EV Purchase Incentives, EVSE (charging equipment) Subsidies, Free Charging

This past Tuesday, July 27th, the EV Club presented a webinar jointly sponsored with Sustainne, LLC, Sustainable Westport, and the Town of Westport on how to save money when buying and charging an EV.

The speakers were Analiese Paik, CEO of Sustainne, Paul Vosper, CEO of JuiceBar, and Barry Kresch, President of the EV Club. These were the areas we covered:

• Latest changes to CT CHEAPR program of EV purchase incentives
• Update: There is a recent change to the CHEAPR program not reflected in the webinar. EV buyers can now receive 2 rebates beginning with June 2021, meaning if you had previously received a rebate, you can receive 2 more. They must be spaced at least 24 months apart.
• Federal purchase incentive
• Newly release EV Rate Design from the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA) that directs the utilities to offer a range of subsidies for residential, Multiple Dwelling Units, commercial, fleets, and municipalities. These include subsidies for the purchase and installation of level 2 or level 3 chargers and discounts on electric rates.
• Many automakers offer some level of free charging with the purchase or lease of a new EV. They vary a lot and are either miles or time-limited. There are also numerous options for free level 2 public charging.

A written summary of the PURA program is here.

Link to the blog post with the latest CHEAPR rebates is here.

We have been receiving positive feedback. The webinar was recorded and is now available on our YouTube channel.

Toyota Dominates May Rebates

The two plug-in hybrid offerings from Toyota dominated the rebate activity for May. The Prius Prime (44 rebates) and the RAV4 Prime (30 rebates) together accounted for 61% of the 123 May rebates. (The April count was slightly restated to 125.) The only other vehicles in double figures were the Chevrolet Bolt (12) and Hyundai Kona (10). May marked the first appearance of a VW ID.4 with one rebate. Driven by Toyota, the balance of the rebates tilted heavily toward PHEVs, 85 vs. 38 BEVs.

The program spend continues to pace well under the available funds. The new incentives will help somewhat, but we doubt by enough.

There has been some press about the program this week as the Governor’s office issued a release about the new program, which was picked up by a number of newspapers. Readers of this blog will know that the CHEAPR board approved these modifications in February, but implementation only recently happened on June 7th.

The big headline numbers that are featured, such as up to $7500 in rebates, or on the CHEAPR home page, up to $9500, only apply to Fuel Cell vehicles, which are not currently for sale in the state. But the higher rebates and income-limited incentives are now live and we will see the early reporting in one month.

All rebates by model in the table below:

All You Need to Know About EV Incentives and Free Charging Opportunities

Virtual webinar: July 27th at 7 PM. Free registration is required:

https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_3fImyGBzT4yzOzrxe-x5Lg

The EV Club will be jointly producing and sponsoring a virtual webinar about the latest in incentives and free charging. Specifically, these are federal and state purchase incentives, incentives that reduce the cost of the electricity used to charge your electric vehicle, incentives to defray the cost of buying EV charging equipment, and free charging opportunities.

The incentives around EVs and charging are fluid.

The state recently implemented a number of changes to its CHEAPR EV purchase incentive program.

There is an expectation that either included or alongside the Biden Administration infrastructure plan, there will be an updated federal purchase incentive. The bill that was reported out of the Senate Finance Committee looks very good, but it could change considerably as it makes its way through the legislature. There is also a federal tax credit for the purchase of an EV charging station that is due to expire at the end of this year. We are waiting to see if that resurfaces. The President and the leaders of the two chambers have talked about getting this done before the August recess. It may be cutting it close, but we are hopeful that the contours of the new plans will be known by the end of July.

The Public Utilities Regulatory Authority is in the process of adjudicating a new EV rate design that would include lower rates to charge an EV as well as subsidies for charging hardware. A preliminary document was issued on June 17th. The final document is due July 14th. This is a complex piece of regulation, but we will provide the key highlights for the webinar.

Some Stellar Performers; Many Also-Rans

We obtained an updated dataset of CHEAPR rebates by individual dealerships from the program’s inception through the end of 2020. It is all pasted below, but a couple of observations first.

There are a small number of dealers that really do great work. Unfortunately, they are not representative. If great work is defined as 100 or more rebates over this duration, these are the 6 companies that have achieved that level.

