Unless you're paying cash out of pocket for the car, it's a somewhat irrelevant distinction. I'll get an extra $7,500 on my car loan, then dump the $7,500 against the car principal when the tax refund hits. All I lose is the interest on that $7,500 for however many months it takes to get the tax refund.
I see what you are saying here, assuming the refund is put towards the car. I'm sure lots of people would be tempted to use it for other things, like they typically do with their refunds.
For a person in the financial position to spend nearly $100,000 on an automobile, the tax credit is probably not only irrelevant, but ridiculous. At a lower price point, however, it becomes very relevant indeed. Tesla is by far the only one guilty of this marketing tactic. Chevrolet, Nissan, Think, Wheego, CODA, are all saying that their car
is X dollars
after the federal rebate. For an average buyer looking to take the plunge into an electric car in that price range, the $7500 has a big effect in whether they can even get the financing, and what their monthly payment will be. So they will be told the bottom line price is X, when they have mentally been figuring a lot less. Yeah they get the tax credit, but only once. So a family that bought a $40,000 car because it was sold to them as if it were a $32,500 car, still has the larger payments for the next few years of a $40,000 car. For people at that level, it can be a stretch.
So it's not really the $7500 lopped off the top that these manufacturers make it out to be.
