State of New Jersey announces a $5,000 tax rebate on zero-emission vehicles

In New Jersey personal and commercial transport is driven an estimated 75 billion miles on gasoline and diesel every year, to reduce the state’s carbon footprint, the Governor of NJ Phil Murphy signed legislation (S2252) last week to promote the use of electric vehicles.

The legislation basically provides a tax rebate of up to $5,000 on the purchase of a plug-in electric vehicle, the state is also facilitating the residents in moving toward renewable energy source like solar — according to the Governor’s office, NJ is now on its path towards 100% clean energy by 2050.

Addressing the bill signing ceremony, Governor Murphy said:

40% of our fossil fuel emissions come from one single sector, “transportation”, and mostly from our cars.

We can’t undo a half-century of planning, but we can adapt to lessen its environmental impacts.

I am incredibly honored to say that “this is now the law of the land”.

The legislation covers the following three key areas in electric vehicle adoption in New Jersey:

• Providing rebates up to $5,000 on electric vehicles
• Establishing incentives for purchasing and installing in-home electric vehicle chargers
• Assessing the state of the plug-in electric vehicle market in New Jersey

This new EV rebate program from the state of New Jersey is in addition to the sales and use tax exemption already in effect as explained by the state’s Department of Treasury website. With the announcement of the new electric vehicle bill, the NJ Governor’s office published an extensive press release, some of the important excerpts from it are as follows:

“Increasing the use of electric vehicles is a critical step to secure New Jersey’s clean energy future,” said Governor Murphy. “By establishing aggressive goals and strong incentives for electric vehicles, we are repositioning our economy and state for a clean future. Today, I am proudly signing bipartisan legislation that will transform New Jersey’s transportation sector and modernize our infrastructure to support our goal of reaching 100 percent clean energy by 2050.”

The bill also directs that by December 31, 2020, and every five years thereafter, the Department of Environmental Protection is required to prepare and submit to the Governor and the Legislature a report that assesses the state of the plug-in electric vehicle market in New Jersey; measure the state’s progress toward achieving the goals outlined in the bill; identify barriers to the achievement of the goals, and make recommendations for legislative or regulatory action to address those barriers.

The legislation creates a “Light Duty Plug-in Electric Vehicle Rebate Program” to encourage the purchase of light-duty plug-in electric vehicles over a ten-year period. The rebates will provide up to $5,000 per vehicle and will be funded by approximately $30 million from the Clean Energy Fund each year. The bill authorizes the use of Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative funds as well.

Additionally, the bill grants the Board of Public Utilities the authority to also establish an incentive program for the purchase and installation of in-home electric vehicle charging equipment up to $500 per person. The bill authorizes BPU to deposit monies from the Clean Energy Fund into the newly established Plug-In Electric Vehicle Fund for these incentives in addition to the $30 million for the vehicle rebates.

Governor’s Twitter account also posted the following video of the EV bill signing ceremony that covers the event in detail:

This is good news especially for potential Tesla customers in New Jersey as the Federal Tax Credit has totally phased-out for Tesla (TSLA) due to the high numbers of production the Silicon Valley-based automaker reached last year. Availing a $5,000 tax credit on a $39,990 Tesla Model 3 Standard Range Plus pulls down the actual price of the car to $34,990 — this is a huge benefit, a $35k Model 3 is a dream electric car with a range of 250 miles (402 km).

Other EV manufacturers from the US like Rivian are just about to get started with production and deliveries, new companies are going to be eligible for the full $7,500 Federal tax credit and state benefits like the latest offer from New Jersey. The plan to accelerate electric vehicles originated from the state of California at first and now 11 more US states are members of the California Zero-Emission Vehicle (ZEV) Program.

List of ZEV Alliance US States

• Colorado
• Connecticut
• Maine
• Maryland
• Massachusetts
• New Jersey
• New York
• Oregon
• Rhode Island
• Vermont

Some countries like Germany, Canada, and the United Kingdom are also members of the ZEV Alliance (full list) — Germany has recently gotten lucky for being the host of Tesla’s 4th Gigafactory in Europe, the German government and Tesla are positive that first production of Tesla Model Y compact SUVs will start at the location as early as next year.

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