• A-1 Toyota – 167
• Richard Chevrolet – 126
• Honda of Westport – 126
• Karl Chevrolet – 122
• Lynch Toyota – 117
• Ingersoll Auto of Danbury – 101

This project originally began due to member complaints about poor dealership experiences, followed by a request: Please make a recommendation. I had anecdotal reports of dealerships that do a good job, but nothing systematic or statewide. This approach uses CHEAPR data as a proxy for EV-friendliness.

There are a few considerations to bear in mind. Not all dealers sell CHEAPR-eligible cars. The parameters of the CHEAPR program have changed over the course of the program’s life. In particular, the lowering of the MSRP cap in October 2019 causes the exclusion of some vehicles, for example, from BMW and Volvo, that were formerly eligible. The offerings of manufacturers have changed over time. The cancellation of the Chevy Volt caused a slowdown in the number of Chevrolet rebates. Hyundai has become more aggressive recently about introducing EVs. The Honda Clarity got off to a good start when it was introduced, but Honda then stopped sending it to the state (which may be changing). The new Toyota RAV4 Prime is showing some early promise.

It is for that reason that I have displayed the rebates sorted highest to lowest within make. That way, for example, it can be seen that Danbury Hyundai has a strong record with a make that was barely selling EVs before 2019.

The file that was provided did not have the specific vehicle model for which a given rebate applied. There are some dealerships that sell multiple makes that have CHEAPR-eligible vehicles. I made a judgment and assigned the dealer to the brand with the most rebates. Note to self – work on getting that next time around. Also, in a couple of cases, there may be more than one line for a dealership because the file did not have a consistent naming convention. I cleaned it but may have missed a couple.

This is all of it (except Tesla). If a dealership had zero rebates, it will not appear in the tables below.

It would be best, of course, if DEEP were to publish this information as part of its regular CHEAPR reporting. It is done in other states and would remove the burden for both of us of going through the Freedom of Information Act process.

Finally, this has relevance for the EV Freedom Bill. One of the arguments for the bill is that the conventional dealership model is antithetical to selling EVs, that EVs come into tension with the legacy ICE business. There is more nuance to it than that, but the data largely illustrate this point. It seems like it is a lot harder for a dealership to embrace EVs or more of them would have effectively done so and there wouldn’t be such large differences between the top performers and the laggards.

For those dealerships that are making an effort to sell EVs, if SB 127 passes, they’ll be fine. For the others, it will be a shot across the bow to wake up or risk being left behind.

Fleeting Model Y Rebate

February rebate data show 72 rebates awarded, totaling $59,000. January was restated and increased from 68 to 77 rebates with a total spend of $82,500.

The leading vehicle in terms of Feb. rebates was the Toyota Prius Prime, which accounted for 22 of the rebates, and was followed by the newer Toyota PHEV, the RAV4 Prime, with 11. The RAV4 has been showing early signs of life. We don’t know if the vehicle is supply constrained in CT as it is still being rolled out. These were the only two vehicles in double figures. With these two PHEVs dominating the rebates, the spend level was considerably lower than January.

The Model 3 accounted for only 2 rebates. As we have seen, the number of Model 3 rebates fluctuates wildly because only the base level is eligible for the incentive. The CHEAPR rebates don’t track with overall sales of the vehicle. There were 4 Model Y rebates which is unlikely to continue. Tesla first reduced the price of the basic Model Y, which is why some of them qualified for incentives, but it subsequently pulled the vehicle off its online configurator.

This was a tweet from Elon Musk that was published in Car and Driver. It was the sub-250 mile range that did not meet its standard of excellence. Off menu means it can still be ordered, but only by phone or in person in a showroom. It would not be surprising to see Tesla make some tweaks to the vehicle and then return it to the entrées. (UPDATE – We have heard that Tesla is not taking any new orders, not even off the menu, for the MY SR. If we are able to find out more details, we will update again.)

The CHEAPR board adopted a new incentive structure in February. The expectation was that it would become live on or about April 1. Some time was needed for the software implementation. As of this writing on 3/27, there is nary a word on the CHEAPR website, nor a peep from DEEP. Communication is not DEEP’s forte. No board meetings have been held since the new incentives were adopted and none have been announced. We are trying to find out if significant delays have been encountered.

These are the rebates by model for February:

The Equivalent Of 52% of EVs Added To The File in 2020 Turned Over

EV registrations in Connecticut increase 18.2% in 2020, a not great number in a very difficult year. However, as difficult as the year may have been, CT can be its own worst enemy with no direct sales and an underperforming purchase-incentive program. The chart below breaks this into the first vs second half of the year, clearly showing the effect of the lockdown followed by a modest recovery.

