Unintended harm of subsidizing electric cars

[hytibilly]

Global climate change is an imminent problem. The West coast is currently on fire, Germany is being flooded, and there was just a hurricane in Florida. The "best" solution would be investment in green energy production and a carbon tax credit but that's been heavily fought against by the entrenched fossil fuel interests. An achievable solution would be to subsidize EVs and building out EV infrastructure and fixing the grid.

The worse case scenario for EV is cold weather locations with dirty electricity. However, it's not cold all year unless you're in Alaska, and coal plants will get replaced as they get old. And if you look at the south, or the coasts, you can find a lot of solar power and wind power potential that currently isn't exploited.

The EV mandate doesn't kick in now. Within the next decade, hopefully EVs will become cheaper as mass market manufacturers start making EVs, and the infrastructure is built out.

 

[eljefino]

IMO if the electric car owners want to install fast chargers, they should be made to pay an upgrade fee for their electric service, since it wasn't approved initially for that use. Not dump it into "everyone pays" bucket.

My power bill is "deregulated" and what I pay for "distribution" actually exceeds "generation". The customers of my power company are screaming that they should improve their grid but CMP would rather pay dividends to their stockholders. If we were a co-op with customers being the owners it would be a better scenario for both electric and non-electric car owners.

That said my Prius Prime consumes less power than my clothes dryer. If my power company can't feed an electric dryer we really do live in a 3rd world country.

 

[Imp4]

I want to drive a car that emission is in someone else's backyard, or a gas car that wars are fought in someone else's country. I don't know, whatever is the cheapest I guess.

Mighty neighborly of ya.....
The trouble comes when those folks feel the same way.

So I guess a diversified energy source is the best? I don't know, the only diversified energy source is how we generate electricity it seems.

Hmmm, maybe we can work on not shooting each other or at least promoting shooting one another as a start.

 

[PandaBear]

Hmmm, maybe we can work on not shooting each other as a start.

My point exactly. A lot of our cheap energy involves shooting each other (military, currency war, etc).

There's less to shoot each other for if we use a diverse source like electricity.

 

[OVERKILL]

And if you look at the south, or the coasts, you can find a lot of solar power and wind power potential that currently isn't exploited.

Both wind and solar will necessarily be limited in penetration because of their inherent intermittency. Wind absolutely requires gas backup to stand-in for it while it is AWOL for significant periods and solar is limited by what can reasonably be covered by storage.

Wind can work well paired with high levels of reservoir hydro, solar can work well paired with something like nuclear to displace daytime peaking requirements. Neither are a solution on their own or together at this juncture and likely never will be given the limitations of storage.

The fossil fuel industry has been incredibly successful at demonizing nuclear and investing in both wind and solar, technologies that, in the current political climate, are paired with gas, resulting in diversified and guaranteed revenue streams from credits and subsidies.

 

[PandaBear]

My power bill is "deregulated" and what I pay for "distribution" actually exceeds "generation". The customers of my power company are screaming that they should improve their grid but CMP would rather pay dividends to their stockholders. If we were a co-op with customers being the owners it would be a better scenario for both electric and non-electric car owners.

That said my Prius Prime consumes less power than my clothes dryer. If my power company can't feed an electric dryer we really do live in a 3rd world country.

In my area my electric rate is 1/2 generation 1/2 distribution, actually slightly more on distribution. You can see how we have a small gas generation facility and data centers are build all around it, sort of bypass the grid. I bet they save a ton without going to an official grid if they just run a private line in between them.

That said, people already pay a lot of money to upgrade their home to hook up fast charger, and most of them are permit, labor, insurance, and not the actual wiring. $10k to upgrade to 200A seems like a rip off to be honest, if I were the homeowner I'd just run it through a dryer or AC line and call it a day. I am not paying some rip off $10k to upgrade for fast EV charging.

 

[Job]

Tax credits have nothing to do with withholding. It has to do with tax liability for the year.
Withholding is pre-paid tax.
You get a tax credit up to $7,500. If your tax liability for the year was $5,000 and you had $10,000 withheld, you would get $5,000 tax credit. Your return would be $10,000 because your net tax liability for the year would be zero.

You think I don’t know withholding is pre paid tax?
When I bought a 2007 Prius I got a refundable tax credit.
The one now is a non refundable tax credit.

I know I said I was done, but I'm going to give this one more try.........That's not how any of this works. Withholding does not reduce taxes owed. Withholding is a vehicle for paying your tax liability.

A tax credit is a tax credit. They all work the same once the amount of the credit is figured. They credit against the liability for the filing. The EV tax credit works the same as a renewable energy tax credit, or a child tax credit, or any other tax credit. It is credited to the liability. If the liability is under the credit amount, the liability is reduced to zero, if the liability is over the credit amount the liability is reduced by the full credit amount.

There are two kinds of tax credits. Refundable and non refundable. I know how withholding works. I already said you were right about the ev credit, and my situation was different and I made a mistake on it. Now you made a mistake that there is one kind of credit, are you going to be so gracious?

Both of you need to watch Mr. Rogers and lighten up on people. Build people up, not tear them down.

 

[JeffKeryk]

Both of you need to watch Mr. Rogers and lighten up on people. Build people up, not tear them down.

Apologies if I offended you; that was not my intension.
My point was how EV tax credits worked.
People may read incorrect information and expect a tax credit they are not entitled to, or may think they cannot get a tax credit they are entitled to.

 

[Job]

Apologies if I offended you; that was not my intension.
My point was how EV tax credits worked.
People may read incorrect information and expect a tax credit they are not entitled to, or may think they cannot get a tax credit they are entitled to.

Not offended at all just sounds that way. Just setting it straight someone who started working at a good job in 1974 and had lesser jobs before, probably knows about what withholding is. I had up to four employees under me so must have at least known about withholding somewhere in there.
The only thing on this thread is the wording. I think incentives is more correct than subsidies. Incentives is a goal to start ev’s being popularized, subsidy is a help to the buyer. That isn’t what they are doing because as mentioned most ev buyers don’t need a subsidy. Rich people jump on incentives as fast as anyone. It’s more like having a sale on something to get the products sold faster. When a store has a sale they aren’t subsidizing, they are incentivizing. If we want to start on subsidies we can go all kinds of places like an airport. The government spends big dollars so plane travelers can fly safely. I don’t fly much, and probably never will again. So frequent flyers are subsidized? Not really it’s a loaded word.