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EV Tax Credit Update - Tom and Bryant take roadtrips!
125 Plays2 years ago
Welcome to the Plug In For More podcast! Mike, Tom, and Bryant are here to help you on your journey to an Electric vehicle future. Each episode we discuss current events, trends, and a specific topic of education related to EV's. We bring together a diverse experience set, and pair it with guests who are experts in the field. For even more information on EV's, check out www.EVUniverse.com.
Bryant brings us updates on the EV tax credit and the inflation reduction. Also Tom and Bryant share stories about their respective road trips.
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Transcript
Introduction and Reunification of Hosts
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome back to the plugin for more podcasts. You got the three of us back on the recording for the first time in a few, few episodes and excited to have you guys both back. Happy to be here. Nice to be back. We are going to talk about the tax credit law updates. Once we get through some of our stories or maybe the five myths, whatever Mike wants, really. That's why we're here. It's Mike's day. We're going to do what
Podcast Overview and Ohio Road Trip
00:00:18
Speaker
he wants. Well, that's what I always like.
00:00:20
Speaker
Welcome to Plug In For More, brought to you by evuniverse.com. EV Universe is your one-stop shop for all things related to the electric vehicle. Here on this podcast, our goal is to educate, inspire, and hopefully make your transition into the electric vehicle marketplace a lot less intimidating. And now, here are your hosts, Mike, Tom, and Bryant.
00:00:47
Speaker
Can I talk about my road trip to Ohio? I suppose. I'd love to hear that road trip to hell. So I know I, I talk a lot of bad things about Ohio. I've never really had a great experience. There was only like one good thing about Ohio and you can get yingling beer there and Cedar Point. Like that's about it from my standpoint. I'm just pointed out. That's two. So that's one. Yeah. So it's really like two good things about Ohio.
00:01:15
Speaker
We're aligned on this time. I can't believe it. We're so aligned. I mean, I didn't think there's any good things,
EV Features and Road Mishaps
00:01:20
Speaker
but you're right. Those are the two only good things in Ohio. Right. And then granted that yingling comes from Pennsylvania, but it's just the distribution routes. Like that's the closest way we could get it. Whatever. So we're doing a road trip down. We left. Traverse city about six o'clock in the evening. We're trying to get to Cedar Point.
00:01:37
Speaker
I'm looking at a better out planner. I'm looking at plug share this over apps because at my road trip experience is limited right now still and like we talked about the last couple episodes of the Machi My range is limited. I grew at that 224 mile mark for range So it's two or three charge stops. Like there's no way around that for me
00:01:56
Speaker
But I discovered, and maybe I'm not alone in this, but Apple Maps has its built-in to its map software now for EV travel, and it locates closest chargers for you, and it also interfaces with Apple CarPlay, so it knows exactly where your car's charging level is at and gives you pretty accurate expectations on when you need to charge and what your percentage is going to be once you get there.
00:02:22
Speaker
And the driving I did, I found it to be fairly modest in its estimation. So even in the beginning, when it said you're going to arrive at your NASA charging station at 30%, by the time I got to that charging station, I was really like 35. So that was pretty cool to find.
00:02:37
Speaker
I did find the app somewhat limited in that it doesn't tell you what chargers are available, what chargers are down. While you're in the app and while you're actually driving, it doesn't give you a great sense of how long you're going to be at that charging station stop for. You have to be stationary and then get access to it through your phone.
00:02:57
Speaker
So, it's not quite as intuitive as a better outplanner or maybe the Tesla app, which I've never used. I mean, Tesla's really good. I mean, really, when you get in the car, you set your destination. It tells you not only, obviously, when you're going to get there, how much charge you're going to have left, and then how long you have to wait until your next stop. And it's a little bit conservative on that. I know a lot of people who try to push the envelope.
00:03:21
Speaker
and roll in with five miles or less, but that's no different than someone else trying to just run on fumes and with their gas tank. But anyways, I digress. Yeah, I mean, it works really, really well with the Tesla app and it has for years.