In January 2020, there were 11,677 EVs registered in the state. 4408 vehicles were added to the file over the course of the year. But we ended the year at 13,800. In other words, there were 2285 EVs that left the file. The numbers varied considerably by brand. Tesla had the lowest percentage of the major brands with the equivalent of 33% of the incoming vehicles turning over. Honda had the highest percentage, and off-the-charts 462%. Which makes sense, since Honda basically stopped selling its one plug-in model, the PHEV Clarity, in 2019. (We hear it is coming back.) As cars were sold or leases expired, no replacements were entering the fleet. This table lists the top makes, ranked by the number of EVs registered on January 1, 2021.

The same data drives the chart at the top of the post. Each of the components is its own bar. The table and the bar chart come from the EV Dashboard, where they have full interactivity and slicers.

The obvious question is why the differences. We can try to infer. Some of it may have to do with leasing. A dealer on the CHEAPR board meetings reports that leasing is 50% of his new car business. That is higher than the national norms we’ve seen in Statista and other sources, but there is no doubt that leasing is big. Tesla came late to leasing and has yet to offer a buy-out option. And their cars have longevity. It is quite possible that a higher percentage of buyers equates to lower turnover.

One comment mentioned by a dealer during a CHEAPR board meeting bears repeating. This person said that a significant portion of EV leasing customers coming to the end of their lease return to ICE in order to save money, especially given that they cannot get another CHEAPR incentive due to the program’s once per lifetime limit. His suggestion: allow leasing customers to get the incentive twice but cut it by 50%. It’s a thoughtful suggestion and would also have the benefit of lowering the program’s burn rate for 2-3 years until it normalizes.

Aside from leasing, there is sales volume. Chevrolet and Ford, which are the largest brands with net negative registrations (i.e. turnover in excess of 100%) similarly suffer from a variation of what is happening with Honda, namely cancellation of nameplates coupled with a lack of other sales volume to replace the departing vehicles. In the case of Chevy, the near-term recovery plan is a redesigned and lower-priced Bolt and a reasonably priced EUV Bolt variation. We’ll know at the end of the year how these will have fared. Ford, on the other hand, has what may be a significant win with the Mach-E, the EV crossover Mustang. There is a limited production run in 2021, which has been reportedly sold out (with dealers tacking on extra markup as reported in Carbuzz.com).

Similarly, the 99% BMW turnover and the 84% Nissan turnover indicate stasis. On the flip side, low turnover from Hyundai, Porsche, Volvo, and Audi could indicate some renewed vigor. Sales volume for the Audi is currently very low, but an ultra-premium brand like Porsche, placing in 9th position, indicates some success in a niche market. However, there are a lot of cars vying for this small segment, with the new Tesla Model S Plaid, for which it is too soon to have registration data,  the presumptive early favorite.

Higher Incentive Levels, Low MSRP Cap, New Income-Limited Incentives

Note: This page is updated to note that the new incentive levels have been implemented as of June 7, 2021. The CHEAPR home page has been updated but we think the explanation below is clearer. If you do look at the CHEAPR page, please ignore the $9500 incentive headline. Nobody will get that level of incentive. It would only apply to an income-limited individual buying a fuel-cell vehicle this year, which is ridiculous since there aren’t any fuel-cell vehicles for sale in the state, and how would an income-limited individual afford an expensive fuel-cell vehicle.

An updated set of rules was adopted by a 6-3 vote of the CHEAPR board that supersedes the last rule change made in October 2019. Here are the most relevant changes:

BEV = Battery Electric Vehicle, PHEV = Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle, MSRP = retail price

Major Changes

• No difference in incentive levels based upon EV range.
• Higher incentive levels for the remainder of 2021.
• New income-limited incentive for used EVs
• New income limited supplemental incentive for new EVs
• Likely effective date is on or about April 1.

There is no longer a difference in the size of the incentive as it relates to the range of any given BEV. Incentives are higher across the board. The MSRP cap was left unchanged at $42,000. There are new income-limited incentives for used EVs and a supplemental incentive for new EVs. The supplemental gets added to the base incentive for qualifying income-limited individuals buying a new BEV or PHEV. There is no MSRP cap for a used EV.

The CHEAPR incentive limit has been increased to twice per driver per lifetime. And the clock resets as of June. If you already received a CHEAPR rebate before then, you are entitled to two more. (It is different than the federal tax credit which can be used each time someone buys or leases a new EV.)

