Dive Brief:
- Sales of electric vehicles in Georgia are down about 80% in the last year and a half, the result of lawmakers slashing the state's generous tax incentive—and replacing it with a new registration fee.
- The state’s $5,000 tax credit for the purchase of an electric vehicle was eliminated in July 2015, and a $200 registration fee took its place.
- The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports EV sales fell from more than 1,400 before the credit expired to less than 250. The decline has remained consistent in the last year and a half.
Dive Insight:
Georgia has the second-most electric vehicles on the road, but it's likely to lose that distinction as sales have stalled, the predictable result of a large incentive coming off the table. It was one of the largest incentives around the country, before lawmakers repealed it.
Atlanta Electric Vehicle Development Coalition founder Jeff Cohen told the Journal-Constitution that the state should have about 40,000 EVs on the roads. "We’re not growing,” he said.
Georgia currently has about 25,000 electric vehicles registered in the state. California, by comparison, has over 100,000. But while the tax credit helped Georgia develop a reputation for a growing EV market, some lawmakers believed the state was spending too much. A Georgia State University Center report found the tax credit cost the state over $1 million in 2012 and over $14 million in 2013.
Georgia Power is building a network of public charging stations, and has developed about three dozen locations in Atlanta and other cities through its "Get Current. Drive Electric" initiative, which ran its course through the end of the year.
There are about 520,000 plug-in electric vehicles in the United States, according to Plug-in America, and there are more than 15,000 public charging stations and almost 40,000 charging outlets, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.
