Electrifying Transport: Ideas to Jumpstart an American Electric Vehicle Revolution

May 11

View The CLEEN Project's Ideas to Jumpstart an American EV Revolution

Top 3 vote-getters:

Mandate Zero Emission Medium- and Heavy-Duty Vehicles

Contributors: Nathaniel Horadam, Kevin Vincent

Summary: Proposes increasing the stringency of the standards jointly issued by the EPA and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) that currently regulate carbon emissions from medium and heavy duty vehicles – EPA’s GHG Emission Standards and NHTSA’s Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) Standards -- and add to these standards a requirement for an increasing percentage of zero emission medium and heavy duty vehicles in each year. These standards should culminate in a nationwide mandate that all MHDs sold beginning in the year 2040 are ZEVs.

Spur US Medium and Heavy-Duty EV Manufacturing via Point-of-Sale Incentive

Contributor: Kyle Winslow

Summary: Proposes passing and implementing new federal direct purchase incentive for medium and heavy duty zero emission vehicles, which would be administered by DOE as a direct payment/rebate, or structured as an upfront grant-in-lieu of investment tax credit through the Internal Revenue Code. Point-of-sale incentives buy down the upfront cost and send a clear policy signal to fleets that inform ZEV purchasing decisions. Similar state-level programs exist in CA and NY.

Reforming the EV Tax Credit to Benefit Domestic Manufacturer’s and a Broad Consumer Base

Contributors: Natasha Vidangos, Andrew Salzberg, Tom Van Heeke, Kelly Fleming, Joel Levin, Dan Kammen, Ph.D., Kevin Vincent

Summary: Proposes that the current $7,500 EV tax credit should be redesigned as follows:

Institute an MSRP cap such that tax rebates are available only for vehicles with MSRPs of $60,000 or less to benefit middle income drivers
Remove the 200,000 vehicle sales limit, which penalizes U.S. first-movers (Tesla and GM), while continuing to benefit foreign automakers, and replace it with a phase out when EV purchases exceed 10% of light duty vehicle sales.
Limit the credit to battery EVs and plug-in hybrid EVs with an EPA range of at least 35 miles.
Make the credit transferable, which would make the credit available at point of sale and thus much more valuable for moderate-income consumers who do not have a large federal tax liability.
Extend the EV credit at 25% (i.e. $1875) for a single resale use on secondary EV purchases (i.e., for a used vehicle). More people purchase used vehicles than new vehicles, making this a powerful tool to increase EV access for more consumers.