Written by Cláudio Afonso | LinkedIn | X
California Governor Gavin Newsom said on Monday that the state plans to reboot its incentives for electric vehicle (EV) adoption as President-elect Donald Trump has threatened to eliminate the federal EV tax credit after taking office in January.
The state aims to establish its own incentive program to sustain the EV transition. “We’re not turning back on a clean transportation future — we’re going to make it more affordable for people to drive vehicles that don’t pollute,” Newsom said.
However, the proposed state incentives, which are currently under negotiation, are expected to include a market-cap limitation that would exclude Tesla, despite it being the only automaker producing vehicles in California.
“Even though Tesla is the only company manufacturing their EVs in California!” Tesla CEO Elon Musk wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “This is insane,” he added.
The announcement comes amid years of tension with Musk, who relocated Tesla’s headquarters to Texas, citing California’s “anti-business” policies.
In the first nine months of this year, Tesla sold 105,693 Model Y units in California — twice as many as the combined sales of all other non-Tesla EVs on the state’s top 15 best-seller list.
“Tesla makes over 550,000 vehicles in Fremont in my district & employs over 20,000. Let’s not play politics with keeping manufacturing in California. It would be foolish to exclude Tesla. Have we learned nothing from snubbing Elon Musk at the Biden EV summit?” California Republican Ro Khanna wrote on X.
Tesla announced last week it is offering three months of Full Self-Driving (Supervised) and free Supercharging for customers who take delivery of a new Model S, Model 3, Model X, Model Y, or Cybertruck until the year end.
Written by Cláudio Afonso | LinkedIn | X
