount or promotional rate does not reduce the MSRP for the purposes of determining eligibility. Manufacturer repricing does. For these reasons, rebates are not an exact proxy for sales. We know, for example, that the Model Y outsells the Model 3. Also, there are two Model Y columns in the chart as CHEAPR separates the LR AWD version of the Model Y, which they don’t do for the Model 3 for some reason. Taken together, the two Tesla vehicles have almost identical rebate counts.

Since Tesla price-cutting has made more of its models/trim levels eligible, and because Tesla is efficient in letting its customers know when they qualify, the Model 3 and Model Y have dominated. Number 3 is the PHEV Toyota RAV4 Prime, number 4 is the temporarily discontinued Chevy Bolt, and rounding out the top 5 is the VW ID.4.

Program Changes are Afoot

As Advanced Clean Cars II and Advanced Clean Trucks (ACC II/ACT) failed to make it past the legislature, the Transportation Committee raised a bill, HB 5485, entitled “AN ACT CONCERNING TRANSPORTATION INFRASTRUCTURE FOR ELECTRIC VEHICLES.”

It is mostly a study bill and its stated purpose is to assess CT’s readiness for widespread EV adoption and make plans to prepare for it. The bill gives the governor the ability to declare a climate emergency but does not grant any executive authority for him to take action. The governor himself characterized it as a “nothing-burger.” Also, DEEP had already done a lot of research in preparation for ACC II/ACT. If a stronger, more holistic plan to improve EV adoption generally speaking, but especially in distressed communities comes out of it, that would be a benefit.

Arguably, it at least keeps the conversation going. The bill passed out of committee along partisan lines. The Republicans, who led the charge against ACC II/ACT, accuse it of leading to a mandate, even though that is not part of the bill. There can be changes before it comes before a vote in the full chamber. Nevertheless, it has a few specific actions and one of them has to do with redesigning CHEAPR.

The bill directs that CHEAPR be much more heavily focused on distressed communities and individuals with limited income, LMI for short. This is the language, in part: “The bill establishes a CHEAPR program goal to distribute, by January 1, 2030, at least 40% of rebate and voucher funding to a U.S. Census block group in which 30% or more of the population has an income below 200% of the federal poverty level.” A few observations.

• The bill proposes redesigning CHEAPR before the components of the 2022 design have been fully implemented.
• Inexplicably, it proposes to track overall EV adoption using CHEAPR data, rather than the more complete sales and registration data.
• The 2022 changes included the addition of Rebate+ which offers higher incentives for LMI individuals and an incentive for used EVs. These incentives haven’t gotten a lot of traction, but changes to eligibility rules and the implementation of a pre-qualification voucher have led to recent improvements in the rebate levels from almost nothing to ~5-6% of all rebates. Arguably, Rebate+ has thus far suffered from inadequate marketing.
• The current eligibility criteria for Rebate+ is participation in a government assistance program such as food stamps or free school lunch, among others, a household income that is no more than 3 times the federal poverty level, or residing in an environmental justice or distressed community. The proposed definition is different and it would exclude LMI individuals not living in the designated census block groups.
• DEEP would be given the authority to increase LMI incentive levels to an additional 200% of standard rebate levels. At current incentive levels, this would translate to $6750 for a BEV or $3750 for a PHEV should they choose the maximal level. This is in addition to any applicable federal incentive.
• Comparing this proposed new Rebate+ to the current program is not apples to apples. But it does target a similar group, and if the 40% were a hard cap and if it were applied to the program as it exists today, it would shrink it by ~85%.
• There is some additional bonding authority in the bill that could direct additional funds to the program.
• In fairness, the target date noted is 2030, and by then EVs could be less costly than ICE. So, the logic could be that the more general need for an incentive would have lessened. It is not clear what the phase-in process would be.

The full bill text is here. The “Cliff’s Notes” version is here.

Data Updated Through the End of 2023

The EV dashboard is live on the website. It has slicers and interactivity. Of course, if anyone would like information and is having difficulty finding it, please reach out to us at EVClubCT@gmail.com.

The photo at the top of the post is the top 10 EV makes (including battery electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids) as of January 2024.

This is the link to the Dashboard.

