The new reform passed by the Biden administration, aimed at heavily subsidizing the electric car and its entire ecosystem, should allow the United States initiate a deep energy transition in the automotive sector.

But before this reform, sales of electric cars in the United States remained quite small, except for a few states, such as California, which were very advanced in this area, in particular because the region is one of the most affected by the disaster. events caused, in particular, by climate change.

If the reform of the Biden government, which in particular includes a discount of $7,500 on the purchase of an electric vehicle manufactured in the United Statesn, is set to go into effect soon (with some changes, we’ll come back to that below), some states seem to be going against the policy, like Texas, which has just adopted a text that is, to say the least, impressive.

Tax on electric cars in Elon Musk’s “homeland”.

All that’s missing is Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s signature to approve an annual tax of $200 (about €182 at current exchange rates) for all electric car owners. The reason? Texas fears losing significant annual revenue, including fuel taxes.

To give you a little idea, in 2015 about $3.4 billion was raised by adding 20 cents per gallon (about 3.8 liters). Now it is the fourth source of state income.

The decision, which has yet to be voted on at the time of writing, is surprising in many ways, as Texas is one of the top states for electric vehicles, given the presence of Tesla’s Gigafactory in Austin and the start of work on a new lithium refinery also owned by Tesla .

Assistance that no longer applies to many cars

Meanwhile, the criteria for access to American aid for electric vehicles has been revised. The list of cars eligible for two tranches of $3,750 (about €3,400 at current exchange rates) has been further reduced.

To protect its supply chain and factories in the US, the US government has updated regulations on the sourcing of raw materials for batteries and the production of the batteries themselves.

So, only ten models receive the maximum incentive $7,500 (about €6,800 at current exchange rates), including the Cadillac Lyriq, Ford F-150 Lightning, and Tesla Model 3 (Performance only) and Model Y (excluding rear-wheel drive).