Can Californians afford electric cars? Wait lists for rebates are long and some programs have shut down

When Tulare resident Quentin Nelms heard California was offering a hefty state subsidy to help lower-income residents buy electric cars, he applied right away.

But it wasn’t as easy as he thought it would be. 

Nelms spent four months on a waitlist before he was accepted into one of the state’s clean-car incentive programs in January. He qualified for $9,500 that he planned to use to buy a 2022 Ford Mustang Mach-E. But after discovering that several dealerships had raised the car’s price by more than $10,000 during the time...