Electric vehicle tax credit is reportedly safe in final US tax bill

Earlier this month, the U.S. Senate passed its version of the Republican tax bill, which didn’t include the proposed language that would have removed the federal tax credit for electric vehicles.

Now the bill is being reconciled with the House bill, which reportedly still included the removal of the EV credit, but some Republicans are reportedly leaking that they will side with the Senate bill on the issue, along with keeping the incentive for wind power.

Bloomberg Politics reported the news based on an unnamed Republican reportedly familiar with the process:

“House and Senate negotiators have agreed to spare the electric-vehicle tax credit and wind production tax credit in their compromise package, according to a Republican familiar with process.”

No bill has been brought to a vote yet, but it is expected to happen within the next few weeks.

Electrek’s Take

Again, nothing is concrete yet, but that’s more good news for American electric vehicle buyers.

It felt ridiculous that they were going after the EV tax credit in the first place since the program is already being phased out with Tesla, GM, and Nissan soon running out of credits. On top of that, it only represents a ridiculously small fraction of the spending that they need to cut in order to achieve their tax cuts.

The EV tax credit just seemed like collateral damage to the Republicans pushing for the tax cut.

And while the GOP first proposed the removal of the credit, they received some pretty strong pushback within their own party.

If the tax credit is indeed safe, it’s good news for American electric vehicle buyers, but is it for automakers?

Like we reported before, Tesla probably had the most to gain from the program being cut early. They are on pace to run out of the credits first and at that point, other EVs still eligible will have a competitive advantage over Tesla’s vehicles in the US.

Now GM and Nissan are not far behind, but other companies like Audi, Hyundai, Daimler, VW, and others who have yet to launch EVs in higher volumes, had the most to lose from the program going away.