Other CHEAPR Program Details

There is still a fuel cell incentive and the MSRP cap for an FCEV is still $60,000, though there is none of that type of vehicle being brought into the state presently.

Dealers receive an incentive of up to $125. This, once upon a time, was higher. DEEP, in its analysis for its EV Roadmap, questioned whether the dealer incentive accomplished its objective because most of the time it was not being passed along to the salesperson, which was the basic idea. However, it remains in this reduced form.

Income-Limited Incentives and Eligibility

The incentive for a used EV applies to purchases from a licensed dealer. This applies to any dealer of used cars, not just new car dealers that also sell used vehicles. It does not apply to private sales.

An individual’s eligibility for the income-limited incentive is determined by whether that person is already participating in certain assistance programs. Administratively, this is simpler than performing an income verification, but it still takes a few steps and involves a lag in receiving the money. These are the programs that are determinative:

Unlike the way the primary part of the program works, where it can be cash on the hood, the buyer completes an application to confirm eligibility based on one of these programs. DEEP estimates that it will take about a month to process the paperwork at which point a rebate check will be issued. This process can be done online (desktop or mobile) or via postal mail. This is the workflow:

Since nobody wants an applicant to get a surprise denial, DEEP promises outreach and education so that buyers understand what is involved and whether they qualify before filling out the application.

Incentive Structure

As noted in the table at the top of the page, someone buying a new BEV will receive a $2250 incentive. However, the way it is actually structured is that the base incentive of $1500 from the current program is actually retained and a “stimulus increase” of 50% is added to it. This additional stimulus is earmarked for calendar 2021, funds permitting. It will be tracked and reviewed regularly. This is why you get that odd $1125 number for a used PHEV. The base is a more neatly rounded $750. Each incentive size will then revert to its base level in 2022. We will update our information as it gets confirmed closer to the end of the year.

Start Date

The changes take effect as of June 7th, 2021. The income limited used and supplemental incentives are now ongoing, but the higher incentive levels may revert to the old levels at the end of 2021.

Our Take

The Connecticut EV Coalition made a proposal to the board that would have raised the stimulus to $2500 for BEVs and the MSRP cap to $50,000. The incentive including the stimulus adder is close to our proposal but the MSRP cap remains at a level that excludes too many vehicles. According to Cox Automotive, the average cost of an EV is $55,600. MSRP caps exist in other states but at much higher levels: MA – $50,000, NJ – $55,000, NY – $60,000. Given that the program was about 70% underspent in 2020, we expect it will underperform in 2021, though to a lesser degree.

We like the introduction of the equity aspect of the program, particularly the used EV incentive, as this market is not well-developed.

This structure of an incentive plus a stimulus adder is not the most consumer-friendly formulation. This allows the incentive to revert to a lower level after this year without making a formal change to the program. It is administratively convenient, but it has the potential to be confusing. To the consumer, it will still be a change. We think the incentive should be the incentive and if it needs to be changed, it needs to be changed.

The fuel cell incentive is there because the state is trying to be supportive of this industry. We are not sure if there will be a compelling and cost-effective case for hydrogen in light-duty vehicles, especially green hydrogen. Be that as it may, our main issue with this is the way it has consistently been used as a misleading headline. It has now been made even more misleading.

CHEAPR Remains in a Limbo Which Might End Soon

The combination of the 2019 legislation authorizing a modest, but steady funding stream, along with new program elements, and changes made by DEEP to the program in October 2019 that were more financially conservative have left the program in limbo. There has been a notice that “CHEAPR is EVolving” on its website for a year that there will be revisions but these have not been finalized.

The immediate impact of the October 2019 changes has been a dramatic underspending relative to the budget. Through November, the program awarded 589 rebates with a value of $629,500 against a budget of $3 million. The program incurs some other costs aside from consumer rebates, namely dealer incentives and admin charges paid to the program administrator, the Center for Sustainable Energy. DEEP has projected a final underspending of $2.2 million. Fortunately, these funds will roll over into 2021.

Program Parameter Changes and COVID-19

The downturn in rebates was made even more severe by the pandemic and recessionary economy, and this perfect storm led to the extremely low numbers we have been seeing through all reported data for 2020. November continued the pattern with only 40 rebates awarded. This chart of rebates by quarter for 2019 and 2020 illustrates this clearly. The downturn began in Q4, 2019 (the changes were made mid-October of that year), declined further in Q1, 2020, when the economy was still strong for the first 10 weeks, and then really tanked in Q2, 2020 during the lockdown. There has been a modest recovery since then (keep in mind that Q4, 2020 includes only 2 months of data).

