It’s not all bad news for US state governments in their dealing with electric vehicles. Today New York State, headed by Democrat Andrew Cuomo announced a new up to $2,000 rebate program for all-electric and plug-in hybrid vehicle buyers. That means the Model 3 New Yorkers reserved just got significantly cheaper.

The rebate will help make EVs more cost competitive with gas-powered cars at purchase (they are often already much cheaper to own when accounting for gas savings) and will go into effect on April 1st…

“We want to make electric vehicles a mainstream option,” said state Assemblywoman Amy Paulin, a Westchester County Democrat who leads the Assembly energy committee. “They are becoming more affordable and we need to encourage them.”

The move has taken quite a bit of time since the money was earmarked in 2016 and for EV buyers like me, knowing it was coming but not when made me put off the purchase of an EV until I knew when the law would take effect. New York State, generally seen as environmentally friendly is one of only about a quarter of the 50 US states not to offer an EV incentive beyond the use of the carpool lane on stretches of Long Island.

It isn’t immediately clear beyond the AP article how the $2000 will be broken down but it means for the immediate future, full EV buyers will see a drop of almost $10,000 on new cars purchased when accounting for the federal incentive. Together with more than 50% savings on gas vs. electricity and EVs start making a lot of sense for a broader swath of the population.

The news will be great for Tesla and other EV sellers who count New York state as one of, if not the biggest market for EVs after California.

Local governments have been taking advantage of NYSERDA state and federal EV incentives including New York City’s recent purchase of 80 Chevy Bolts.

Some more information for New York State EV owners:

Charge NY– an initiative to put more charging stations in New York State.

Watt Plan – Estimate the cost of owning an EV vs. a ICE car.

Map of charging locations

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