“It was really difficult to predict how fast this program would go, because it was the first of its kind in so many ways,” said Emma Wyma, energy policy specialist for electric vehicle charging at the Washington State Department of Commerce, speaking on a April 14 panel organized by Forth Mobility.
The Washington EV Instant Rebate Program was a $45 million EV incentive effort funded by the state Legislature. It went live in 2024, providing cash rebates for new, used or leased EVs at the point of sale. Three months later, the fund was out of money, owing to the program’s popularity.
Funding was “exhausted much faster than we initially expected,” Wyma said, adding that “it did show us how strong the demand for EVs really is when the price is more affordable.”
To qualify, car buyers had to assure they earned up to 300 percent of the federal poverty level, which comes to about $90,000 for a family of four. The incentive provided $2,500 to $9,000 off the price of the EV at the time of purchase. Incentives could be “stacked,” meaning buyers could combine the state incentive with the $7,500 federal incentive available at the time. Policymakers designed the program to allow the incentive to be applied to leased vehicles as well, with the goal of increasing the number of secondhand electric cars in Washington.
“We’ve struggled with the used EV supply in the state, and we want to build that pipeline of getting used EVs in the state. Leases are a great way to do that,” Wyma said.
The average household income for car buyers using the Washington state incentive was $53,000, which is in line with the median income there, officials say. The average rebate was $7,355.
And roughly 90 percent of the residents using the rebate would not have bought the car otherwise, Wyma said. “This showed us that the rebates did go to people who actually needed it.”
Structuring the program to increase the number of vehicles in the secondhand EV market was a unique feature, and one that could now be paying dividends as industry observers note the favorable buying climate for used EVs, which are priced on par with conventional gas-engine cars.
“We will soon see over 100,000 used EVs per month [nationwide] coming back from lease endings,” said Michael Maten, director of EV policy and regulatory affairs at General Motors, speaking on the panel. “These are one-, two- and three-year-old EVs, often low-milage, high-battery state of health, that are going to enter the market at really attractive price points.
“We’re really excited about where we can go from here, given that there’s been a little bit of a rocky road in the last year of EV adoption,” he added, referring to recent scaling back of EV purchases by U.S. consumers as the market adjusts to the zeroing out of federal tax incentives.
Today, EVs make up 2.5 percent of the vehicles on U.S. highways, accounting for more than 7 million units, said Maten, which he described as “a significant portion,” but still lags most of the developed world. Some 28 percent of new-car sales in Europe last year were electric, according to a report by the Rocky Mountain Institute, while in China, 60 percent of new-car sales were zero emission.
Price and issues around charging continue to serve as headwinds toward EV adoption in the United States, even as prices are coming down and public charging infrastructure is increasing.
“We recognize that charging — both real and perceived — is a big barrier. So we have to kind of attack it on a lot of different fronts,” said Maten, who noted there are now more than 70,000 fast-charging ports nationwide, 18,000 installed just last year. However, home charging — with its need for equipment and possible electric system upgrades — remains a “very real barrier” for too many drivers.