00:03:37
Speaker
This road trip, everything was going super well until we got into Ohio. I'm into Ohio and either it's karma because of all the bad things I've said about it, or it's just a self-fulfilling prophecy that Ohio really is the worst place in the world. I get a chunk of metal stuck in my tire.
00:03:53
Speaker
and I am in Toledo and I've got a rapidly deflating tire and I ended up making it into a service station and very kind service station attendant let me borrow some tools and I was able to buy some of the tire fix a flat plug and the spray and like I know that that's not an ideal way to solve a flat tire problem but in a car that doesn't come with a spare tire what else are you gonna do at 1230 outside of Toledo in the middle of the night in the rain so
00:04:23
Speaker
I plugged the whole of the string plug and fill it full to fix a flat on the inside, figured two for one on that. Hopefully it holds and gets us to Cedar Point. And then I will deal with a flat tire the next morning or on the following day. And that's what I did.
EV Travel Strategies and Experiences
00:04:40
Speaker
I mean, Tom, I have two, I have two questions for you.
00:04:43
Speaker
Yeah. Going back to the Apple maps, how do you, how did you select you drive an EV and how did you pick like chargers? Is there a setting or like, how'd that happen? It was all automatic. So the Apple maps knows that it's connected to the car. I'm assuming through car play that is connected to an electric vehicle. And then there was no settings that I could find. I could be missing something that specifically point to like what type of chargers that you want.
00:05:11
Speaker
Okay. I have a try it. I've not tried it, but I have apple car playing like Mike and his fancy Rivian. Yeah, Mike, this really cool Rivian. Yeah. Do you have apple car play? Yeah, no, I don't. I don't. Oh, weird. Well, you got awesome headlights. Hey, how's your truck bed? How's your truck bed? I was towing stuff these days. I'm sorry. And your range? Well, how's the range? Uh, I'm sorry. Just you pull over for a little bit. I keep going for 130 more miles. It's okay. Oh, I'm getting defensive here. I'm getting offensive. Yeah.
00:05:41
Speaker
Brian, did you have more relevant questions? I did. I did. I was curious how...
00:05:47
Speaker
You know, I've never used, I've never, my car doesn't have a spare either. I mean, describe how it works. I've never changed, I've always had a spare tire. So I've never done a roadside repair on a tire before. Like, tell me about it. So this particular kit that I bought from the gas station, it's got one tool that you would stick into the puncture tire through the hole that was created by whatever foreign object went in. And it's kind of like a, it looks like a large screw that has serrations on it and you just kind of plunge it in and out.
00:06:18
Speaker
to roughen up that, that surface from the tire. And then it uses another tool that looks like a giant, um, sewing needle that you put like this. Thread in that's maybe like an eighth of an inch in diameter and it's kind of rubber. And it reminds me of those, um, uh, Cracker Braille when you go there and you get those like little pixie sticks.
00:06:39
Speaker
Sure. Yeah. No. Okay. It looks like that, but bigger and rubber cement and you coat this whole thing with rubber cement and then you jam it into the tire. So some of that thread is still sticking out and then you just yank the needle out and that stuff stays inside and it's stuck in the tire and it seals it from that point. I had never used it before. Um, so it was easy enough that.
00:07:02
Speaker
Silly me at one o'clock in the morning in the dark and the rain could figure it out. And then not being confident that would be enough. I threw a can of fix a flat and it just the same and figured two for one. We'll go with that. Nice. And you made it. So we made it. Um, and to this point we drove it. We, I went to go get the tire fixed at Walmart was the entire place open.
00:07:25
Speaker
And they wouldn't fix the tire or try to patch it because I had already done all that work to it so they said they wouldn't touch it. And they wanted the tires on that axle to match so they wouldn't even do it. I would have to buy two tires that didn't fit the car to get home.
00:07:40
Speaker
So I just rolled the dice and drove home on my plug and right now it's still holding. But my local tire guy is going to get me in Friday. We'll take care of it. So it should be good then. But yeah, so that, that went well. Ohio, uh, apparently and I still don't get along, but Cedar Point was fine. We had a good time and, uh, smooth trip back, all the charging stations were up and running and working as I expected. And by expected, I mean, electrify America's were at about 75% being opened.
