Electric Vehicle Market Boosted by Tax Incentives, Hindered by Faulty Charging Stations

Electric vehicles promise to reshape transportation in the U.S., but efforts to promote EVs face several challenges.

The Inflation Reduction Act creates a $7,500 tax credit for buying new EVs and a $4,000 tax credit for buying used EVs. However, not all buyers and vehicle models qualify for the credits, which have income caps and aim to promote U.S. manufacturing. Furthermore, U.S. automaker Ford raised the price of its F-150 Lightning pickup truck by $8,500 as the bill approached passage, citing “significant material cost increases and other factors.” 

There’s another problem: charging stations are still being installed in many places, and they don’t always work well. While the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure bill provided funding for 500,000 chargers, installing them will take time. There have also been several reports of faulty or broken chargers; a recent J.D. Power survey found that 1 in 5 visitors “ended up not charging their vehicle during their visit,” often due to “the station malfunctioning or being out of service.”

Coverage was widespread across the spectrum in both national and local outlets. Some coverage from the left framed EVs as a social good that “millions of Americans need to be enticed to buy,” and some coverage from the right critically framed EV incentives as pushing expensive cars on “recession-weary Americans.”