Electric vehicle buyers get an ally within GOP over repeal of the $7,500 federal tax credit

Bad news hit the EV world last week when Republicans unveiled their tax bill and it included a complete removal of the federal tax credit for electric vehicles by the end of the year.

The only hope for EV buyers is that the language about the tax credit changes by the time the bill becomes law. Now, those EV buyers might have an ally within the GOP.

Bloomberg Terminal reported today that Republican Senator Dean Heller, who sits on the Senate’s finance committee, said that he will fight against the repeal of the federal tax credit for electric vehicles in an interview:

“I’ll be doing my best to try to protect that kind of tax credit that keeps the industry afloat.”

He is working on the Senate’s version of the tax bill, which gives some credibility to his support of the tax credit for EVs despite the fact that the repeal has been initiated by the House GOP.

We should have a better idea about the situation by the end of the week when we should have access to the Senate’s tax bill.

Last week, we released a post about how to approach buying a Tesla or any electric car with the proposed end of $7,500 tax credit next month.

Electrek’s Take

Coincidently (or not), Heller is the republican senator from Nevada, where Tesla has established its multi-billion Gigafactory to build batteries for electric vehicles.

If anything, exposure to this deal and electric vehicles in general might have had an impact on his opinion to keep supporting the industry through the transition to electric vehicles.

As I previously mentioned, EV incentives are currently preparing and accelerating this market transition. If they are removed, it will simply slow down the process in the US while the rest of the world moves forward.

Ultimately, those incentives won’t be seen as having a strong impact compared to the technological advancements which are rapidly making gas-powered cars uncompetitive with electric vehicles regardless of incentives.

But what is more infuriating is that the removal of those incentives at this point comes without any additional taxes on internal combustion engines. This means that the GOP is looking to subsidize gas-powered vehicles since they refuse to price the externalities of burning oil, which are clear from the health and environmental impacts.

Anyone who believes in those impacts and their financial costs could go as far as to argue that the removal of the federal tax credit is basically a tax hike on virtually everyone who breathes and lives on this planet.