The data elements that are there include:

• EV trend
• Tend with how far we need to go
• Powertrain
• County and city
• Cities per capita
• EVs as % of vehicles by city
• Map of registered EVs
• EV by make and model
• EVs by make within city
• EV New (2023) registrations by make and model

Pro tip: The pagination is below the fold. Scroll down. Click on the page number.

The map at the top of the page depicts the EV count by city. The bubble size reflects the overall count and the pie wedges show BEV (light blue) and PHEV (dark blue).

Not all of the charts below have numbers due to the space constraints of a static screenshot. We will be publishing an updated dashboard (tbd) with full interactivity and slicers. If anyone needs a number, please reach out to the club at info@evclubct.com.

The source for the data is the DMV, but it was accessed via the Atlas EV Hub.

EVs by County

Fairfield County continues to be EV central for CT. The other counties retain the same rank as one year ago.

EV Counts by City

Below are the EV counts by city, followed by the trend for each city starting with January 2022 (5 waves of data). You will note a fairly large bar labeled “blank.” This is due to a combination of vehicles in the file having blank geo records and some others listed with zip codes that aren’t in CT. The file comes to us by zip code (now anyway, it wasn’t always the case) and so when it gets married to the city, it reverts to a “blank” label. It is, apparently, possible for the DMV to maintain a record of a vehicle garaged in the state with an out of state zip. The relatively high number for Windsor Locks, we think, represents airport rentals. The fact that it is trending slightly downward may reflect Hertz shedding EVs.

Greenwich leads with 2542 EVs. Stamford, Westport, Fairfield, and West Hartford round out the top 5 cities.

Other stats – EVs per capita and EVs as a percentage of all vehicles. We are getting to the point where EVs now make up a measurable percentage of vehicles in some municipalities.

Finally, there is make within city. It required multiple screenshots to capture all the vehicle makes in the legend if you want to decipher the colors in the bars.

A 47% year on year increase in Registrations Still Leaves Us Playing Catch Up

As we recently published, there are 44,313 registered EVs in CT. This includes BEVs, PHEVs, eMotorcycles (eMC), and Fuel Cell (FCEV). The dominant drivetrain is BEV (27,709), followed by PHEV (16,517), eMC (84), FCEV (3). The market has been moving toward BEVs.

The photo at the top of the post looks at the historical trend, the current data point, and what the slope would have to look like for CT to meet its goal of 500,000 registered EVs by 2030. The slope is plotted by calculating a compound annual growth rate from the current level to the goal over the time remaining. This is not the same thing as a forecast.

The good news is that the CAGR works out to a little over 41%, lower than the increase we saw this year. The bad news is the percentage represents a large number of vehicles in the out years. The final year is over 146,000 EVs in that year alone. And that percentage is an increase in net registrations. The corresponding increase in sales would have to be larger to account for turnover.

When the goal of 500,000 by 2030 was set, it was never made clear whether that meant January 1 or December 31. We cut ourselves some slack and used the latter, giving us 7 years to reach that number.

Updated Vehicle Counts Released by DMV

The Department of Motor Vehicles has released its semi-annual update of EV counts that carries us through the end of last year. There were a total of 44,313 vehicles registered, up 47% from one year ago. Of these, 43,868 are BEV or PHEV. The detail for the remainder are not reported. Based on historical data, the biggest piece of the unreported vehicles would be electric motorcycles. There are a few fuel-cell vehicles in the state, less than the fingers of one hand. And, most likely, some blank records.

At the moment, we are working with pieces of the picture. We plan to update the dashboard when we get the complete file.

BEVs Continue to Dominate the Market

Tesla Now Has 16,686 registrations

As can be seen in the photo at the top, Tesla continues to be the dominant brand, with Toyota a distant second. Chevrolet is a very distant second when it comes to BEVs. Below are the top 10 makes with values.

This is the comparison when filtered for only Battery Electric Vehicles.

And top 10 BEV makes with values.

This is the comparison for PHEVs.

And top 10 PHEV makes with values.

Below are the major brands with the individual models displayed, ranked most to least registrations. There is a long tail of brands and the small ones are omitted.

Tesla

The Model 3 still leads due to the installed base, but the gap is narrowing as the Model Y has become the company’s best-selling model. No Cybertrucks were registered as of the end of last year.

There were 6029 new Tesla registrations in 2023. That means there was turnover of 1620 vehicles to get to the new net registration figure of 16,686.