00:08:10
Speaker
and functional? That's pretty good. So there's that. That's pretty good. One more question for you. So was it hard? They didn't have any EV specific tires for your vehicle. Was that really difficult for them to locate an EV specific tire? What did that look like? So the big difference, and we talked about it in one of those former episodes of Aaron Jones, it's going to come down to a weight rating, or the load rating on the tire is going to be more.
00:08:35
Speaker
So on my particular car it's a 225 by 60 R18 tire which is a fairly common size but the load rating to be high enough is less common so coming by that's a little bit harder. Got it. Yeah that's something I'll notice with the Rivian is I have the 21 inch wheel and there's really not any good aftermarket options.
00:09:03
Speaker
So luckily I've got a spare on that, but it's not something to think about when I'm going on that long trip, especially later this year, if we're going up to Michigan or flying, I think I might end up driving probably at this point, but yeah, it's something to consider, that's for sure.
00:09:23
Speaker
So the Maki comes with a tire inflator that has the fix a flat stuff like already put into it. So this like all inclusive kit that you plug into your 12 volt supply and you can, it's got pictures like an Ikea furniture to directing how to use it. Um, I opted not to do that because I figured the replacement cost on that particular item would be significantly more than the $5 can of fix a flat that I bought. And.
00:09:51
Speaker
I figured we'd save that for when I was stranded in the middle of the turnpike. But at least we have that. I'm pretty sure your Kia has that, doesn't it, Brian? Yeah, it's the same concept, Tom. I've never used it. I'm not going to wood. Last question. Electrify America, before I get into my interesting road trip story, what kind of speeds did you see? What kind of charging speeds were you getting? I was between 30 and 120 kilowatt hours.
00:10:20
Speaker
That was, and there was a couple of times that I plugged into the 350 chargers, knowing full well that my car isn't capable of that, but it was the only charger available. So I used it, but, um, you know, the Mach-E's capable of up to 150. Unbeknownst to me, Tom and I were at road trip in the same time. I was going down to a work trip in Detroit and I brought two coworkers with.
00:10:42
Speaker
And one's a pretty big car guy, and he was pretty skeptical. I found this afterwards. He was pretty skeptical of taking a road trip in an EV. One way, it was about 290 miles where we're going. And on the way down, everything worked great. Actually, it was, to your point, though, it was kind of interesting. I plugged into a 350 at Electrify America, and I couldn't get it to actually activate. So that was the first time.
00:11:05
Speaker
I've had any personal problems, uh, electrified America. So I switched and went over to the 150 and I only got 70 kilowatt hours out of that. And that was, that was kind of disappointing, but the saving grace was, and I've talked about this on other episodes, a new Silverado EV showed up and I got to chat with the owner. Um, well, he's not an owner cause there's a fleet of 40 of them, according to him in Michigan that people get to check out that work at GM and they want to just put tons and tons and tons of miles on them.
00:11:34
Speaker
and their hope is to get 40 to 50,000 miles on this fleet in the next couple months and really figure out what's wrong with them, what they can fix. But the bombshell he dropped to me, and I thought it was insider info and then I get home and I see it's all over the news. The range, the range is 450 miles. And he told me they're using the very similar, if not the same exact battery as the Hummer EV, so the battery pack is massive. And I think I talked about it in a previous episode,
00:12:03
Speaker
how long it was taking that thing to charge. And that makes sense. Cause my EV battery, my EV six batteries, you know, 90, whatever kilowatt hours and that thing is way, it's like twice the size. So anyways, a good conversation. He couldn't divulge too much. I wanted to look in the front. He wouldn't show me, I want to look in interior and take some pictures. He wouldn't let me do it. As I'm certain they're slow charging in a 70 kilowatt hour at a 150, but it wasn't that slow. It was like 20 minutes. It wasn't that big of a deal. Um,
00:12:33
Speaker
Uh, and then we got down, did our, did our meetings. I was able to charge at a Tesla destination charger at the Marriott hotel overnight. So I use my Tesla adapter and that worked great. Um, did some meetings the next day. And this is the kind of funny part. It was raining. Electrify America stations were full. Now it was a Friday afternoon driving back from Detroit and listeners. You're not from Michigan, everyone in the Detroit Metro area on the weekends in the summer comes up North. So it was pretty busy.
