Toyota, long a skeptic of the notion that drivers will go all-electric, is breaking from other automakers and proposing that federal EV tax credits be altered so its hybrid vehicles can also qualify.
The Japanese automaker’s plan, outlined to POLITICO’s E&E News on Tuesday, emerged as President-elect Donald Trump is vowing to roll back government support of EVs and promising to revisit rules and regulations written by the Biden administration to support electric cars and fight climate change. A Toyota executive laid out a similar argument weekend in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal on Sunday.
“We are not in lockstep with some of our competition,” said Zachary Reed, a Toyota spokesperson, a week after the main auto lobby said that it supports keeping a key EV tax credit in place in order to better compete with China.
At issue is the $7,500 tax credit for electric vehicle purchases that Congress wrote into the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. Republicans are set to have a majority in both houses of Congress, and some GOP members have called for a thorough reevaluation of federal rules to stamp out preferences for EVs.