Toyota

Toyota has moved into second position on the strength of its mostly PHEV lineup. The new BEV, the BZ4X, is off to a slow start. There are still a couple of the BEV version of the RAV4 around. This was strictly a compliance car and was discontinued years ago. Somehow a couple made it here even though it was only sold in California.

Stellantis

They have a strong seller in the PHEV Jeep Wrangler. The Fiat 500 is the only BEV.

Chevrolet

Chevy places fourth due to the temporarily discontinued Bolt and the legacy Volt. Bolt sales had been trending upward since the release of the EUV version of the vehicle. Then they had an extensive recall. Sales picked up again as they got through it, but GM canceled it. After public backlash, they uncanceled it and it is now expected to return as a 2025 model year vehicle, using the company’s new Ultium platform. Ultium in general has experienced delays, reportedly due to software difficulties.

Hyundai

Hyundai follows, largely on the strength of the Ioniq 5 and early signs of life from the Ioniq 6.

Ford

After strong starts, the company has had disappointing sales of its F-150 Lightning pickup and Mustang Mach-E.

BMW

The largest of the legacy luxury brands and the final make with over 2,000 registrations.

Volvo

Kia

Nissan

Volkswagen

Audi

Rivian

Note the electric delivery vans for Amazon.

Porsche

Subaru

Honda

These are legacy registrations of no longer for sale vehicles. The company has a new BEV, the Prologue SUV, projected to arrive in the next few months.

Mercedes

Mercedes continues the be the laggard among major luxury brands, far behind BMW. Surprising, given the company’s long history of engineering excellence and many announcements about pivoting aggressively to electric.

Mitsubishi

Mini

Polestar

The Polestar 1 was a high-performance PHEV sports car, imported in limited quantity. There are reports of a corporate restructuring with slow sales of the Polestar 2, introduced roughly 3 years ago. Possibly, it will carry the parent Geely brand. Anyway, the website continues to be business as usual as they are taking orders for the launch edition of the Polestar 3 SUV and have announced a Polestar 4 performance sedan.

Mazda

Lucid

Jaguar and Land Rover

These marques were sold by Ford to the Indian company, Tata. Coming soon is the new Jaguar Electric Architecture. The company plans to transition to 100% electric by 2025! Most Jaguar ICE vehicles will reportedly end production around the middle of this year.

Cadillac

Cadillac, like Chevy, is also waiting with bated breath for GM to scale Ultium.

There Are Now 44,313 Electric Vehicles Registered in CT

The updated count includes registrations through the end of last year. It was released by the Department of Motor Vehicles, which is statutorily required to release updated numbers semi-annually.

This is a count of registered EVs and the trend chart above represents a snapshot as of the start of each year. This is different than sales. It includes existing registrations, plus added registrations that have occurred via the purchase of a new or used vehicle, or due to an EV owner moving into the state, less vehicles that have turned over and are no longer registered in CT.

DMV provides nothing in the way of detail on their site, just the overall count. It typically includes battery electric vehicles, plug-in hybrids, electric motorcycles, and fuel cell vehicles.

For all the doom and gloom in the press about people not buying EVs, the number was up a respectable 47% over one year ago. The registrations occurring in the second half of the year were 31% higher than in the first half. And the number of EVs registered in 2023 was 54% higher than the number registered in 2022.

We have published the details about vehicle make and model, city, per capita data, etc. that underlie the total in the past, and we will do so again if we are able to obtain the information.

Post by Barry Kresch

Can You Recommend a Dealership?

It is a common query we get. A consumer is shopping for an EV that isn’t a Tesla, Rivian, or Lucid. Maybe they had a poor dealer experience or their friend had a poor experience. Either way, they don’t want to waste their time walking into a dealership only for a salesperson to try and switch pitch them to ICE. That is by far the biggest complaint we hear. Followed by dealers who are clueless about EVs generally, don’t have a vehicle charged for a test drive, whose one EV expert “isn’t here right now,” or don’t know the incentives.

Using CHEAPR as a Proxy

While we have had personal interactions with some dealers, there are 270 licensed new car dealers in the state and we certainly don’t know all of them. Our workaround is to use CHEAPR rebates as a proxy. It isn’t perfect as some dealers do not sell CHEAPR-eligible vehicles. (The CHEAPR program has an MSRP* cap of $50,000.) And some manufacturers barely make any EVs. But for certain makes, it works well. We sort the data by make and compare like to like.

