Donald Trump will end EV subsidies of up to $7,500 per car if he is elected president in November.
“Tax credits and tax incentives are not generally a very good thing,” the Republican candidate told Reuters in an interview. “I'm not making any final decisions on it,” he added. “I'm a big fan of electric cars, but I'm a fan of gasoline-propelled cars, and also hybrids and whatever else happens to come along.”
The so-called tax incentive that the Biden administration expanded when it came into office in 2020 aims at motivating carmakers to build more plug-in vehicles and more drivers to buy them. Sales, however, have been stalling lately, and even declining in Europe as governments run out of money to keep paying the incentives.
Sales data for July showed that EV sales in Europe’s largest market, Germany, took a plunge of 37%, following the removal of subsidies in December last year. Sweden also booked an EV sales decline and Switzerland also saw a double-digit sales decline.
“Well-off and eco-conscious buyers are more or less tapped out, and the industry’s lack of affordable battery models is cutting mass-market consumers out of the market,” Bloomberg noted at the time.
According to Trump, EVs are a much smaller market than the current administration believes, because of battery range and cost factors, Reuters reported, adding that Trump was considering ending EV mandates for carmakers.
On the other hand, it seems that the Republican candidate does not have a problem with Chinese EVs—as long as they get built in the United States.
“We're going to give incentives, and if China and other countries want to come here and sell the cars, they're going to build plants here, and they're going to hire our workers," Trump said. "We will make our own cars. I want to make our own cars,” Trump also said.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
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