Biden Promotes Hummer EV That Doesn't Even Qualify for Electric Vehicle Tax Credits
By: Joe Lancaster (Reason. com)
Remember when Joe Biden promoted EVs by test driving a Hummer? Probably not because the Hummer didn't actually qualify for Biden's rebates and was actually worse for the environment than an ICE vehicle.
Just another bit of inconvenient history swept under the rug. Now lets raise hell about Trump promoting Tesla EVs.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
As part of President Joe Biden's Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), Congress authorized tax credits on electric vehicles (E.V.s). Starting January 1, motorists wanting to buy a brand-new E.V. could qualify for up to $7,500 toward their purchase without worrying about factors like whether the manufacturer had already qualified for too many credits.
This week, Biden tweeted a picture to tout the program, grinning from the driver's seat of a GMC Hummer EV:
But there are some obvious problems with the president's claims, down to the fact that the truck he's sitting in wouldn't qualify for the credit.
Long seen as a clear example of an egregious polluter, an all-electric version of the Hummer H2 seemed more likely to show up in The Onion than on the road. But the behemoth exists nonetheless; Business Insider noted its "sheer absurdity" but admitted it's "surprisingly fun" to drive.
But the IRA establishes very exacting standards for vehicles to qualify for tax credits, and the Hummer EV comes up short on most of them. First, the IRA's E.V. tax credits only apply to vehicles with retail prices up to $80,000, and even the base model EV2, the least expensive version, now starts over $84,000. (That's not to mention that the cost could reach almost $120,000 when it's fully decked out.) The credits also only apply to buyers who make up to $150,000 individually or $300,000 jointly; it's hard to imagine anyone earning less than that amount shelling out up to six figures on a luxury truck.
No matter which version of the truck Biden was pictured in, it wouldn't qualify for the tax credits he was promoting with the tweet. And vanishingly few E.V.s qualify for the tax credit to begin with since only those "assembled" in North America are eligible.
Under the IRA, a qualifying vehicle must source 40 percent of its battery's minerals and 50 percent of the battery's parts from either the U.S. or a free trade partner country. That's a high bar to meet when China controls 80 percent of the world's refining capacity for raw battery minerals.
In December, the Treasury Department postponed the mineral requirement until March as it continued to formulate final rules for implementation. But Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W. Va.), who insisted upon the anti-China rules in the first place, submitted a bill that would go around the Treasury Department and not only implement the mineral requirement as written but make it retroactive to January 1. Notably, the requirements would exclude not only China but the European Union, which, unbeknownst to Manchin, also lacks a free trade agreement with the United States.
Regarding the law's restrictions, French President Emmanuel Macron told Manchin during a visit to the U.S. last year, "You're hurting my country."
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Democrats are more concerned with political optics and political correctness than climate change. Don't fall for their political hoax, folks.
Can't fight climate change without factories. Hanging dollars on trees won't accomplish anything other than killing the forest.
I can't help but laugh at the hypocrisy of the left.
Biden promotes Hummers.....which explains how he picked his VP, Pete needed to put more effort into his interview.
I could see Clinton doing that. Biden wouldn't know what one (either meaning) is.
Lol.
Ok, but when Biden did this, he didn’t have the CEO of GMC working for him or directing government policy. Also, it was part of an event to promote electric vehicles generally, and multiple companies had vehicles there. Fun fact, Tesla was not invited, and the thinking is it’s because they weren’t unionized. Politics can be petty.
TL,DR: completely different context.
What's funny, when you think about it, the very people that were trying to force everybody to purchase an EV is now setting EV's on fire.