EV tax credit changes mean low-income buyers can soon get full $7,500
The IRS released new guidance on the EV tax credit today, and the changes mean that starting next year, low- and middle-income buyers will be able to get the full $7,500 credit even if they don’t have enough tax liability.
The Inflation Reduction Act included big changes to the EV tax credit, and those changes were set to roll out over the course of the months and years after it passed.
One of those changes has to do with making the tax credit available upfront at the point of sale. This means that, instead of having to file for the credit on your taxes the year after you purchase an EV, you just get a cheaper car upfront.
One other issue with the tax credit was that it wasn’t available to customers who didn’t have enough tax liability to claim it. The credit is not “refundable” and can’t be rolled forward, so if you don’t make more than about $66,000 (absent other credits), you won’t have enough tax liability to reduce and therefore you leave some of the $7,500 on the table.
But the new changes announced today fix that, such that buyers of lower income levels will be able to get the full $7,500 credit, upfront at the point of sale.
The relevant part of the law is the new “transferability” provision that allows a buyer to transfer the EV tax credit to the dealership they are purchasing the car from. The dealer then passes the savings on to the buyer, and is reimbursed by the government with an advance payment of the tax credit.
It’s covered in the fact sheet the IRS released today, under Topic H, Q4
Q4: What if a buyer has insufficient tax liability to fully use a transferred credit? (added October 6, 2023)
A4. The amount of the credit that the electing taxpayer elects to transfer to the eligible entity may exceed the electing taxpayer’s regular tax liability for the taxable year in which the sale occurs, and the excess, if any, is not subject to recapture from the dealer or the buyer.
Here, “recapture” refers to the ability of the IRS to come seek you out if they decide that you’ve improperly filed for the credit. This question states that the credit is not subject to recapture, even if the buyer ends up having too little tax liability to otherwise benefit from it (and dealers don’t have to worry about it either, per Topic H, Q19).
This change does not remove the income cap present in the IRA law, which restricts the credit for taxpayers who make over $150,000 single/$225,000 head-of-household/$300,000 married. So high-income people still cannot claim the new credit, but low and middle-income people can.
The change goes into effect on January 1, 2024, so any EV purchased after that date from a registered car dealer will be able to take advantage of these transferability provisions.
Electrek’s Take
While we already covered the tax credit changes this morning, I wanted to write this article to specifically address what has been a big sticking point with the credit ever since its original inception back in 2008. President Obama even mentioned it in a State of the Union and made it a policy goal of his to make the credit available at point of sale.
The way the credit was previously designed was regressive, meaning that higher-income people were more able to benefit from it than lower-income people. This is something that should generally be avoided when creating policy.
It also meant that buyers might have to finance the additional $7,500, paying more interest and higher monthly payments for the lifetime of the car. In short, it just made electric cars less attainable to lower-income people, which is a shame, since they’re the ones who could benefit most from cheaper running costs and cleaner air in lower-income communities that tend to be more polluted.
While lower-income buyers don’t typically buy new cars, it’s certainly conceivable that someone making around the national average income ($59,000 less than the approximately $66,000 required for $7,500 of tax liability) might be able to buy a new Nissan Leaf at $28,000 base MSRP or upcoming Volvo EX30 at $35,000. Or if they’re lucky, maybe they can snag a Chevy Bolt that’s still in inventory at the beginning of next year, despite that car’s upcoming discontinuation in December.
Some might even be able to stretch for the new lower-priced Model 3 at $39,000, assuming Tesla prices or tax credit availability don’t change by next year, which they probably will. Although we certainly do not recommend that anyone stretch beyond their means to buy a new car just because it’s a Tesla – be sure to think about how this purchase would affect your finances, and if you still can’t afford a new car, you can always go with used.
Which brings to mind that, for low-income customers, this change should also apply to the used electric vehicle credit as well. This is available in a lower amount ($4,000) and has additional limitations on the vehicle purchase price. (The used EV must be under $25,000, and income caps are lower than on the new car credit)
There are also myriad other reasons that a buyer might be in a situation where they temporarily have lower tax liability than usual, or have access to other credits or refunds that lower their liability in a particular tax year, and might have otherwise jeopardized their ability to take the full EV tax credit. This change gets around many of those situations and should make it much easier for everyone to get the credit.
