STM317 said:
For those concerned about the $7500 EV tax credit, Ford's PHEVs count toward the 200k vehicle cap. They sold from 2013-2020. So, as of Jun 2020 Ford had about 70k slots remaining before the credit would begin to be phased out and now has over 160k pending reservations for the Lightning.
Current legislation may alter a lot of that, and may even increase the credit to $12500, but that's not certain yet.
Ford is only planning on making about 15k Lightnings in 2022 (probably concentrated in the CARB states if I had to guess), and increasing to about 80k annually by 2024 (roughly 10% of F-series sales). No word how the chip shortage may impact those targets. Either way, I think it's safe to say that it's not going to be a common sight on the road or dealer lots for a couple of years. The "Next Generation" Lightning is expected in 2025, and may see higher production volumes.
So, it's likely that every Lightning sold in 2022 will qualify for the full tax credit, but that's primarily due to production constraints.
You have to make like $93K a year to use the entire $7500 tax credit since you can't carry the remainder over into subsequent years. And that's before any other credits or deductions. $12,500 would be over $110K a year. I'm not sure how married filing jointly affects it. So raising it only helps people who make a lot of money or people in high-cost-of-living areas.
yupididit said:
In reply to Gearheadotaku (Forum Supporter) :
Your DVD player giving you hell and your flip phone hasn't left you for dead yet right?
the VHS player is hanging in there, right next to my Atari 2600.
GCrites80s said:
You have to make like $93K a year to use the entire $7500 tax credit since you can't carry the remainder over into subsequent years. And that's before any other credits or deductions. $12,500 would be over $110K a year. I'm not sure how married filing jointly affects it. So raising it only helps people who make a lot of money or people in high-cost-of-living areas.
Trying not to get into politics, but you have to wonder if it really makes sense to offer a big tax incentive to buy a vehicle that got 150,000 pre-orders a year before it was expected to ship...
In reply to codrus (Forum Supporter) :
I'll try to refrain from politics as well. But would Ford still go all in without the incentives? I mean they had to have figured that they would presell at least that many up front. What's it take now days to bring out a new model? 5 years of investment, planing, training, development, testing, proving?
I read the story of Jaguars saving. The company was losing 50 million+ pounds a year making 10,000 cars annually and they figured out to be profitable they needed to sell 20,000 cars?
That's like going all in on a 2& 3 hole card.
My point is incentives work. $7500 offsets a lot of risk for the individual. Multiply that times 150,000 trucks aren't we over 1 Billion dollars? Pretty nice marketing budget.
What's the Jaguar connection? Look at the source of Jaguars incentive.
GCrites80s said:
STM317 said:
For those concerned about the $7500 EV tax credit, Ford's PHEVs count toward the 200k vehicle cap. They sold from 2013-2020. So, as of Jun 2020 Ford had about 70k slots remaining before the credit would begin to be phased out and now has over 160k pending reservations for the Lightning.
Current legislation may alter a lot of that, and may even increase the credit to $12500, but that's not certain yet.
Ford is only planning on making about 15k Lightnings in 2022 (probably concentrated in the CARB states if I had to guess), and increasing to about 80k annually by 2024 (roughly 10% of F-series sales). No word how the chip shortage may impact those targets. Either way, I think it's safe to say that it's not going to be a common sight on the road or dealer lots for a couple of years. The "Next Generation" Lightning is expected in 2025, and may see higher production volumes.
So, it's likely that every Lightning sold in 2022 will qualify for the full tax credit, but that's primarily due to production constraints.
You have to make like $93K a year to use the entire $7500 tax credit since you can't carry the remainder over into subsequent years. And that's before any other credits or deductions. $12,500 would be over $110K a year. I'm not sure how married filing jointly affects it. So raising it only helps people who make a lot of money or people in high-cost-of-living areas.
$250,000 + a year is what a lot successful families make as they approach retirement. You're not even in the 10% bracket yet. Making that sort of income we are always looking out for serious deductions.
Fair enough, a lot of younger families and singles can't use the full deduction. But young families aren't buying new $40,000 + trucks either.
frenchyd said:
$250,000 + a year is what a lot successful families make as they approach retirement.
Not in my world.
Technically, you are incorrect. $250,000 household income in the US is the top 7%. They make more than 93% of the population.
You are all over the map sometimes.
In reply to frenchyd :
Young families certainly are buying $40k trucks because a $40k brand new truck is a pretty decent deal these days lol
In reply to codrus (Forum Supporter) :
I agree. There is an ENORMOUS political angle to the structure of the incentives.
Okay, so I want to start the line for potential buyers of the F250...
In reply to SVreX (Forum Supporter) :
Yeah... it's definitely something that can be hard to wrap your head around. And would probably send this thread into patio territory... Personally, I'm of the opinion EVs need to stand on their own merits and no longer need publicly funded incentives.
