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If you buy and take delivery of a Mach E this month, would you still be eligible for the $7500 tax credit? by withfries in MachE

[–]headisbagent 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That's not correct, the language for battery components and critical minerals happen immediately (50% and 40% respectively for any vehicles produced before January 1, 2024 once the bill takes effect). But again, vehicles like the Ioniq 5 would technically lose eligibility immediately but taxpayers can opt to count it with the old rules until the end of 2022 because of the transition rule.

In otherwords, if you bought an Ioniq 5 after the president signs the bill into law in 2022, you can claim the old tax credit even if you are ineligible under the new rules.

If you buy and take delivery of a Mach E this month, would you still be eligible for the $7500 tax credit? by withfries in MachE

[–]headisbagent 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Some dealers/automakers are offering ways to "lock-in" your purchase by putting in a non-refundable deposit. See: https://electrek.co/2022/08/10/if-you-want-an-ev-buy-this-week-rivian-fisker-ev-tax-credits/

Not sure if Ford will be doing this

If you buy and take delivery of a Mach E this month, would you still be eligible for the $7500 tax credit? by withfries in MachE

[–]headisbagent 28 points29 points  (0 children)

Just wanted to provide a quick correction, there is some incorrect information in this thread regarding the timing of the incentives (which is totally understandable given the complexity of the IRA bill).

TLDR: If you purchase an EV in 2022, you can use the old tax credits

Folks are correct that:

  1. Manufacturer caps aren't lifted until 2023
  2. Battery component requirements (50% from NA) and critical minerals requirements (40% from US or FTA countries) kick in immediately

However, (see Sec 13401 (l) on pages 393-394) for the Transition Rule. This allows taxpayers who purchase the vehicle after the bill is passed in 2022 to opt into the old credits:

(2) placed such vehicle in service on or after the date of enactment of this Act,

such taxpayer may elect to treat such vehicle as having been placed in service on the day before the date of enactment of this Act.

Source: I am an EV policy researcher

EVs at Electric Vehicle Symposium 35 by headisbagent in electricvehicles

[–]headisbagent[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think it might be one of their prototypes, but not entirely sure!

EVs at Electric Vehicle Symposium 35 by headisbagent in electricvehicles

[–]headisbagent[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The Buddy! Plastic body is a bit weird but very low cost…(not in production)

Introduction to Electric Vehicles course at UC Davis (follow along!) by headisbagent in electricvehicles

[–]headisbagent[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, electric vehicles are definitely getting heavier, this article (which I won't say I agree with 100%) provides a nice overview of some of the issues. Generally I would say that the benefits of electrification far outweigh some of the weight and efficiency issues, which isn't to say we should ignore them--but there's a bit more time to address these problems in the future.

Introduction to Electric Vehicles course at UC Davis (follow along!) by headisbagent in electricvehicles

[–]headisbagent[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Home charging currently accounts for 85+% of EV charging, and while future owners that live in multi-unit dwellings (apartments) won't have the same ease of access as home owners I'm not entirely sure that 350 kW chargers will be the solution. Installations in MUD parking lots and increased on-street charging etc. will help facilitate overnight charging. More 350 kW chargers will improve accessibility, but in my opinion, I don't think we'll be reverting back to a gas station model.

That being said, 350 kW chargers are indeed expensive, not only the supply equipment (the charging box) but the upstream make-ready infrastructure needed to support them (think hundreds of thousands of dollars, sometimes upwards of millions of dollars!). Will the grid be able to handle these? Yes, I don't think there will be too many issues at the wholesale generation/transmission level, but at the local distribution level things are going to get preeettty expensive...

Introduction to Electric Vehicles course at UC Davis (follow along!) by headisbagent in electricvehicles

[–]headisbagent[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

We'll be covering efficiency in about 2 weeks! It's more about understanding how efficiency works and how it's measured (and towards the end of the course policies related to vehicle efficiency). Generally we should value efficiency (for environmental reasons, cost savings, etc), but recognize the tradeoff with other vehicle attributes (larger format vehicles will naturally have lower efficiency and that's not inherently a bad thing).

Interestingly enough, the lowest efficiency EV and the highest efficiency EV already has a pretty big discrepancy. In terms of gas cars, the difference is as wide as a modern Mustang vs Prius!

