What Journalists Should Know About California's New EV Incentives
America has been moving slowly on integrating electric cars into average commuters’ lives. The biggest roadblock keeping people from switching to electric vehicles (EVs), other than the lack of charging stations, is the exceedingly high costs of these vehicles. To address the issue, the Driving Clean Assistance Program (DCAP) is being introduced by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to make EVs more affordable.
Through this program, eligible participants can receive incentives of up to $14,000 toward the purchase of a new or used EV or hybrid vehicle. The program also includes higher incentives for those who trade in their older vehicles for scrap metal. This program is like the Car Allowance Rebate System (CARS) which expired in 2009. Similar to CARS, the objective of CARB is to encourage people to embrace cleaner transportation options by getting compensated for trading in their older, higher emission vehicles, reducing our overall emissions.
Participants must meet a number of requirements to be eligible to receive incentives through the DCAP. First, participants must be a resident of California to qualify, and their household income has to be less than or equal to 300% of the Federal Poverty Level: $93,600 for a 4-person household or $45,180 if it is a 1-person household. The incentive is not retroactive, so it is imperative for the application process to the DCAP to happen before purchasing a vehicle. Furthermore, households will not be eligible if they have previously participated in any other CARB Light-Duty purchase incentives.
It is important to note it is not required to scrap a previous vehicle to be eligible, though the participant may have to contribute a minimum of $1,000 towards the EV. Also, only one incentive per household is allowed for the entire duration of the program. For the vehicle to be eligible for a trade-in incentive, it must be less than 8 years old, have less than 75,000 miles on it and cannot be a salvaged vehicle.
There is no doubt that an enormous step towards fighting the climate crisis would be to make the vehicles on our roads as clean as possible. Emissions from cars and trucks are not only bad for the planet, they are also bad for our health. The health effects associated with localized air pollution are long lasting and there was actually found to be “a striking association between long-term exposure to harmful fine particulate matter and COVID-19 mortality in the United States,” as explained by Rashmi Joglekar, a staff scientist at Earthjustice’s Toxic Exposure & Health Program. These air pollutants have been known to cause conditions like bronchitis, asthma, and cancer to arise especially in vulnerable individuals.
To avoid some of the worst of climate change, there is about another decade left for us to dramatically shift how transportation is approached. EVs do produce more carbon emissions than a gasoline vehicle, due to the energy and materials required to build the large lithium-ion batteries, but EVs undeniably have a much smaller carbon footprint once they hit the roads. Whether the electricity to charge the cars comes from fossil fuels or clean renewable energy, that lack of a carbon footprint remains the same, though people such as the Earthjustice attorneys are working hard to bring 100% clean energy across the country and take away that need for fossil fuels altogether.
The DCAP making electric cars more accessible to individuals with less income will hopefully mean we are on the path to having clean energy more integrated into our cities’ wider transportation infrastructure. The state of California in particular is committing to eventually having every bus in the state running on clean energy by 2040. With both public and private transportation minimizing carbon emissions to such an extent, we are gaining power in the race against the clock that is the climate crisis.