00:13:02
Speaker
I wasn't stopping to go traffic by any means, but three, four lane highway was full. And so I pulled up my Electrify America app and I saw that all the chargers were full. But this is where I started to feel comfortable because I've taken quite a few road trips. I was getting some really sick mileage. I think at a tailwind, it was 75 degrees. It was nice. And so I just called an audible and I know I could make it.
00:13:24
Speaker
to Cadillac, Michigan with maybe a 5% charge left. Now I just told the people with me like, we're going to just try this and see what happens. And I got a little bit nervous though, because halfway through the trip, it starts really storming, huge headwinds and the temperature drops from 75 to 55. And I was a little bit nervous. So I will say I slowed down from 75 to like 72, but we made it, no problem. We made it with 25 mile range left.
00:13:52
Speaker
And into Cadillac and electrify America there was killing it. I think I got like a 220 charge for like a seven minute in Cadillac. And, um, and then my buddy drove home in my EV and he did admit after the road trip that he actually was one of those haters. And now he's, uh, potentially going to look for an EV cause he thought road trips were going to suck and a 10, 15 minute charge and lay home, a 15, 20 minute charge and lay down. And overnight at a hotel, it was.
00:14:21
Speaker
pretty dang convenient. And he loved the instant torque and all the fun characteristics we've talked about for an EV. So I was able to convert maybe one or two people into an EV skeptic or from an EV skeptic into an EV potential advocate. But I think just the normal story is like making sure, I mean, the things we've talked about is just making sure you map out where you're going to charge.
EV Tax Credit Law Updates
00:14:44
Speaker
I took a calculated risk. I wasn't that calculated because there's a charger in Claire and there's a charger in other places I could have stopped at. Well, you're never that calculated. So I know, I know exactly. Um, and then just making sure like, Mike, this was a tip I learned from you, making sure hotels have chargers because it's pretty sweet leaving a hotel in the morning at a hundred percent charge. You don't have to worry about it, you know, so. And that's when we ran into a Cedar Point where they don't have like any chargers on the property at all.
00:15:13
Speaker
And so they have outlets in their little covered carport area where you typically drop off your baggage. I can check in. So we just parked that car up there and left it plugged in on the one 10 level one charger. And I think I got up to maybe 80% after it had been plugged in for a day and a half, but better than nothing. Yeah.
00:15:58
Speaker
has been doing extensive research still into the EV tax credits. And he's here to give us some updates on the tax code. Yeah, I couldn't sleep the other night. So I figured out to go to the IRS and read some tax, tax law. So guys, we've teased this on other episodes. I think the biggest addition, I'm gonna, I'm gonna assume for this episode, you went back and listened to the act episodes from the fall. If you haven't,
00:15:58
Speaker
Yeah, it works. Absolutely.
00:16:22
Speaker
Go back and listen to the episode from the fall because I don't want to get into all this very specific details because this podcast will be super long. What I want to do is update you guys on what's happened since the fall. The Inflation Reduction Act was passed in August. What's changed? And then most of the Inflation Reduction Act really hadn't taken an effect until April 17th this year. And so now we're starting to get into it. It's May when this has been recorded and here are the changes. So high level.
00:16:50
Speaker
There's now an adjusted gross income of 300,000 for married couples or 150,000 for single filers. That's new. The credit amount is also changed a bit. So you get 2,500 as a base amount. And I won't go into all the specific details, but depends on the battery size, the battery capacity, the total can be 7,500. That's very similar.
00:17:14
Speaker
to the other credit, but what happens is because of these different amounts per kilowatt hour and battery capacity is you get a little bit different. It's not just 7,500 or nothing like the previous one. There's another big component of vehicles placed in service after April 18th have to meet all these new battery criteria, these new assembly criteria of being most of the battery components have to be sourced from the United States, has to be finally assembled in the United States,
00:17:43
Speaker
And so what the Biden administration did when they put this in effect is they put different tiers. And so for simplicity's sake, if the vehicle meets the critical minerals requirement, so meaning the battery is manufactured in the United States, but it's not finally assembled in the United States, you get a 3500, so you get roughly half. If it meets the assembly requirements, but the battery's not from source United States, same thing.
