GOP proposes sending US EV jobs to China, giving money to elites instead
US republicans have unveiled their new tax proposal, which kills a slew of tax credits to help working families become more energy efficient, improve US air quality, and boost US manufacturing. The republican proposal instead channels that money to wealthy elites, increasing the deficit by trillions of dollars along the way.
Republicans in Congress released their 389-page proposal today and, as expected, it includes several provisions to eliminate popular clean energy credits which were driving a boost in American manufacturing.
The credits were largely established under President Biden as part of the Inflation Reduction Act, which raised hundreds of billions of dollars through tax enforcement on wealthy individuals and corporations and channeled that into energy efficiency credits for American families.
We’ve covered how families could save thousands of dollars on upgrades to lower their energy costs through these credits.
But these credits aren’t just money-saving for Americans, they also work to boost American manufacturing.
Due to various provisions in the bill, particularly around the $7,500 EV tax credit which was limited to cars that undergo final assembly in North America. While loopholes exist, nevertheless the bill resulted in a massive expansion of American manufacturing, driving hundreds of billions of dollars of investment and creating hundreds of thousands of jobs.
But now, republicans in Congress are trying to roll much of that progress back.
Here’s a life of the bill’s various effects (via the BlueGreen Alliance):
- Attaching restrictions to clean energy and manufacturing tax credits that would make them unusable in practical terms while also “sunsetting” those tax credits early, a move that research suggests will increase costs for American families;
- Repealing the Clean Vehicle Tax Credits;
- Repealing the Clean Hydrogen Tax Credit;
- Clawing back unspent funds for air quality monitoring in schools, clean manufacturing, state and community energy programs, and electric grid upgrades;
- Defunding and delaying the Methane Emissions Reduction Program (MERP), which reduces pollution and protects the health of workers and communities;
- Clawing back all unspent Inflation Reduction Act funds, including many provisions that would have lowered energy bills, created jobs, and reduced pollution; and
- Attacks on many additional Inflation Reduction Act programs and initiatives.
You can perhaps see a pattern in these effects: they’re primarily targeted towards increasing costs for regular American families who were taking advantage of these tax credits, and towards programs that would keep you and your children healthier.
Previous analyses show how repealing these tax credits would lead to increased electricity prices for all Americans.
It should not be any surprise to anyone that has been paying attention that republicans want to poison you and raise your costs, but some people apparently still need more examples, so here we are.
In particular, the new tax proposal eliminates the US EV tax credit which had driven so much of that investment due to its domestic manufacturing provision (though there are some small carveouts). Not only does that inflate the cost of the best vehicles available today for Americans, it also takes away one of the incentives that was driving investment in US manufacturing.
We’ve warned before that a bill like this would just send more EV jobs to China, a country where nobody is “debating” over which direction the auto industry is going. Chinese automakers all know the industry is going electric, and they’re putting all of their effort into it.
This is quite a contrast with Western automakers which keep hemming and hawing, begging their governments to let them go bankrupt with anti-EV policy decisions that will only slow down their transition towards modernizing to the global EV status quo.
We’ve already seen the effects of other poor policy decisions on manufacturing, with several companies pausing or canceling plans to build manufacturing facilities in North America as a result of tariff chaos at the hands of an ignoramus. Republican districts have been hit hardest, as they were where the majority of this investment had been going.
And we’ve seen it made clear that the republicans in government responsible for protecting clean air would rather poison you and raise your fuel costs, as long as it helps the oil industry which bribed them into their position.
But then, the cherry on top of today’s tax proposal is that its cuts of these credits don’t even have a greater budgetary purpose. Not only was the Inflation Reduction Act revenue-positive – which is to say, it raised more money than it spent, thus reducing the deficit – today’s republican tax bill is revenue-negative, which is to say, it will increase the deficit.
The republican proposal raises the debt ceiling by $4 trillion, and it makes use of virtually all of that headroom, as the Joint Committee on Taxation has estimated that it will add $3.7 trillion to US debt. This is largely due to the bill’s significant giveaways to wealthy elites, with the majority of tax cuts targeted at the wealthiest households.