This is why when I originally wrote about the IRA tax credit changes, I used the headline “Senate improves EV tax credit.” While some of the changes added complexity, especially in the intervening year and a half as certain provisions have rolled out, overall it means that more cars will get the credit (by removing the cap of 200,000 per manufacturer), and the credit will be much easier to attain for those who seek it due to these transferability provisions.
Between this and the ability to bypass most requirements by leasing, EV tax credit availability is better than it’s ever been, and that’s great news for consumers, for EV makers, and for the environment.
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A new video surfacing from a Tesla demonstration in Miami this weekend shows the Optimus humanoid robot taking a nasty fall. But it’s not the fall itself that is raising eyebrows, it’s the specific hand movements the robot made on its way down, which strongly suggest it was mimicking a remote operator frantically removing a VR headset.
Humanoid robots are all the hype right now. Billions in investments are pouring in, and Elon Musk claims it will be a trillion-dollar product for Tesla, justifying its insane valuation.
The idea has been that with the advent of AI, robots in human form could use the new generalized artificial intelligence to replace humans in an increasingly larger number of tasks.
However, there are still many serious concerns about the effort, both at the ethical and technological levels.
Technologically, most humanoid robot demonstrations have relied on remote control by human operators – pointing to a remaining gap between the software and hardware.
We discussed how the robots at the “We, Robot” event were heavily teleoperated, despite Tesla not explicitly disclosing that fact to the public.
That was more than a year ago, and despite claims that Tesla has made “AI demos” of Optimus since, it appears the company still relies on teleoperation to control them during demonstrations.
The Tesla Optimus Miami Incident
This weekend, Tesla held an event called ‘Autonomy Visualized’ at its store in Miami. The goal was to showcase Tesla’s “Autopilot technology and Optimus.”
However, there was nothing “autonomous” at Tesla’s “autonomy” event.
Many Tesla fans were seen posting videos of a Tesla Optimus robot handing out bottles of water at the event. It was also seen posing for pictures and dancing.
On Reddit, someone posted a different video of the demonstration:
As you can see, Tesla Optimus moved its hands too quickly, causing some water bottles to drop to the ground. It then loses its balance and begins to fall backward.
But the most interesting part is that just before falling backward, both of its hands immediately shoot up to its “face” in a distinct grasping motion, as if pulling an object off its head.
The robot, of course, is not wearing anything on its head.
The motion is instantly recognizable to anyone who has used VR or watched teleoperation setups. It appears the human operator, likely located backstage or in a remote facility, removed their headset in the middle of operating the robot for unknown reasons.
Optimus faithfully replicated the motion of removing a non-existent headset as it crashed to the floor.
Here’s a look at how Tesla trained Pptimus with VR headsets in its lab:
Electrek’s Take
This is embarrassing, but not just because the robot fell. Robots fall; that’s part of the R&D process. Boston Dynamics blooper reels are legendary, and they never really eroded the company’s credibility.
The problem here is the “Wizard of Oz” moment.
The specific motion of removing the “phantom headset” destroys the illusion of autonomy Tesla tries so hard to curate.
Even recently, Musk fought back against the notion that Tesla relies on teleoperation for its Optimus demonstration. He specified that a new demo of Optimus doing kung-fu was “AI, not tele-operated”:
Musk said again during Tesla’s last earnings call in October:
“Optimus was at the Tron premiere doing kung fu, just up in the open, with Jared Leto. Nobody was controlling it. It was just doing kung fu with Jared Leto at the Tron Premier. You can see the videos online. The funny thing is, a lot of people walked past it thinking it was just a person.”
Musk keeps telling shareholders that Optimus will be the biggest product in history and that millions of units will be working in factories soon. But if they are still relying on 1:1 teleoperation to hand out water bottles right now, it feels like we are still far away from a useful generalized Optimus robot.
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After images of an the new mid-sized electric crossover were leaked by the Chinese MIIT, Nissan pulled the wraps off its all-new NX8 – and it looks so good, I’m wondering if it couldn’t spearhead the brand’s American turnaround.