00:18:14
Speaker
So long story short, a bunch of other EVs, like plug-in hybrid type EVs used to qualify and they're not qualifying anymore. So I want to get into the very specific things. One more quick detail. There's a new MSRP. So for SUV, sport utility vehicles, and pickup trucks, the MSRP cannot exceed $80,000. For other vehicles like sedans and whatnot and hatchbacks, it's $55,000.
00:18:43
Speaker
So those are some of the criteria that are now into effect for the tax credit. And it's not just as easy in the past. It's just whoever had tax credit allocations left from the government, they could get them. So what the outcome of this is a lot of vehicles no longer qualify. In fact, only about a dozen vehicles qualify now for the full $7,500 tax credit.
00:19:09
Speaker
Four hybrid vehicles qualify. We're not going to get hybrids on this podcast because we're doing full EVs But the list is so short. I'm just going to read it because it's it's not very big the Cadillac Lyric Qualifies congratulations to the Cadillac Lyric Owners Club. They were lobbying to get I know this because Some of them in contact to me even though I'm an owner of a Lyric But they contacted me and talked to me about this when I wrote their previous article the Cadillac Lyric Club successfully
00:19:39
Speaker
negotiated Cadillac Lyric to qualify. So Cadillac Lyric, Chevy Blazer, when it comes out later, there's fall. The Chevrolet Bolt, until it's killed at the end of the year. The Chevrolet Equinox, when it comes out later. The Silverado, when it comes out later. The F-150 Lightning, both standard and extended range. The Tesla Model 3 and the Tesla Model Y. What's missing from this list is a lot of EVs, like mine, the EV6, doesn't qualify anymore.
00:20:06
Speaker
Tom, unfortunately the Mach-E doesn't fully qualify anymore. And yeah, it's a, it's kind of a surprise. And if you really know your EVs, there's four of them I listed on here. Well, technically three of them, the Blazer, the Equinox and the Silverado. You can't even buy them right now. They're not for sale. So the list is really Lyric, Bolt, F-150, Model 3 and Model Y. Very small.
00:20:34
Speaker
Yeah. And that, I mean, again, that's for the 7,500 tax credit. I mean, there's, there's a bunch more that are eligible for the 30, 3750. Yeah. The 3750. Um, so the ones that don't qualify, um, obviously like I talked about EV six, pretty much all of the Kia, all the Hyundai don't qualify. None of the Audi.
00:20:55
Speaker
Um, Mike, your Rivian no longer qualifies. The Nissan leafs don't qualify. Um, BMW. Yeah. The Rivians are interesting though. So let's talk about that for a second. So the R1T and R1S still qualify. This is for 2023 for up to 3750, but you had.
00:21:16
Speaker
Those are for the ones that have an MSRP of under 80,000. So the only way to, and the other caveat with this is what your income is. There's an income requirement. And so that factors in there. So, but to get the MSRP under 80,000 on either one of the, either the Rivian truck or the SUV, you had to be an early reservation holder, but not take delivery until.
00:21:41
Speaker
later with the pre-price increase. Otherwise, that MSRP is going to be way above $80,000 for each one of those cars. So it's a pretty darn small number of people who would be eligible for that tax credit. That's a good point, Mike. And Tom, your Mach-E qualifies for $3,700. So it's not zero. But as we all know, Tesla has lowered its price a few times. I mean, they weren't qualifying because they're MSRP. Now they do.
00:22:10
Speaker
Um, I believe, Tom, correct me if I'm wrong, but the Mach-E they recently lowered their prices as well. Is that correct? Yeah. And there's actually been two price drops since the first of the year. They, they dropped right. Honestly, like two weeks after I bought mine and I got a check back from Ford covering that difference. And now this most recent drop is almost like three grand. I'm not sure if I'll get anything for that. Cause I think they're going to say that it's a 23 and a half mile a year and they've changed the battery.