New CHEAPR Structure and Forthcoming Vote

Responsibility for CHEAPR transitioned from DEEP to a board that was authorized by the legislation and had a quorum by the beginning of the year. DEEP still retains a presence on the board and administratively the board lives within DEEP. The board has been divided and no fewer than 9 scenarios have been modeled and recently presented to the board. These represent different levels of incentives, where to place the MSRP cap, the newly authorized income-limited incentives for used EVs, and a supplemental incentive for new EVs, as well as a possible temporary increase in incentive levels as a stimulus.

We expect a vote to occur sometime in the next few weeks.

This is the position of the EV Club of CT and the broader CT EV Coalition:

• Raise the MSRP cap and incentive levels to where they were before being lowered in October 2019.
• Implement an income-limited used EV incentive.
• Implement an income-limited supplemental incentive.

We feel the finances, especially given the rollover funds, are adequate to support this model in 2021. The EV Coalition plans to seek additional funding for the program for 2022. There is the possibility that funds may be forthcoming from the Transportation Climate Initiative beginning in 2023. Finally, we want to thank everyone who submitted public comments when they were solicited by DEEP over the summer.

At such time as the program revisions are finalized, the updates will be posted to the incentives page on this website.

2 Environmental Wins Conclude the Year

2020 is a year most of us will be happy to see in the rearview mirror. But the last couple of weeks have brought two wins that deserve to be celebrated.

Transportation Climate Initiative

Governor Lamont signed the Transportation Climate Initiative Memorandum of Understanding today, December 21. TCI is a cap and invest program that will place a tax on fossil fuel at the wholesale level that will yield funds for the state to invest in clean transportation. It is anticipated that $89 million could flow to the state in 2023, rising to $117 million in 2032 with a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of 26%. The program is similar in overall design to the RGGI cap and invest program that has been in place for power plants. The TCI iteration is more complex in that there are many more point sources of pollution. The reason the funds are not anticipated until 2023 is that there is still a considerable amount of rulemaking that has yet to occur. For a thorough piece of reporting on this, see this article in the CT Mirror.

Monetizable Credits for EV Charging Stations

The second piece of good news is that the CT Green Bank has established a carbon credit monetization program for the owners of EV charging stations. This is not for residential owners. It is for businesses or other entities that control dozens or hundreds of charging stations. Details here.

CHEAPR

We have been closely following the CHEAPR saga, the year-long and still unresolved effort to revise program parameters, and have been publishing monthly program status from the CHEAPR dataset. It is anticipated that the board will vote on this reasonably soon.

Events

2020 started off with one of the best-attended events in the club’s history when Westport Police Chief, Foti Koskinas, brought the fully customized Tesla Model 3 cruiser to a club meeting in February. After that, the pandemic lockdown threw sand in the gears of our event planning, though we still managed to hold 2 socially distanced outdoor events. The first was a fully-subscribed EV parade, held in partnership with Sustainable Fairfield, during National Drive Electric Week. The second was a test-drive event of the Polestar 2 BEV and the Polestar 1 PHEV.

There are a number of new EV introductions anticipated for 2021 and we hope to preview some of these for members. One thing that we can tease is a tentatively scheduled mid-year test-drive event for the new Aptera EV, a 3-wheeled vehicle with fully integrated solar and the lowest drag coefficient of any vehicle, the top trim level has an electric range of 1,000 miles for about $46,000.

As we were forced to move into Zoom mode to hold events, we lined up several speakers. We had Gabe Shenhar from Consumer Reports give us a detailed, early preview of his Tesla Model Y test-drive. Peter Millman spoke to us about Community Choice Aggregation, and John Erdman of FreeWire spoke about their charging solution with a self-contained battery that allows DCFC high-speed charging while avoiding demand charges.

Data

We continued with our tracking of EV adoption levels in the state, which is published to the website via the Interactive EV Dashboard. This is the only publicly available, free-of-charge, resource for this level of detail that we are aware of. We also submitted an information request to obtain CHEAPR rebates by dealership. We have had numerous requests for dealership recommendations and this was our way of responding to this using quantifiable data that applies statewide.

Opinion Leadership

The club continues to present to interested organizations, participate on panels, respond to media requests, and publish opinion pieces, in the latter case with Op-Eds in The Hartford Courant, The Hartford Business Journal, and CT News Junkie.