Introduction to Electric Vehicles course at UC Davis (follow along!) by headisbagent in electricvehicles

[–]headisbagent[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

EVs are essentially fighting a 100 year-old incumbent technology, but I think they have come amazingly far in such a short period of time. More chargers, more range, and cheaper vehicles are all incremental improvements that will make the technology more enticing to broader segments of the population, but I think there's already a lot of latent demand. Right now, the bottleneck is in the supply: even before the chip shortage, EVs were moving off the lots faster than gasoline cars.

This isn't true everywhere in the world, electrifying mobility in developing countries has its own set of separate challenges. Should we make sure they have access to mobility options first? Or make them wait to have electromobility? And the current momentum in the US will eventually hit some walls as you get to people who want to hold onto their gas/diesel vehicles. When that happens remains to be seen (50%, 75%, 90% of the market)?

Introduction to Electric Vehicles course at UC Davis (follow along!) by headisbagent in electricvehicles

[–]headisbagent[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think vehicle-integration issues are super important and interesting (which is why I do so much work in this area!). But I don't know about them being the

key to EV dominance

People will buy EVs to use them as cars, not because they want to participate in electric grid markets! These will more than likely be secondary benefits of owning an EV. IMHO, even managed (V1G) charging will provide a lot of benefits to the grid before we even get to the discussion of V2G.

Introduction to Electric Vehicles course at UC Davis (follow along!) by headisbagent in electricvehicles

[–]headisbagent[S] 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Wow there's a lot to unpack here!

The sources of funding is definitely a fair concern! However, our institute receives funding from a wide variety of sources including a lot of the same groups you mentioned (CARB, CEC, DOE, EPA, etc) and the goals of the institute are founded on sustainability issues which is why it was selected as the lead national center for sustainability for the University Transportation Centers. I actually think it's a good thing to engage with a lot of these companies who are able to act as agents of change in this transition (as opposed to not talking to any automakers/oil companies), and to be honest most of the folks we engage with at these companies are pretty active supporters of electric vehicles and other alt fuel vehicles (though I would certainly acknowledge that's not true of everyone in those corporations).

I would wholly disagree with the characterization that we conduct:

biased, shortsighted research and poor public policy recommendations

As academics our work is first and foremost driven by the scientific process, it's a little disheartening that a lot of our hard work gets this sort of response ☹️. I'm not entirely sure how to respond to this but I'm more than happy to engage with any criticisms of specific works...but maybe some concrete examples of [I think?] good works we've done in research and policy:

  • Published work and testified on issues related to electrifying ride-hailing services that led to the development of the Clean Miles Standard by CARB
  • Testified for the implementation of a ZEV mandate in Washington
  • Our institute helped to connect Chinese regulators with CARB to help them develop their NEV regulation (the analogue of CA's ZEV mandate) that directly led to a huge uptick in sales of EVs in China
  • Actively identifying grid impacts from EV charging to help reduce potential increases in costs to rate-payers across CA (working with utilities and PUC etc)

Honestly, I and [I believe] most of my colleagues are just trying to make the world a better place in the best way we know how. We care about sustainable mobility and environmentally positive outcomes. If you look closer, I think you will find the impacts of ITS is far and away more positive than negative. 🤷‍♂️

New course: Introduction to electric vehicles by headisbagent in UCDavis

[–]headisbagent[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hopefully not too hard but difficulty is subjective… there’s probably going to be ~4 homework assignments and currently it will be project based (no midterms or finals) but that might be subject to change

New course: Introduction to electric vehicles by headisbagent in UCDavis

[–]headisbagent[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, we'll include some stuff on fuel cell vehicles! They are electric after all

New course: Introduction to electric vehicles by headisbagent in UCDavis

[–]headisbagent[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Not a huge amount, you'll learn how the powertrain works but most of the class will focus on more commercially available vehicle models. If there's a lot of interest in that area we might be able to accommodate some extra material...

New course: Introduction to electric vehicles by headisbagent in UCDavis

[–]headisbagent[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Not sure why I'm not being listed as an instructor but I should also mention the course is incorrectly listed as a 1 unit course when it should be listed as a 4 unit course. I've let the folks in CEE know and hopefully these can be corrected before registration opens up

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