This information was compiled using data from the CHEAPR portal through December 21. There were 3677 CHEAPR rebates awarded in 2023 to this point. The program has been running pretty hot. Of these, 2022 were for Tesla and the remaining 1655 were spread amongst the other makes.

While we don’t quite have the entire year, we do have plenty of data to portray the good, bad and the ugly. As we have seen in past years, some dealers do a great job and some don’t even seem to know how to spell “EV.” There may be (and probably are) dealers for a given make that do not appear in these charts. That would happen if they had zero rebates.

Both battery electric vehicles (BEV) and plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEV) are included in the data. The first chart is the number of rebates by make for non-Tesla brands, followed by dealership detail for all makes with a minimum of 10 rebates, listed alphabetically by make.

*The MSRP cap in CHEAPR is the base price of a given trim level, before options.

Above chart is the monthly rebate trend through November 29, 2023. Recent months tend to get restated higher in subsequent updates.

LMI Program Focus

The CHEAPR program has always had a focus on making an EV more affordable for those who otherwise might find the purchase price too high a barrier. There is an MSRP cap to avoid subsidizing the most expensive vehicles. (Until the recent Tesla price-cutting, Teslas were mostly not eligible.) The program also offers consumers with limited income an extra subsidy, as well as a used EV incentive. The standard for doing so was loosened somewhat in 2023 and now applies to households with an income of no more than 3 times the federal poverty level. This translates to $43,740 for a single person or $90,000 for a family of 4. (These numbers get adjusted every year.)

This revised incentive, often referred to as “LMI” for lower-middle income, also offers a “pre-qualification” voucher. Qualified purchasers obtain the voucher ahead of time, and the amount of the voucher can then be deducted from the price of the vehicle at the time of the sale. Even though it’s more complicated to administer, it represents an improvement for the consumer. Buyers now know ahead of time that they are approved for the rebate and no longer have to front the cash as they did with the earlier program design.

This revised program soft-launched in March of this year. Due to the one-year shelf-life of the voucher, it was expected that there would be a lagging effect. DEEP has reported high interest in the voucher, though specific data are not reported. We can only see the reporting based on redemption. There has definitely been an increase in recent months. We hope they will be higher as more vouchers are in circulation. The chart below tracks the monthly redemptions for 2023 through November. It is likely that November will be restated higher with the next release.

Overall Rebate Volume Slackens But Is Likely to Recover

This is shown in the chart at the top of the post. We believe that this had to do with the base trim level Model Y having been temporarily withdrawn from sale by Tesla as it redesigned the vehicle, and perhaps augmented by the Chevy Bolt’s increasing scarcity as the model sunsets for the time being. The standard range Model Y is back now with an LFP battery, rear-wheel drive configuration for $43,990 (at least today), well under the CHEAPR MSRP cap. The Model Y AWD long range is also under the cap at $48,990. We expect rebate volume to pick up again. CHEAPR has dispensed about $6.8 million year-to-date and is on pace to reach $8 million. This is quadruple what it was in 2022 and is due to greater model availability and the increase in the MSRP cap to $50,000.

Models

The most rebated vehicle this year is the Tesla Model 3 with 927 rebates, followed by the Model Y with 681. These are followed by the Toyota RAV4 Prime (380), Chevy Bolt (274), Volkswagen ID.4 (204), and Hyundai Ioniq 5 (116). All other models were <100.

Fleet Rebates Coming

The final program component included in the 2022 legislation is the rebate program for fleets. It is expected to launch sometime this spring. These apply to commercial, municipal, tribal, and non-profit entities – in other words just about all fleets. Fleets are eligible for up to 10 rebates in a calendar year and 20 total.

There is potentially significant demand for these rebates. Given that potential, and the program having a pretty high burn rate generally, not every applicant will necessarily be granted a rebate. Below is a slide from DEEP indicating how they are prioritizing rebate requests. Please note, the final contours of the program are still being developed.

The reason for these gating criteria is to avoid a lapse in available funds that would cause the program to be paused, like what happened in New Jersey. The rebate size and MSRP cap are the same as with the consumer rebates.

Rebates will be pre-certified (and the funds reserved) with post-purchase repayment.