So the government isn’t even getting any savings out of this bill, merely channeling more money from working families to the wealthy elites that the republican party has always tried to benefit (including in other ways than the clean energy credits, like by cutting health care for the poor).
If you have a republican representative, all it takes is 3 republican Congresspeople to oppose this job-killing bill and to stand up for the well-being of their constituents.
Solar industry analysts have identified four republican Congresspeople who might be swayed in this respect, with their contact info below (Find out more about how this will affect the solar tax credit in this article by Electrek’s Michelle Lewis)
But there are many others whose districts have received significant investment, with EV projects being particularly popular in states like Georgia, North Carolina, and others along the burgeoning US “battery belt”. An interactive tool, including the ability to sort by congressional district, is available here.
Otherwise, you can find your representative on Congress’ website, and then search for the contact form on your representative’s website to get in contact with them.
Of course, if you have a Democratic representative, it’s also worth letting them know that you oppose the tax bill, just in case a few of them decide to jump ranks and join the republicans in harming America. We certainly hope they don’t, but it could happen.
Among the proposed cuts is the rooftop solar credit. That means you could have only until the end of this year to install rooftop solar on your home, before republicans raise the cost of doing so by an average of ~$10,000. So if you want to go solar, get started now.
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.
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Republicans announced a new tax plan today and it’s just about as bad for America as expected, taking money for healthcare, clean air and energy efficiency from American families and sending it to the ultra-wealthy instead.
You might think that this helps one of those ultra-wealthy, Elon Musk, who gave hundreds of millions of dollars to ani-EV candidates to help make this happen. But the main source of his wealth, Tesla, will be specifically harmed by rescission of EV credits – and its competitors largely won’t be.
Now that the republican party has unveiled its job-killing tax proposal, we know a little more about what’s in it.
Originally, it was thought by many that the proposal would completely kill all federal EV credits, with some estimating that the $7,500 credit would go away immediately (personally, I never thought it would be that stupid, but you never know with the republicans).
But it’s clear they want to destroy the credit and make cars more expensive for Americans. After all, Donald Trump, while running for an office he remains Constitutionally barred from holding, asked oil companies for a billion-dollar bribe in exchange for ending the EV credit, a promise he has continued to say he will uphold as he squats in the aforementioned office.
And last week, House Speaker Mike Johnson said that the House is likely to end the credit.
It turns out the details are a little more nuanced than that, and that while the credit is ending, it will sunset a little later than many feared.
It’s likely that the credit will last through the end of this year – which makes sense, since that’s how tax changes often work. Then, at the end of the year, Inflation Reduction Act credits will largely disappear.
However, in the current draft of the bill, some automakers will retain access to some EV credits, for a time. This is due to an exception given for manufacturers who have not sold 200,000 vehicles between 2009 and 2025, a similar cap to the old EV tax credit that was first implemented in 2008, before Congress improved it and removed the cap in the Inflation Reduction Act.
So, smaller manufacturers will continue to have some support, while large manufacturers who have already sold plenty of cars will lose all of their credits.
A number of manufacturers have already reached the 200k EV cap, including Nissan, Ford, Toyota, Hyundai/Kia, GM, and of course, Tesla. Those manufacturers will lose access to credits.
But others who started late or have more niche offerings continue to be under the 200k cap. These include companies like Mercedes, Honda, Lucid, Mazda and Subaru.
Specifically, Rivian has been identified as one of the possible winners here, as the company has not yet sold 200,000 vehicles, though should be crossing that line sometime in the next couple years.
And finally, the real competition for Tesla, gas cars, will not lose anything from the rescission of EV credits. Those cars will continue selling, they’ll just have a $7,500 advantage relative to today – on top of their advantage of each gas car being allowed to choke the world with $20,000+ in unpaid pollution costs, which show up on everyone’s hospital bills and health insurance premiums.
So that brings up an interesting point: when Tesla and its bad CEO Elon Musk threw their support behind all of this, what did they think they would get out of it?
