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Were America's Electric Car Subsidies Worth the Money?
America's electric vehicle subsidies brought a 2-to-1 return on investment, according to a paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research. "That includes environmental benefits, but mostly reflects a shift of profits to the United States," reports the New York Times. "Before the climate law, tax ...
""What the [subsidy legislation] did was swing the pendulum the other way, and heavily subsidized American carmakers," said Felix Tintelnot, an associate professor of economics at Duke University who was a co-author of the paper. The provision sends profits to non-American companies, and since those foreign-made vehicles are on average heavier and less efficient, they impose more environmental and road-safety costs. By this methodology, a large electric pickup like the Rivian imposes three times the harms of a Prius, according to one of the study's co-authors (a Stanford professor of global environmental).
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