So the point here is that when you buy an EV, you can get a nice juicy tax credit, seven and a half thousand dollars, and that would be wiped out potentially by the next administration. How important, how integral is that tax

credit to demand?
Well, it's not clear yet, but we do know that it is important.
It's very valuable to the industry, and it's important because of both consumers relying on it and manufacturers relying on it.
So it's really about jobs when it comes

down to it.
And the current incentive is only available to American-made vehicles.
So what we're really talking about is manufacturing in the U.S.
and that's why this comes as a bit of a surprise.
And the last time this personal tax

credit was challenged,
It had a lot of support in Congress from states that were manufacturing the
components for electric vehicles like states like Tennessee and South Carolina
and Michigan and Illinois. They wanted to protect jobs and that's
why they protected this tax credit last

time.
So we'll see how this proposal goes in Congress.
Many of those states, not blue states per se, potentially red and therefore
affecting home territory to a certain extent for your business.
When you think about the infrastructure play of this.
Does this set back the adoption of EVs

in the longer term, do you think?
I know it's hypothesis here, but does that make you think about readjusting
your strategy? It definitely has that potential.
I mean, for our business, we rely on demand from consumers and from
businesses.

So this is a personal task kind of for
individuals. There are other incentives in the
industry that are definitely on the chopping block from this administration.
So there's an important fight to protect a lot of those incentives now.
Terry, you said this is a surprise.

Is it really?
Elon Musk has been talking about scrapping subsidies for years.
He has been close to Trump throughout the election process and now in an
advisory role because those will act outside of government.
He will have Trump's ear.

But also we had decelerating EV sales
growth anyway for the latter part of the Biden administration.
Why is it a surprise to you? Well, I think decelerating sales growth
was going to happen anyway, right? Because when you're growing year over
year double digits, you cannot continue

that forever.
Just the law of numbers doesn't allow it.
So deceleration was going to happen, but this incentive has broad support, as I
was saying. So that's why it comes as a bit of a
surprise.

And to be saying this so early in the
transition is, I think, also kind of surprising.
Look, this is not a significant tax credit in the range of new tax policy
we're going to be seeing coming out of this administration.
And it favors U.S.

manufacturing, which this admin, this
new administration has been saying is what they really want.
So they're looking for manufacturing. This is something that does that.
Terry, don't get me wrong. I've got a Tesla Model Y, I think,
Carrie, I'm right in saying also has an

EV.
I leased that it was a competitive lease because of the 70 $500 tax credit.
But big picture, what is it that's going to put electric vehicle sales in North
America, at least back on a path to accelerating sales growth?
What do you want to see proactively the

Trump administration do?
Well, the most important thing is that California has the right to regulate
tailpipe emissions today, and about a dozen other states have signed on to
that. They have regulations forthcoming that
are affecting fleets. So fleets would be required to buy EVs
when those fleets are larger than 50

vehicles in their fleet and
manufacturers would be required to sell to those fleets.
So that dual regulation is in jeopardy. And overall, California's right to
regulate tailpipe emissions is what created the EV industry in the first
place.

We think we can compete on an equal
footing with gas and diesel. Today, my customers like Pepsi and FedEx
and UPS and school districts across the country are already saving money by
going to electric because it's cheaper than gas and diesel on a total operating
cost.

So we think we can compete on an equal
footing. But it's important to have these
regulations in place to just kind of get over the hump of these pilot programs
and enable it to go to scale. And in so saying that, it almost makes
you think, well, why have them if

already you're able to compete that sort
of. Therein lies the argument.
And going back to the consumer right now, is it that you need to compete by
what you do? Many people are reticent to commit fully
to an EV.

They've been going back to a hybrid
model because they're worried about infrastructure and a lack thereof.
Yeah. And that's the real trick here, I think,
you know, committing capital to build out an industry like this is extremely
risky.

So those regulations provide the
guardrails for investment, it attracts private investment and creates jobs.
And so that's really what this is about, is not the, you know, favoring one
industry over another, but really just giving enough certainty to investors
that they can put capital into this

space to continue to grow, that charging
infrastructure, to continue to convert their fleets and do the things that we
want to do for this space.

EV Investment Guardrails Help Industry: InCharge COO

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EV Investment Guardrails Help Industry: InCharge COO

EV Investment Guardrails Help Industry: InCharge COO

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