After all, Tesla wrongly said, at the behest of Musk and his tortured logic, that ending EV credits would somehow help it.
We called out that obvious incorrect statement at the time, saying that No, for crying out loud, killing EV subsidies will not help an EV company.
But now it turns out that the situation is even worse for Tesla, because not only does Tesla’s gas competition get to keep the credits, but many electric competitors will get to keep them for some time as well.
And don’t forget that this last quarter, government incentives were the only thing keeping Tesla from losing money. A regulatory environment that is more hostile to Tesla could turn black to red on the balance sheet, along with dropping sales and negative brand perception. Thank the bad CEO you voted to give $55B to for that loss, shareholders.
But the oil companies, another competitor for Tesla, will continue to benefit from roughly $760 billion in subsidy per year in the US alone, in terms of the health and environmental costs they impose on society and do not pay for.
If that subsidy was ended alongside the $7,500 EV credit, then EVs would indeed come out on top. But instead of ending those massive subsidies to fossil fuels, republicans have proposed to increase them, by cutting down enforcement and loosening pollution limits, both through this tax bill and through other agency actions and proposals.
Further, the tax proposal unveiled today sunsets credits for many other products that Tesla sells. There are solar and home energy efficiency credits which Tesla takes advantage of through its Energy division, which sells solar and home battery systems to homeowners. These can be worth tens of thousands of dollars per installation, and those will go away if this proposal goes through.
So in the end, Tesla loses access to credits both on its cars and its Energy division, while its competitors get an even more beneficial regulatory environment to continue polluting. And even its electric competitors get a temporary leg up for the time being.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk gets his part of the $4.5 trillion in tax cuts that go directly to wealthy elites. So at least his pocketbook will look slightly better for a time, even though the company that has been responsible for filling it it will fall further due to less attractive product pricing and through his own association, which has driven protests against the company, embarrassed owners and pushed many customers away.
So, to those of you who wanted us to “trust the plan” – how, exactly, is this beneficial to Tesla, again?
Among the proposed cuts is the rooftop solar credit. That means you could have only until the end of this year to install rooftop solar on your home, before republicans raise the cost of doing so by an average of ~$10,000. So if you want to go solar, get started now, because these things take time and the system needs to be active before you file for the credit.
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. – ad*
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China’s EV giant is on a roll. BYD is coming off its best sales week in China of 2025, racking up nearly 68,000 registrations. In comparison, Tesla logged just over 3,000.
BYD notches its best EV sales week of 2025
Another week, another impressive performance from BYD. Although most automakers saw higher sales for the week ending May 11, the company continues leading China’s EV market by a mile.
According to the latest insurance registration data (via CarNewsChina), BYD registered 67,980 vehicles from May 5 to May 11. That’s up 15% from the 58,310 registrations the previous week and BYD’s best sales week of 2025.
BYD’s premium sub-brands, Denza and Fang Cheng Bao, notched 2,990 and 2,660 registrations, respectively, up 3.8% and 17.7% from the prior week.
NIO and XPeng posted stronger numbers last week in China, with 6,060 (+18.2%) and 6,870 (+23.8%) vehicle registrations. NIO’s new sub-brands are starting to gain traction. Onvo registered 1,660, and Firefly, which began deliveries on April 29, added 470 more.
During the week of May 5 to May 11, other Chinese EV brands, including Xiaomi, Deepal, and ZEEKR, also made strong showings. Xiaomi registered 5,180 vehicles of its sole EV, the SU7. Deepal registered 4,700 vehicles, and ZEEKR followed with 4,310.
Earlier today, Electrek reported that Tesla delivered just 3,070 vehicles in China last week, down 69% from the same week the prior year.
Tesla extended its 0% financing offer through June 30 to help drive demand and keep pace with BYD, SAIC, and others.
Electrek’s Take
Although EV sales were up 38% in China in April, Tesla’s fell 9% to 28,731. On the other hand, BYD sold over 380,000 new energy vehicles last month.