As we gradually emerge from this pandemic cocoon, we look forward to a more active year in 2021. We have a speaker on January 14th who will be discussing a federal carbon tax proposal. You may ask how this intersects with TCI and that is one of our questions.

Best wishes for a safe and healthy holiday season!

48% Month Over Month Drop in October Rebates

Newly released data, updated with transactions through October 31, show a decline from September to October from 97 to 59 rebates. (The September number was restated and is slightly higher than the initial reporting.) The expenditure for consumer rebates for the 10 months of the year to date is $587,000. The annual budget (including admin and dealer incentives) is $3 million. (The consolation is that the unspent funds will be rolled over into 2021.) There have been 62% fewer rebates issued year over year, Jan. through Oct. (546 vs 1435).

The Tesla Model 3 (15 rebates) and the Toyota Prius Prime (13) were the only vehicles in double digits for the month.

2020 has been a lost year in many ways that are more important than CHEAPR. But in our EV world, this incentive program has been in need of revamping and it hasn’t happened. We will discuss our take on why in a moment.

In another 6 -8 weeks or, we expect we’ll have the data to see if this was a lost year for EVs in general in CT.

We have blogged in the past about how we feel that CHEAPR has been a meaningful program, having given out over 6,000 rebates since inception. But rebate numbers, which had been steadily building, have reversed course since the changes in October 2019 that lowered the incentive levels and the MSRP cap, which was then further exacerbated by the recession.

Revisions to the program that were promised for 2020 are still pending. The most recent board meeting was on October 9th. There is no meeting posted on its website as of this writing. The CHEAPR board apparently remains divided as we await a vote on revised parameters. (This is our reading of the situation. The EV Club is not represented on the board, something we have requested.)

The legislation passed in May 2019 authorized a used EV incentive. A revised program plan was submitted to the board in July that included an income-limited used EV incentive and an income-limited supplemental incentive for new EVs. There has also been discussion of a time-limited “stimulus” incentive adder.

From our perspective, the impasse stems from whether to restore the base incentive and MSRP cap to the levels of before Oct 2019. (The used and supplemental incentives haven’t been areas of controversy.) DEEP is concerned that doing that and adding the new incentives risks depleting funds that could result in a temporary interruption in the program. They rely on modeling from their program consultant to assess this. (Though there was another round of modeling requested in October that has not been publicly disclosed to this point).

There was a second reason articulated by DEEP, which is that for the more expensive vehicles, consumers will buy them anyway, rebate or no. We don’t see it that way but won’t get further into that here.

Time to Restore the Prior Incentive Levels

The EV Club, along with the broader CT EV Coalition, believes there is a strong case for restoring the pre-October 2019 incentive levels and MSRP cap, along with introducing the used and supplemental incentives.

• The program is clearly failing this year.
• As of the most recently published EV registration data by the DMV in July, the state is losing ground relative to the commitments made in the Multi-state Zero Emission Vehicle Action Plan.
• There will be $4.9 million in available funds in 2021 due to this year’s underspending and some unused bridge funds from 2019, a 63% increase relative to budget.
• The recessionary economy is likely to persist for another 6 months. Let’s hope it is only that long. (It also makes for a difficult environment in which to model.)
• Due to the income-limitation aspect of the used and supplemental incentives, software development is required for implementation. They are thus unlikely to be ready for launch on January 1.
• The take rate for the used EV incentive is likely to be low in the short-term.
  • The incentive is income-limited.
  • The dealership representation on the board stated that the current market for used EVs is small. Our analysis of DMV registration files is consistent with this perspective.
  • As noted, the start date is unknown at this time.
  • There is still a shortage of charging infrastructure in the urban communities that this is intended to most benefit. This applies to the supplemental incentive as well. Over time, this will improve, but it will still be an issue in 2021.
• For BEVs, which, as noted in DEEP’s EV Roadmap, have a greater impact in lowering greenhouse gas emissions, there just aren’t a lot of them available under the current $42,000 cap. As EV introductions move more toward larger battery packs, EUVs, crossovers, and other popular (and larger) form-factors, this is likely to be even more the case.
• Even at the old (higher) levels, the CT plan is less generous than what is offered in other, nearby states.
• Finally, the EV Coalition intends to lobby for a larger share of the clean-air fee to be devoted to CHEAPR. If successful, the budget issue will be ameliorated. If not, there will be plenty of runway to make adjustments, not to mention empirical data as a basis on which to do so.