Trump wants to eliminate $7,500 electric-car tax credit

President Donald Trump wants to eliminate the federal tax credit that gives up to $7,500 to buyers of electric cars.

In a $4.7 trillion budget proposal for the 2020 fiscal year, Trump stated removing the electric vehicle tax credit that has become a common target for conservative lawmakers in recent times would save $2.5 billion over 10 years.

Present regulations permit automakers to provide credits for up to 200,000 electric vehicles per manufacturer. No less than two significant manufacturers, General Motors and Tesla Inc, have reached the limit and they have lobbied for an elimination of the cap.

General Motors pushed back on the tax-credit removal.

The president’s budget propositions are probably going to run into strong resistance in Congress with Democrats controlling the U.S. House of Representatives. Lawmakers are not committed to follow a president’s budget requests, and Congress routinely rejected Trump’s fiscal recommendations even when Republicans were in charge of both chambers.

Trump’s budget also calls for the removal of the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing loan program and other Department of Energy programs he considers “costly, wasteful or duplicative.”

The program has been utilized by Ford Motor to upgrade facilities in Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, New York and Ohio after getting loan of $5.9 billion in 2009.

Nissan utilized a $1.45 billion loan in 2010 to construct plants for advanced battery manufacturing and environmentally friendly paint and to modify its Smyrna, Tennessee, plant for assembly of the all-electric Leaf.

Tesla utilized a $465 million loan in January 2010 on its manufacturing facility in Fremont, California, to produce battery packs, electric motors and other powertrain components for all-electric vehicles.

Trump stated in his budget proposal that the “private sector is better positioned to provide financing for the deployment” of commercially important projects.