Colorado Increasing Its EV Purchasing Incentives – CleanTechnica

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Even though the federal EV buying incentives are gone in the US, the state of Colorado still has some for its own residents. Of course, there are some rules to follow to qualify.

“To maintain some of its EV momentum, the state will increase benefits offered through its Vehicle Exchange Program (VXC), an initiative designed to help middle- and low-income residents replace older gas-guzzlers with plug-in vehicles.

“Starting Nov. 3, the discount available through the VXC program will increase from $6,000 to $9,000 for new EV purchases and leases. The rebate available for the purchase or lease of a used EV will climb from $4,000 to $6,000.”

We’re probably all aware of the “cash for clunkers” programs which help get the old, most polluting vehicles off the roads to clean up the air, especially in urban areas. The Colorado program gets old gas vehicles off the roads and replaces them with electric vehicles, not with new or used fossil-fuel vehicles. That’s a big difference, isn’t it?

Fully electric vehicles don’t have toxic tailpipe emissions which harm human health and contribute to premature deaths. When I conducted an interview with the American Lung Association about its air pollution report, the representative stated: “The report includes a target of 100% zero-emission new passenger vehicle sales by 2035, coupled with non-combustion electricity generation. Cumulatively, the health benefits shown through our modeling of this scenario hit nearly 90,000 premature deaths avoided because the air pollution from these sources will be greatly reduced, though not eliminated fully. We used a series of modeling tools to arrive at these results, and for the health benefits specifically, we used the US EPA’s COBRA model for health benefits analysis.”

It’s worth noting the human health impacts because they are numerous and severe. In Colorado, air pollution harms many children. “More than 32,000 Colorado children per year will suffer asthma attacks due to ozone from this industry.” In the linked PDF, the words “this industry” refer to the oil and gas industry. The elderly are also vulnerable to toxic air pollution. Pregnant people and people who are living with chronic diseases or health conditions are vulnerable as well.

While electric vehicles might be seen as being about “the environment,” they also help reduce the generation of toxic air pollution that harms human health. Additionally, there are some people who will openly say they don’t care about the environment, so they will keep driving polluting vehicles and buying toxic fuel that is contributing to climate change. However, they might pay attention if they read about how fossil fuel air pollution harms people.

Fully electric vehicles are also much more energy efficient than gas or diesel vehicles.