New EV rebate rules from the US Treasury Department
"consumers can choose to transfer their new clean vehicle credit of up to $7,500 and their previously owned clean vehicle credit of up to $4,000 to a car dealer starting January 1, 2024. This will effectively lower the vehicle’s purchase price by providing consumers with an upfront down payment" https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy1783
— #EV#tax#Biden#IndustrialPolicy#treasury#trade
Historically, economic analysis has shown that the main problem with US EV tax credits thus far is (not that they raise prices, but) that they've mostly gone to wealthier people who would have bought an EV anyway, rather than increased adoption by making the vehicles accessible to low-wealth, moderate income Americans. I.e., they've made inequality worse.
Romania's demographic decline damages the economy.
With a population of 19 million, Romania is sinking into a worrying demographic decline. Over 5 million Romanians have left their homeland, searching for a better life in Western Europe.
Meanwhile, companies investing in the country struggle to recruit workers.
Industrial policy is extraordinarily difficult to get right, and is often a waste of money that could have been better spent elsewhere. This is a rare "success" story
Just look at the failed (not literally, but certainly effectively) Manufacturing USA initiative - a constellation of research institutes first launched in 2012 to counter the Made In #China 2025 program.
To its credit, the #Obama Administration foresaw the Chinese economic threat to the West before most in Washington, but the actions taken were structurally ineffective.
Other "tangential failures" like acquiescing #A123 Systems (LFP battery foundational knowledge) and, in the case of the #German government, #Kuka, to #China-state controlled entities advanced the Made In China 2025 program by a decade or more virtually overnight.
Kuka's loss to China also substantially advanced the #Comac#C919 aircraft program - an open secret in many quarters of the Western #aerospace industry that the US and German governments do not want to admit.
After the effective failures of Manufacturing USA, which was originally intended to primarily life up small/medium #manufacturing business to fill more advanced verticals and roles through partnerships and R&D subsidies... the #ChipsAct returned to (likely more safe, politically) "trickle down" thinking.
That is, #IndustrialPolicy based on crudely throwing money at big companies.
With the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the US has chosen industrial policy as the way forward to fight climate change. Economists don’t like industrial policy in general. It’s very hard for governments to get it right. They often end up subsidizing the wrong businesses for political reasons. (E.g. representatives fight to get money for their own states, certain states are more important for presidential elections, etc.)
Every morning we wake to yet more experts on Chinese car companies that were, only a few short weeks ago mocking them and saying those of us that were warning of their moves were talking nonsense.
This is a very interesting (and highly-interactive!) piece about #ElectricVehicles... and, yet, if we are going to discuss "underbellies" of #EVs then I think the following are almost always neglected:
How heavier vehicles negatively impact roadway safety and increase non-exhaust emissions (dust and PM 2.5); and
How heavier vehicles (and the proliferation of cars, in general) will drive a growth in negative concrete externalities - which are significant.
Interesting to see the Western media finally pick up on a matter we have been banging on about for some time, on the @motoringpodcast
We weren’t the first, as that was Sino Auto Insights, but we were the first in the UK.
I am going to have to finally wrap up this article on my experiences with the US’s little-known, but heavily-funded industrial policy/research program called “Manufacturing USA”.
A program specifically designed to challenge #China.