Hiding the true cost is the point. Or rather, altering the true cost to incentivize something or other.
The Koreans (Kia, Hyundai) found a loophole: The restrictions do not apply to commercial fleets, including vehicles leased to consumers.
So, they offer lease incentives that are structured to give you $7500 off MSRP if you buy the vehicle out of a lease after the first month.
No IRS paperwork required, and no chances of finding some other gotcha when you file your taxes.
If the law hasn’t changed by the time I buy a new EV, I’m going to insist on this, regardless of whether it is domestic made.
Anyway, the subsidy is really designed to setup the used car pipeline. In 20 years someone with significantly less money is probably going to be driving your car and they aren’t going to be thrilled with having ~14mph.
This is the thing that always gets me. After having seen too many examples of this I soured on these incentivized deductions. The benefit always seems to go to the middle man.
All they do is make everything more of a hassle.
For example, I went to buy Jeep. 4xe version was $8000 or so more. But its battery lasts only 2-3 miles and it would have taken forever to breakeven with this battery. But dealership kept insisting that I will get $6000 in tax rebate/deductions so the actual cost is only $2000 more.
They had marked up the car by how much government was going to give rebate on and there was no savings for taxpayer. I tried to have them issue give me discount now and claim my car on their taxes but, of course, that was not going to work. I ended up buying cheaper model.
EDIT: Just checked the range, it is actually 21 miles on battery, which would have been enough for my daily usage. At that time, salesperson informed me that it was 3 miles or so. At 21 miles per charge, I would have bought 4xe. Oh well.