Three Plug-in Vehicle Incentives Expired with New Year

The tax credit for installing home charging stations is no longer needed, as it is now possible to buy a commodity charging dock from a major retailer for an affordable price. Or, if you buy a LEAF, you can have your Nissan-supplied EVSE "upgraded" to accept 240 V. This is a success story.

The real battle is to preserve the $7500 federal tax credit, which while conceived during the Bush years, is under attack from elements on the right. Particularly as long as our military has to be actively involved to help keep the price of oil from skyrocketing, it is more than reasonable for our government to encourage alternatives. I do not want our precious troops to have to remain in harm's way any longer than necessary in the Persian Gulf. (On the other hand, irrespective of protecting Mideast oil supplies, I am concerned about a nuclear armed Iran with a fanatical government.)

Today few people will notice the loss of the conversions credit. But in the long run, for exactly the reason Brad mentions -- the enormous global environmental and economic benefits of displacing petroleum with electricity -- we will need them. For the brief time the credit was in effect, it was a placeholder for a future strategy that has been slow to arrive. We're still waiting for high-volume conversions of gas-guzzlers into safe, warrantied, affordable plug-in electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids.

We need this because new plug-in vehicles won't arrive quickly enough to have much impact as a percentage of the world's total "fleet" of a billion vehicles for decades. (This fact still hasn't dawned on most people even as we celebrate the successful commercialization of plug-ins.) Meanwhile, we need to get off oil for transportation ASAP.

At some point, we as a nation, and other countries as well, will become serious about this, perhaps because of supply disruptions or a realization of the urgency of the climate crisis. Then, instead of crushing workable cars that are 5-15 years old, we'll make conversions that stay on the road for a decade or longer eligible for the same $7,500 credits as new plug-ins, because they will provide the same benefits to society.

CalCars.org, along with cheerleaders including Andy Grove, and "Gadget" (Greg Abbott, seen in "The Revenge of the Electric Car,") have been championing what we call "The Big Fix." But most audiences have never heard of the idea, Or if they have, they mistakenly think the technologies isn't here yet, and there can be no business model for conversions.

We've been cheering on companies and we've tracked the news on the topic at http://www.calcars.org/ice-conversions.html . Some of the promising ones include Via Motors and ALTe Powertrain Technologies (pickup trucks) and AMP and Electric Motor Werks (SUVs and BMWs). What we expect to happen is that they'll focus first on fleet buyers and follow the Tesla model, starting on the high end. They'll bring prices down as batteries improve and EV components become commodities. And once "in-wheel" or "hub" motors become viable, the conversions will be feasible for even the smallest cars.

We hope plug-in vehicle owners and advocates will pick up on this concept. If they start to include it in their explanations of the future paths for vehicle electrification, energy security, greenhouse gas reduction -- and in their portfolio of policies -- we can lay the groundwork for a substantial program to retrofit vehicles just like we retrofit buildings.