00:22:38
Speaker
So I probably won't say anything. The ID4 is now assembled at the assembly plant down in Tennessee. So I think that's the point I'm getting to. There's just going to go to, it's a good transition, is Hyundai, the Kia, EV6, the Hyundai Myonic, and all those vehicles. They're talking about bringing them over and assembling them in the United States to maybe help qualify for part of the vehicle. To your point, Mike, Volkswagen's now assembling the ID4 down in, I think, the Chattanooga plant.
00:23:09
Speaker
And I think that's a point of the inflation reduction act is to try to bring jobs to America, try to source components domestically, but also the unintended consequence, which I'm not sure they thought about when they passed it was Mike or Tommy just talked about the price drops, like Tesla's dropped their prices.
00:23:27
Speaker
a few times, you know, Ford Mach-E's coming down. So they want to fit the MSRP underneath some of these requirements to see if they can qualify for at least partial of the credit, even though the parts aren't sourced or the batteries aren't sourced in the United States.
EV Affordability and Market Impact
00:23:43
Speaker
When you look at the overall picture of what they're trying to do, they're trying to make EVs more affordable and accessible for people in mass. And before these were expensive toys for a lot of people,
00:23:56
Speaker
Um, and now they're really, you know, when you think about the used tax credit as well for the, some of the used vehicles, um, that's, that's factoring into. So I think it goes towards the whole theme of getting more people in electric cars. Unfortunately, the one thing that, you know, really comes across here is the number of hybrid vehicles that qualify with a, just. Frankly a tiny battery. Um, one of them being the Pacifica hybrid and the Wrangler four by E.
00:24:26
Speaker
We've had, well, the Pacific Hybrid does have the full 7500. I believe that 4 by E is actually only 3750 now, but we've had both those vehicles and frankly, for trying to lower emissions that they don't really cut it, in my opinion. You really need to have a full EV. Well, I want to address two things you mentioned, Mike. One, to your point, these are still new vehicles. Next year, used vehicles will qualify.
00:24:55
Speaker
Well, we'll do another podcast, I'm sure, because that would be really confusing. The dealers can take that tax credit, so you can see the sticker price of the vehicles will be less because you can transfer the tax credit to the dealer. You don't have to wait. Tom's going to have to wait almost a whole year. I literally waited almost an entire year because I bought my car in April of last year to get in. I think that will help.
00:25:18
Speaker
And then to your point, Mike, there's still some plug-in hybrids that qualify for that 3700. But even though we're talking about the prices of EVs, I was just looking at an article talking about the average EV price in March was $58,000.
Closing Remarks and Future Topics
00:25:35
Speaker
So what does it have to see? We're recording this in May.
00:25:38
Speaker
We have a bunch of vehicles on our website, so maybe we can do another podcast around, are we seeing the price of new EVs and used EVs, what's happening in the market? Maybe that's another topic for the future. Brian, I really appreciate the work you did putting in the research into the tax credit updates, and I think it's important for our listeners to take in.
00:26:00
Speaker
Yeah, happy to read tax credit code anytime I can sleep. We'll do a podcast. And for our listeners, I keep pushing this, but please, please, please, please, please get into your platforms that you listen to us on and rate and review the podcast. It is immensely helpful for the algorithms. It gives us an opportunity to understand what it is we need to improve and what we're doing right.
00:26:24
Speaker
So we, we do appreciate that feedback and we really look forward to getting it. Can I tease our next podcast? Sure. We're going to do the five myths of, uh, EV ownership, which is really convenient. Cause Mike, I did a little research for that. Yeah. So I thought we were gonna do today. So yeah, there's more than five, but we're going to give you the top five and the top five that Bryant came up with. And I researched top five myths of EV ownership. Yeah. But yeah.
00:26:54
Speaker
All right, guys, I think it's time to call it. We'll see. Thank you. All right. Thank you for listening to plug in for more. Make sure you subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes. In the meantime, check out the one stop EV marketplace, EV universe dot com. Until next time.