Those numbers include plug-in hybrids, but even if you look strictly at EV sales, BYD is leading Tesla and every automaker by a wide margin in China. Last month, BYD sold over 195,000 fully electric (EV) cars, the first time in over a year that BYD sold more EVs than PHEVs.
BYD’s overseas sales also hit a fifth straight month of growth, with over 79,000 vehicles sold. It outsold Tesla in key markets, including Germany (1,566 vs 855) and the UK (2,511 vs 512) in April.
Through April, the automaker has sold over 285,000 vehicles in overseas markets. With new manufacturing plans opening in Europe, Mexico, Brazil, Southeast Asia, and other global regions, BYD’s momentum is expected to accelerate over the next few years.
BYD is best known for its low-cost EVs, but it’s rapidly expanding into new segments with pickup trucks, luxury vehicles, and electric supercars rolling out.
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China has reclaimed the No. 1 spot on BloombergNEF’s annual Global Lithium-Ion Battery Supply Chain Ranking, bumping Canada to second place, as its low electricity prices and strong infrastructure gave it the edge in 2024.
The report ranks 30 countries based on how well they’re positioned to build a secure and sustainable battery supply chain, and this year’s reshuffling says a lot about where the market’s headed.
Canada, which had taken the lead in 2023, held onto a solid second-place finish, tied with the US. But while Canada is still a leader in battery raw materials and continues to attract investors with its stable political environment, it’s been slow to scale up battery manufacturing. That drop in momentum left the door open for China to reclaim its lead.
The US is facing its own set of challenges. The Inflation Reduction Act gave America’s battery industry a significant boost last year, but that progress is now under threat. Donald Trump’s latest tariffs and climate rollbacks are starting to push up costs for US battery makers. They’re also making the US less attractive to investors, which could slow down new projects and shrink domestic demand for EVs and storage systems.
“Brazil and Indonesia registered the largest gains in the fifth edition of the ranking,” said Ellie Gomes-Callus, a metals and mining associate at BloombergNEF. “Growth across these emerging markets has been driven by surging demand and ambitious policy roadmaps. However, all eyes will be on the US this year, as it awaits the impact of the Trump administration’s trade policies.”
Japan and South Korea also climbed higher in the top 10. Their early lead in building out battery supply chains is still paying off, even as global competition heats up and profit margins shrink. Like China, they’ve managed to hold strong in all five of BloombergNEF’s scoring categories: raw materials, manufacturing, demand, ESG (environmental, social, and governance), and innovation.
Europe, on the other hand, is starting to slip. Out of 11 European countries in the ranking, only the Czech Republic and Turkey improved their standings this year. Five stayed the same, and four dropped. Hungary and Finland saw the biggest falls – seven and six spots, respectively. Hungary is now second-worst in Europe for ESG metrics, and Finland’s once-promising nickel and cobalt industries have lost steam, partly due to tough permitting rules. Case in point: BASF’s new battery component plant in Harjavalta has been delayed by permitting issues.
Without stronger government action and better support for manufacturers, Europe risks losing even more ground to fast-moving markets in South America and Southeast Asia.
The report also highlighted some other trends shaping the global battery race. Canada stayed strong overall but lost ground in manufacturing. A few major companies, including Ford, E-One Moli, and Umicore, have paused investments despite new government support, citing weaker-than-expected demand.
Meanwhile, Europe’s battery growth is slowing as capacity lags behind other regions and demand softens due to smaller market sizes and EV saturation in places like the Nordics. Countries in Eastern Europe and Scandinavia are falling behind as a result.
The raw materials side of the market isn’t looking great either. Supply is up, but demand is down. There’s too much material and not enough buyers. And while the market for mined metals is overflowing, refined battery metals tell a more mixed story. Still, one thing hasn’t changed: China remains the dominant force in refining, and it’s still leading the way in building new manufacturing capacity, even as other countries struggle to scale up.
Unless the US and Europe can course-correct quickly, they may find themselves watching from the sidelines as China and emerging economies lead the next phase of the global battery boom.
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