California cranks up electric car rebates for lower income buyers

In the Golden State, lower-income households now need less green to drive clean.

Earlier this month, California amended the Clean Vehicle Rebate Project, its rebate program for electric, plug-in hybrid and fuel-cell cars, as a way of boosting sales of low-emissions vehicles.

Higher income earners can no longer receive the rebates, while those with tighter budgets will receive more cash—about $500 per vehicle. California had previously imposed income caps on its electric-car rebate program in March.

“A lot of these rebates were going to wealthy folks buying their Teslas,” Joel Espino, legal counsel for the Berkeley, CA-based Greenlining Institute, an advocate of the program, tells the Los Angeles Times. “We wanted to preserve these dollars, understanding that they’re limited funds, and target them at folks who really need them the most.”

California has more zero-emission vehicles on the road than any other U.S. state. However, they make up just three percent of new car sales in the state—and California’s Air Resources Board has mandated that number rise to 15.4% by 2025. That’s just over eight years down the road.

These latest changes have their skeptics.

“Is $500 extra really incentive enough to get (lower-income earners) who normally stayed out of this market?” Jeremy Acevedo, an auto analyst with Edmunds.com, asks the Times. “Is the infrastructure in place for these lower-income buyers Are these folks homeowners (who) can plug (zero-emission vehicles) into their garage every day?”

Still, electric vehicle (EV) charging stations are becoming more commonplace every day:

• The U.S. recently announced that it would create 48 EV charging networks on about 25,000 miles of highway spanning 35 U.S. states. There are currently about 16,000 EV charging stations in the U.S., up from 500 in 2008, according to the White House.
• Meanwhile, in Europe, every new or refurbished house will need an EV charging station starting in 2019, as part of a European Union directive. The same prospective legislation mandates that 10% of parking spaces in new EU buildings will need recharging facilities by 2023.

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