You are missing the point here.
These are edge-cases at best. Spewing these as if it is something people can commonly attain is disingenuous. I’m sure there are a few people who pay enough federal taxes to claim the full rebate, qualify for the state incentives, the state hasn’t run out of funds for their program (happened here in Oregon a month ago), who can actually afford an EV… but it’s super rare.
Worse, Sawyer rarely mentioned these limits and ignores when they are pointed out to him. Very frustrating.
Sawyer does exaggerate. But the savings are real for a large class of people. In California alone,
there are extra local utility rebates for charging equipment, the "cash for clunkers" program to
retire old cars for an extra $1.5K, and certain CA zip codes are considered "disadvantaged areas"
for extra credit, to balance out things for the sake of climate justice impact.
There are state tax considerations as well, as you've noted with Oregon which has a 4+% sales tax advantage
over CA, at least, as do many other states, both red and blue. Yup, there are "success disasters" as you
note when the program money runs out.
Lastly, a personal note from a possibly larger class of Tesla purchasers -- retirees (early, such as myself,
or otherwise). Many of us can "tune" our income with capital gains to get under the income limits
in one year for rebates, an then declare more income the next. I bought a 2018 Model 3 that way,
whereby the 7.5K fed rebate + 2.5k CA rebate + $800 electric utility rebate + $5K FSD sale price
including HW 2.5 -> 3 upgrade really paid off. The opportunistic windows may be narrow, but
they can work out well for the observant.
Yeah, "edge cases" I know, but even if Merritt Sawyer pumps it all up, there's little downside for
BEV (not just Tesla) adoption. Whatever hucksterism proves unrealistic, it's far outmatched by
whatever the fossil fool industry proselytizes.
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Hardest working CEO I've ever known!