Granted, I have trouble coming to terms with the cost of new vehicles these days. Either I'm not making as much money as most do (not according to various charts), others are way more comfortable with debt than I am (probably...), or I'm just frugal/borderline-cheap (likely...).
I don't really consider the tax credit as something I'd be eligible for or can count on, so I don't factor it into whether or not I'd buy an EV. If it happens to work out - bonus. Again - my EV desires are more based on the convenience merits of an EV, and somewhat less on any cost benefits. Considering my vehicles are paid for and I don't drive that much these days, an EV is difficult to justify purely on a cost analysis.
Tom, you should sell me your F-250 and buy the Lightning. Seriously.
Crap. I skipped a bunch of comments so I could post this, and now I see Floating Doc posted above me. Anyway, your F-250 is almost the exact truck I'm looking for. If it was a crew cab, I'd be shopping plane tickets already. I'd happily settle for an extended cab.
In reply to Keith Tanner :
Pete has a great point. A minute to plug it in then whatever time is left to do as you wish. I like to read, so 20-30 minutes reading time? Please don't throw me in that briar patch.
But you also should have explained about oil changes on EV's.
Now compare the time when you add the time it takes to either schedule an appointment, drive there wait in line to repeat everything you already said on the phone. Be interrupted once or twice by phone calls etc. wait until the mechanic tries to sell you a brake job or air filter, whatever, comes for your truck, wait until he finishes the work, wait until he does the paperwork, and brings it around front. Wait until they call you to pay for the work. Pay for the work and then go out to collect your truck and drive home.
Or if you do it yourself.•••••
If you now calculate the time involved in annual service work against the number of times you travel more than the range of the truck, probably is pretty close to a wash.
Now add the minute or so you spend plugging and unplugging each day. To the minutes you spend at a gas station filling up, you wind up a tiny bit ahead on an EV.
EV's are simply a new paradigm. Yet total involvement is probably in favor of the EV's. If for no other reason than the time wasted dealing with the dealership.
Ian F (Forum Supporter) said:
In reply to SVreX (Forum Supporter) :
Yeah... it's definitely something that can be hard to wrap your head around. And would probably send this thread into patio territory... Personally, I'm of the opinion EVs need to stand on their own merits and no longer need publicly funded incentives.
Granted, I have trouble coming to terms with the cost of new vehicles these days. Either I'm not making as much money as most do (not according to various charts), others are way more comfortable with debt than I am (probably...), or I'm just frugal/borderline-cheap (likely...).
I don't really consider the tax credit as something I'd be eligible for or can count on, so I don't factor it into whether or not I'd buy an EV. If it happens to work out - bonus. Again - my EV desires are more based on the convenience merits of an EV, and somewhat less on any cost benefits. Considering my vehicles are paid for and I don't drive that much these days, an EV is difficult to justify purely on a cost analysis.
Ian, I'm working a 1/2 day at age 73. (6:00 am to 6:30 pm ) so I suspect compared to me you're a spend thrift. I want an EV because fuel costs don't fluctuate based on the amount of income Saudi Arabia Or Russia wants to earn, or if an Oil company decides to shut down a plant for maintenance.
I like that the local electric company is controlled by a citizens board who looks at the honest long term needs of the region. Takes into consideration things like ability to pay and future needed investments.
Balances the companies need for profit against prosperity and growth. Plus I also can opt out. Put up solar& wind to meet my needs for the future.
New (and used) vehicles are stupid expensive now.
Making $95k/year is pretty damn good. But buying a $50k truck on that income doesn't seem very wise. Getting a $7500 discount surely helps but that's still a huge percentage of net income.
frenchyd said:
I want an EV because fuel costs don't fluctuate based on the amount of income Saudi Arabia Or Russia wants to earn, or if an Oil company decides to shut down a plant for maintenance.
You need to be careful with assumptions about future electric rates. I know quite a number of people who bought solar panels based on various projections about rate plans who are now looking at significantly increased "pay back" time frames (or in some cases no prospect of paying it all back at all) because of changes in the way in which their electricity usage was billed.
A bit of googling and back-of-the-envelope math says that if we converted all of the current vehicle miles driven in the US to EVs getting the same .25 kwh/mile as a current Tesla, we'd need about 50% more electrical generation capacity than we have now. That's a lot of power plants (or solar, or wind, or whatever) which aren't free. You should expect electricity rates to rise in order to pay for those new plants.
GCrites80s said:
You have to make like $93K a year to use the entire $7500 tax credit since you can't carry the remainder over into subsequent years. And that's before any other credits or deductions. $12,500 would be over $110K a year. I'm not sure how married filing jointly affects it. So raising it only helps people who make a lot of money or people in high-cost-of-living areas.
