When Peter Lamarine wanted to replace his 2013 Toyota Tacoma, the $15,000 in state and federal rebates for electric vehicles helped seal the deal for a new Ford F-150 Lightning, bringing the pricey pickup down to $65,000 and within reach for the Southborough high school teacher.
“Without those credits, I would still be driving that Tacoma red pickup with a six- speed stick shift,” Lamarine said. “That I can tell you for a fact.”
In addition to saving Lamarine money on gas and offering a smoother driving experience, the Lightning also moved Massachusetts one more small step to achieving its climate goals of net zero carbon emissions by mid-century. The transportation sector accounts for 37 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in Massachusetts and the state is counting on at least 900,000 drivers switching to EVs by 2030.
But the election of Donald Trump could slow the transition if the incoming president follows through on campaign promises to slash tax incentives, subsidies, regulations, and other programs that speed up EV purchases.
Trump has said he would eliminate the $7,500 federal rebate that Lamarine collected. And “on day one,” the president-elect promised, he will revoke the Environmental Protection Agency’s new regulation requiring carmakers to dramatically cut greenhouse gas emissions across their vehicle fleets.
That rule was intended by the Biden administration to push manufacturers to build EVs instead of gasoline-fueled cars. The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a trade group which represents manufacturers, wrote a letter to Trump seeking “stability and predictability” around the emissions rule, the New York Times reported.
Trump and the soon-to-be Republican-controlled Congress may also try to repeal incentives and spending for EV charger construction, domestic battery plants, and other EV-related projects. Those incentives come both from the Inflation Reduction Act, the Biden administration’s landmark climate bill that Trump promised to repeal, and from an earlier infrastructure law.
“This is all about potential delay in the transformation of the market from gasoline to electric,” said Larry Chretien, executive director of the Green Energy Consumers Alliance, a nonprofit that aims to accelerate the energy transition for consumers in New England. “It’s just a matter of: Do they slow us down for four years or for 10 years? We don’t know.”
Trump has offered contradictory statements about EVs during the campaign and may not be able to make all of the changes he seeks, experts said.
“Sometimes with the president-elect, there is a gap between rhetoric and action,” said Kyle Murray, director of state program implementation at the Acadia Center in Boston. “It can be difficult to judge what is actually going to occur.”
The Trump transition team did not respond to requests for an interview. Reuters reported on November 15 that his team is planning to propose killing the $7,500 consumer tax credit for EV purchases as part of broader tax-reform legislation.
Further complicating any crystal-ball gazing, Trump has also formed a close alliance with Tesla chief executive Elon Musk, who will be a key adviser to the incoming president on the federal budget.
As head of the largest seller of EVs in the country, Musk could bend Trump’s views away from the most extreme antielectric vehicle positions, some experts have speculated. But Musk has also said cutting consumer rebates is acceptable and might even benefit Tesla.
“I think it would be devastating for our competitors and for Tesla slightly,” Musk told analysts on an earnings call in July.
Still, Musk’s company could be injured by another Trump move. Tesla does a big side business selling emission credits to other automakers to help them meet existing tailpipe emissions limits. If Trump kills those rules, Tesla stands to lose out on a revenue stream that so far this year is more than $2 billion, and accounts for more than 40 percent of the company’s profit.
The average EV sells for $56,351, about $8,000 higher than the average gas vehicle, according to data from Kelley Blue Book. And there are few new EVs that cost less than $35,000."
Auto dealers in Massachusetts aren’t sure what will happen to the credit. Talk about rescinding the discount is “purely speculative,” Robert O’Koniewski, executive vice president of the Massachusetts State Automobile Dealers Association, said. “I would suspect the rebate would stay in place because of [Trump’s] relationship with Musk.”
But for some worried consumers, Trump’s return to power could create a rush to purchase by year-end.
Steven Weisz, a real estate broker who lives in Western Massachusetts, took action in June due to the possibility of another Trump presidency. He leased a Rivian SUV “as opposed to waiting until next year because I was afraid it [the federal tax credit] might go away,” he said.
Whatever Trump does with the federal rebate, residents of Massachusetts will still have access to the state’s current incentives: $3,500 for the purchase or lease of a new or used EV, subject to some price limits. Low-income buyers can get another $1,500 off. Anyone who trades in a gas-powered car can save another $1,000.
“Thankfully, in Massachusetts, we do have a pretty great state-level program,” said Sean Leach, who coaches potential EV buyers under a program run by nonprofit Green Beverly.
The state has handed out almost $140 million for more than 50,000 EV purchases over the past decade, including almost 14,000 rebates this year."
However, rebates are only one piece of that transition. The incoming Trump administration and Congress could back out of commitments to fund more chargers in Massachusetts.
The state is due about $60 million under the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Program, which was created in the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, to eliminate “range anxiety,” the fear many consumers have that electric vehicles will run out of juice because there are too few charging stations near them. But the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, overseeing the state’s share of federal funding, has yet to award a single dollar. In May, the agency selected three vendors to build new" "charging stations, but no sites have been approved yet.
“It is an important piece of the pie, but there are other resources,” said Anna Vanderspek, electric vehicle program director at the Green Energy Consumers Alliance, of the federal money for charging stations.
Massachusetts appears to be relying more on utilities than the federal government: In 2023, the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities approved a plan for electric utilities in the state to spend more than $400 million on charging infrastructure over five years, several times the amount expected from Washington. On November 21, Governor Maura Healey also approved a sweeping climate bill that includes measures to loosen restrictions on building chargers.
Meanwhile, other states have moved more quickly with the federal funds. Ohio, for example, has already awarded a total of $35 million to build almost 50 charging stations, including the first federally-funded chargers in the country near Columbus.
Vanderspek said she’s more concerned the Trump administration will again revoke California’s waiver for vehicle emissions standards like it did in 2019 (which the Biden administration restored in 2022). For decades, California had approval from the EPA to apply stricter vehicle emissions standards than the federal government requires, which automakers have fought. Because California is such a large vehicle market, other states can adopt the stricter rules; Massachusetts is one of thirteen states that have done so.
The “whole foundation” of Massachusetts’ emissions standards for cars and trucks rests on protecting California’s waiver, Vanderspek said. If it were to go away, the Commonwealth’s plan to reach net zero would take a big hit.
Like the other proposals that could harm the EV market, revoking those standards could undermine the automobile industry’s ability to plan. In other words, political uncertainty isn’t good for business.
“Developing vehicles is a multiyear process, and so if every four years we switch back and forth, that’s really chaotic,” Vanderspek said.