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While some states are clearly leading and strengthening policies to enable widespread use of electric cars, trucks, and buses, all states will have to significantly step up their efforts to enable a full transition, says a new report from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE). The 2023 State Transportation Electrification Scorecard evaluates states’ policies to encourage electric vehicle (EV) adoption. Only nine states scored more than half the points available. (AutoInformed: Watt? Electric Cars Cause Another Great Generational Divide)
“We are seeing incremental progress, not transformational progress. States will have to move far more aggressively to do their part to enable the electric vehicle transition that the climate crisis demands,” said Peter Huether, senior research associate at ACEEE and the lead writer of the report. “Auto manufacturers are expanding their EV options and consumers are increasingly choosing them, but supportive state policies are needed to ensure that the electric grid is ready and that all households and businesses, including those in under-served communities, can use EVs and have adequate access to charging.” Continue reading
UAW Blasts Biden and Inflation Reduction Act
Late Friday the UAW once again blasted the bipartisan Inflation Reduction Act in its latest attempt to protect the jobs, health, and safety of its members. Using data from a new Good Jobs First* report, “Power Outrage: Will Heavily Subsidized Battery Factories Generate Substandard Jobs?” the union pointed out that “Under a provision of the Inflation Reduction Act, some factories making batteries for electric vehicles will each receive more than a billion dollars per year from the U.S. government, with no requirement to pay good wages to production workers. Thanks to the Advanced Manufacturing Production Credit, also called 45X for its section in the Internal Revenue Code, battery companies will receive tax credits that they can use, sell, or cash out.” Since this is a UAW contract year the outlook for Automakers remains stormy, with strikes clearly a threat. (AutoInformed on EV Politics – Biden versus the UAW)
“The so called 45X program alone will cost taxpayers more than $200 billion in the next decade, far more than the $31 billion estimated by Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation. On top of 45X and other federal incentives, factories manufacturing electric vehicles and batteries have also been promised well over $13 billion in state and local economic development incentives in just the past 18 months,” the UAW said. Continue reading →