Just checking in... where did you come up with these numbers?
$93k a year for a single non-parent would be $16,341 in federal taxes.
$7500 in taxes would be $53,416 in income.
https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/taxes/federal-income-tax-brackets
Obviously those numbers change if you have another credit... like child tax credit, but the child tax credit is refundable (gov. will pay you if your tax liability drops below zero)
codrus (Forum Supporter) said:
frenchyd said:
I want an EV because fuel costs don't fluctuate based on the amount of income Saudi Arabia Or Russia wants to earn, or if an Oil company decides to shut down a plant for maintenance.
You need to be careful with assumptions about future electric rates. I know quite a number of people who bought solar panels based on various projections about rate plans who are now looking at significantly increased "pay back" time frames (or in some cases no prospect of paying it all back at all) because of changes in the way in which their electricity usage was billed.
A bit of googling and back-of-the-envelope math says that if we converted all of the current vehicle miles driven in the US to EVs getting the same .25 kwh/mile as a current Tesla, we'd need about 50% more electrical generation capacity than we have now. That's a lot of power plants (or solar, or wind, or whatever) which aren't free. You should expect electricity rates to rise in order to pay for those new plants.
Well, in theory those new plants would be paid for by the increased sales of electricity. And there's the interesting possibility that the EV fleet could actually be used to level out electrical demands somewhat, meaning more efficient use of the grid overall. But yes, the grid would have to adapt. Luckily we have time to do that because it takes a long time for even half of the US vehicle fleet to turn over. I think watching what happens here will be really interesting.
Electricity prices have proven to be far more stable than fuel prices, so it's easier to do estimates based on electrical price than it is on gasoline.
codrus (Forum Supporter) said:
frenchyd said:
I want an EV because fuel costs don't fluctuate based on the amount of income Saudi Arabia Or Russia wants to earn, or if an Oil company decides to shut down a plant for maintenance.
You need to be careful with assumptions about future electric rates. I know quite a number of people who bought solar panels based on various projections about rate plans who are now looking at significantly increased "pay back" time frames (or in some cases no prospect of paying it all back at all) because of changes in the way in which their electricity usage was billed.
A bit of googling and back-of-the-envelope math says that if we converted all of the current vehicle miles driven in the US to EVs getting the same .25 kwh/mile as a current Tesla, we'd need about 50% more electrical generation capacity than we have now. That's a lot of power plants (or solar, or wind, or whatever) which aren't free. You should expect electricity rates to rise in order to pay for those new plants.
See that's the brilliant part. The best way to lower costs is through higher volume.
Solar panels are a classic example. Back in the 1970's they cost more than 1000 times what they do now. To a degree wind too.
While not everyone is where the payback works, it's far better to have a million solar panels/ wind generators. Spread out through the neighborhoods they are better than having one big plant at the edge of the city. Due to Transmission losses. Duplicity, availability. Then there is the small standby nuclear generating plants. One in progress now on the site of an old coal mine.
However none of that is going to happen in my lifetime. Well, a small percentage. Most cars hitting the road this year are ICE, 2% or so are EV? If we are real lucky next year might hit 5% by the time 100% is reached I'm sure to be worm food or a Crispy Critter
Keith Tanner said:
codrus (Forum Supporter) said:
frenchyd said:
I want an EV because fuel costs don't fluctuate based on the amount of income Saudi Arabia Or Russia wants to earn, or if an Oil company decides to shut down a plant for maintenance.
You need to be careful with assumptions about future electric rates. I know quite a number of people who bought solar panels based on various projections about rate plans who are now looking at significantly increased "pay back" time frames (or in some cases no prospect of paying it all back at all) because of changes in the way in which their electricity usage was billed.
A bit of googling and back-of-the-envelope math says that if we converted all of the current vehicle miles driven in the US to EVs getting the same .25 kwh/mile as a current Tesla, we'd need about 50% more electrical generation capacity than we have now. That's a lot of power plants (or solar, or wind, or whatever) which aren't free. You should expect electricity rates to rise in order to pay for those new plants.
Well, in theory those new plants would be paid for by the increased sales of electricity. And there's the interesting possibility that the EV fleet could actually be used to level out electrical demands somewhat, meaning more efficient use of the grid overall. But yes, the grid would have to adapt. Luckily we have time to do that because it takes a long time for even half of the US vehicle fleet to turn over. I think watching what happens here will be really interesting.
Electricity prices have proven to be far more stable than fuel prices, so it's easier to do estimates based on electrical price than it is on gasoline.
That's the great democrazation of power. One big power plant per city is relatively easy to control. 100,000 small plants not so much.