Nissan has had a rough go of it in the US, if not, well – everywhere of late. And while we may all have our own ideas about what Nissan needs to do to turn its ship around and get back to its winning ways, one thing just about every auto industry analyst seems to understand is that, at its core, Nissan’s problem is a product problem.
It doesn’t have to be this way, though. Despite what the optics of cynically slapping a Nissan badge on a decade-old Mitsubishi platform and calling it a new Rogue might have you believe, Nissan happens to have fantastic, modern new products in its production pipeline – including the all-new NX8 BEV and EREV crossover shown here. There’s just one problem: Nissan’s comeback cars are all in China.
The “N” stands for Nice
Dongfeng Nissan, a Chinese-market automotive joint venture between Dongfeng Motor Group and Nissan, has been rolling out hit after hit in recent months, like the N6 (above), which sits between the Altima and Maxima, size-wise, and offers 112 miles on a full charge of its 21.1 kWh LFP battery before its 1.5L gas engine kicks on to keep the odometer rolling.
The N6’s stablemate, the all-electric Dongfeng Nissan N7 sedan, debuted a few months earlier to rave reviews and hot sales, too – moving more than 10,000 units in the model’s first three weeks on the market.
Like its sedan siblings, the all-electric version of Nissan NX8 crossover rolls on an 800V system architecture and features a CATL-sourced LFP battery pack with 5C ultra-fast charging technology (xC is how many you can charge in an hour, effectively, so 60 minutes divided by 5 = it can charge in as little as 12 minutes). That battery reportedly sends power to a single electric motor putting out either 215 kW (~290 hp) or 250 kW (~335 hp), depending on model.
EREV version of the NX8, meanwhile, features a similar setup to the N6, pairing a 1.5L ICE producing 109 kW (~145 hp) with a 195 kW (~260 hp) electric motor. Expect the NX8 EREV to get slightly less than the N6’s claimed 112 miles of electric-only range (Chinese cycle).
The NX8 is expected to reach its first customers in April 2026. Take a look at some of the firs official photos of the new Nissan crossover, below, then let us know how you think this would do in the US in the comments section at the bottom of the page.
Dongfeng Nissan NX8
SOURCE: Dongfeng Nissan, via CNEVPost.
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This week, BYD crossed a major manufacturing milestone as its battery production crossed 113 GWh in the first three quarters of 2025 – but instead of celebrating, the company is doubling down with a new “Zero Defects” initiative to bring battery quality to an even higher level.
CarNewsChina reports that the new “Zero Defects” plan at BYD was launched internally at the start of Q3, with a focus on minimizing manufacturing defects across all stages of the battery’s life, from the manufacturing line to the end user.
The initiative coincides with BYD’s growing role as a battery supplier to other automakers and its expanding battery energy storage system (BESS) business, which are giving BYD both an international footprint and global benchmarks.
In its ongoing bid to prove itself even further in the global battery market, BYD will reportedly emphasize operational efficiency, error reduction, and standardization across manufacturing, process control, and customer service, with the end goal believed to be, “management practices comparable to those of Toyota.”
BYD on a charge
The Chinese automaker seems to be going from strength to strength in 2025, having overtaken EV sales leader Tesla in China back in June and repeating the trick again by overtaking Tesla sales in Europe in August.
Combine those EV sales with the fact that its domestic traction battery production reached 113.42 GWh in just the first three quarters of the year (with 23.65 GWh, or ~20%, being supplied to outside customers – including Tesla), and you might agree that betting against BYD seems to be a bad idea.
Note that BYD has not released official details regarding performance metrics or milestones for its new Zero Defects goal, but the message is clear: BYD plans to keep getting better.
SOURCE: CarNewsChina; images via BYD.
If you’re considering going solar, it’s always a good idea to get quotes from a few installers. To make sure you find a trusted, reliable solar installer near you that offers competitive pricing, check out EnergySage, a free service that makes it easy for you to go solar. It has hundreds of pre-vetted solar installers competing for your business, ensuring you get high-quality solutions and save 20-30% compared to going it alone. Plus, it’s free to use, and you won’t get sales calls until you select an installer and share your phone number with them.
Your personalized solar quotes are easy to compare online and you’ll get access to unbiased Energy Advisors to help you every step of the way. Get started here.
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