Incentives currently available as of July 12, 2016.  Battery Electric Vehicles Federal:  Income tax credit of up to $7,500 State:  Rebates of up to $2,500 City of Riverside:  $500 rebate for Riverside residents who purchase from a qualified dealership Rebates and Incentives for Electric Vehicles LADWP (Consumer Rebate Program) LADWP (Electric Vehicle Incentives) Southern California Edison Other Incentives State:  Battery electric, plug-in hybrid electric, CNG, and hydrogen vehicles qualify for Clean Air Vehicle Stickers that permit use of HOV lanes - for additional information, please click here. Farmer’s Insurance:  Up to 10% discount on auto insurance for battery electric, gasoline-electric hybrid, CNG, or propane vehicles Traveler’s Insurance:  Discount of up to 10% on auto insurance for gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles City of Santa Monica:  Free meter parking for battery electric and CNG vehicles City of Hermosa Beach:  Free meter parking for cars with California White Clean Air Vehicle Stickers E-mail comments or questions to Clean Air Choices.

Residential EV Charging Incentive Pilot Program Daily Air Quality ForecastThe file or script requested was not found on this server. If you typed in this URL by hand, please verify that you have the correct spelling and try again. They were nice while they lasted, but the tax credits available to hybrid gas-electric cars bit the dust on Dec. 31, 2010. The incentives that President George Bush signed into law, as part of The Energy Policy Act of 2005, had granted up to $3,400 as a tax credit for the most efficient hybrid cars—and $4,000 for a compressed natural gas vehicle. They are gone, with little prospects for returning. Instead, legislators have jumped to the next technology breakthrough: tax credits for plug-in hybrids and electric cars. A combination of local and national credits—up to $7,500 at the federal level, plus a $2,000 credit for charging equipment installation, plus state-based incentives (of $5,000 in California)— represent so far the largest bundle of incentives ever for private purchasers of green electric-drive vehicles.

With hybrids remaining below 3 percent of the new car market, some green car advocates wonder if the hybrid tax credits have vanished too soon. But Mike Stanton, president and CEO of the Association of International Automobile Manufacturers, summed up the situation, in an interview with Detroit News. “The intent was to provide an incentive for new technology,” Stanton said. “Hybrid technology is now pretty well-known.”fresh air focus air purifier At this stage, the viability of steady growth of the hybrid car market—as well as so-called “clean diesel” vehicles and cars that run on compressed natural gas—will have to stand on its merits, with no assistance from federal tax credits. sharp car air cleanerIn fact, for the most popular hybrids, the tax incentives have been long gone—because The Energy Policy Act of 2005 called for a phase-out of tax credits when any specific automaker sold more than 60,000 hybrid or clean-tech vehicles. air cleaners for basement

Toyota and Lexus hybrids became ineligible in September 2007. Honda lost its eligibility on Jan. 1, 2009, and Ford’s expired March 31, 2010. Many observers believed the 60,000-vehicle threshold was designed to limit the advantage for Japanese automaker, such as Toyota (and some degree Honda), which dominated the hybrid market since its introduction more than 10 years ago. With American companies very much in the plug-in game, the new incentives for plug-in cars have a bigger limit of 200,000 cars. Other perks, such as the ability for solo drivers to use carpool lanes, have also shifted from conventional hybrids to plug-in cars—although California hybrid drivers with yellow stickers had their HOV privileges extended until June 30, 2011. Then, cars with yellow stickers are out, and those with white ones—for zero emission vehicles—take their place in the carpool lanes. California issued yellow carpool lane access stickers to 85,000 hybrids between 2004 and 2007. To alleviate concerns about highway congestion from solo green car drivers, there will be a cap of 40,000 for Enhanced AT-PZEV plug-in hybrids allowed in the HOV lanes.

There is currently no limit set for the number of all-electric, or zero emission vehicles, that can receive white HOV access stickers. Support for electric car incentives is apparently accelerating. There are multiple proposals to enhance the $7,500 tax credit for electric cars to an instant rebate available at the time of purchase. This would help avoid EV shoppers not being able to claim the full credit when it comes to tax time—a common problem when hybrid shoppers lost some of the value of their credits due to the Alternative Minimum Tax. As it stands now, buyers of plug-in hybrids and electric cars benefit from a tax credit of $2,500 to $7,500, depending on the size of the battery in the car. On the low end of the spectrum, cars with 4 kWh battery packs will qualify for a $2,500 tax credit. The credit maxes out at $7,500 for cars with a 16 kWh battery pack, like the Chevy Volt. Drivers converting a car into a plug-in hybrid, or a gas-powered car into an electric vehicle, will receive a tax credit equal to 10 percent of the conversion cost.

The maximum credit is $4,000 for a $40,000 conversion. The credits were provided as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, otherwise known as the “stimulus bill.” In late Dec. 2010, the federal government saved the tax credit for installation of home-based charging equipment that was set to expire at the end of 2010. It was a bittersweet victory, because the amount of the credit dropped from 50 percent to 30 percent. EV buyers can now claim a credit of 30 percent of the purchase and costs of the charging equipment, up to $1,000 for individuals and $30,000 for businesses. The new rules are in effect until December 31, 2011. There is a long list of incentives for electric cars and plug-in hybrids at the state level. Here’s a handy-dandy reference of tax credit amounts for clean vehicles that might have been purchased in 2010—that you’ll want to claim at tax time in April 2011. See a summary of the hybrid and clean deisel tax credits for all years, and the appropriate forms.