Plus if the home owners own their generators, as most do now they can work deals in their neighborhoods. Yes, the transmission lines are controlled by the utility. In my state. The utility earns the difference between this year and last years rates as the cost of transmission. ( a few 10ths of a cent per kilowatt typically)
The way they are working to get more is by providing you with installation at no cost and then recovering their investment at a greater rate.
Which is actually pretty clever on their part. Even though for budgetary reasons it's a expense it's actually a long term investment in generational capacity. Likely many times cheaper than the cost of a new plant
Keith Tanner said:
Well, in theory those new plants would be paid for by the increased sales of electricity. And there's the interesting possibility that the EV fleet could actually be used to level out electrical demands somewhat, meaning more efficient use of the grid overall. But yes, the grid would have to adapt. Luckily we have time to do that because it takes a long time for even half of the US vehicle fleet to turn over. I think watching what happens here will be really interesting.
Electricity prices are generally regulated and set to a value that covers the generating costs, maintenance on the current plants, wages for the employees, etc and a small amount of profit for the utility. Massive new plant construction isn't in that budget, and will have to be paid for by increasing rates (most likely with bonds to spread those rate increases out over many years). Yes, you're selling more power, but if you're barely breaking even to begin with then it doesn't really matter.
As for electrical price stability, that hasn't been the case around here. Googling for some stats, it looks like the US retail price per kwh has gone up 50-100% in the last 20 years. I have the "simple" electric bill (no time of use or PV sell-back-to-power company, or anything like that), but the amount I pay per kwh is all over the map. There are three or four different tiers of price depending how much you use, and all of the stats related to those (price per kwh at each tier, number of kwh before you get bumped from one tier to another, etc) all change on at least a monthly basis. I haven't got a clue what my electric bill is going to be until I open it.
And no, I'm not saying that this a deal breaker, or that EVs will wind up more expensive to operate than gas cars or anything like that. I just think frenchyd's posts are painting an unrealistically optimistic picture.
I expect there's going to be an interesting discussion when it comes time to talk about the environmental impact of building 5000 new power plants. :)
Fair point on the plant building. There's no benefit to the utility to have unused capacity and they have to beg for price increases. I wonder what the cost to build solar arrays is relative to fossil fuel plants? Last time I went through Utah, the Sevier Valley has an enormous new solar installation and it's not in the most obvious location for solar to work. I'll bet the primary cost is in storage. And even if the new power plants are fossil powered, it's a lot easier to control big point sources of emissions running at a constant load than many mobile, highly variable ones that have owners that are actively damaging the emissions controls :)
I was thinking of the short term volatility of gasoline prices - the math for running an EV vs an ICE is very different today than it was a year ago. But over the long run, it turns out it's actually pretty consistent. There's a chart at the link below but it's dynamically generated so I can't embed it here. Basically, gas historically costs about $2.35 in 2020 dollars, based on a period running from 1978 to 2020. We are currently in an exceptional period for a bunch of reasons.
https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/gasoline-prices-adjusted-for-inflation/
So you're right, over the span of decades gasoline may be more stable than electricity. Bad for the utilities. Consumers will use the short term math of "OMG, gas is so much more expensive than I remember."
Our power bill is pretty simple here - only one tier beyond the first one that's basically enough to power the meter itself - but it wasn't until I started looking at solar that I realized how many things were tacked on to it and that my actual price per KWh was at lesat 20% higher than I thought. I'll still break even on the solar within a decade or so, and if the proposed time of day metering comes to pass in 2023 it'll pay off even faster.
Keith Tanner said:
I wonder what the cost to build solar arrays is relative to fossil fuel plants?
I thikn this depends heavily on your projections for the prices of that fuel in the future. The solar costs more up front (especially if you include the batteries to level it out), but has a lower running cost.
Does the solar actually cost more? That's what I'm wondering. The price of panels has been falling fast. At least the EIS will probably be a lot cheaper :)
It may depend on the size of the plant. Solar doesn't really see any cost savings from a larger scale while a fossil plant might.
The biggest flaw is the idea that if demand increases, they will make more power production. They can make even MORE money by making electricity a scarce commodity. Profit goes up without having to lift a finger.
OHSCrifle said:
New (and used) vehicles are stupid expensive now.
Making $95k/year is pretty damn good. But buying a $50k truck on that income doesn't seem very wise. Getting a $7500 discount surely helps but that's still a huge percentage of net income.
Depends on how far you can see. For example my last truck cost me $87.50 per month including repairs. ( not including fuel Or maintenance) I believe because I bought it new and maintained it properly.
A new truck today would cost you $208.33 per month over the next 20 years. Plus repairs, plus maintinence, plus fuel costs. So costs more than doubled over that 20 years during a time of little inflation.
The most expensive truck to own is a used truck with delayed maintenance.
