What Would It Take To Make You Buy an Electric Vehicle?

If you had an old car, how much money would you have to be offered to let it go and buy an electric vehicle? Even with electric car incentives, Toronto car buyers aren’t as interested in buying an EV as you might think.

 

A federal program was introduced in 2009 called Retire Your Ride, which was aimed at putting older cars that were highly pollutant off the roads. It was pretty successful, and by 2011 when the program had ended approximately 120,000 vehicles across Canada had been retired from the road.

 

In addition to that, car manufacturers also added more incentives in situations where a new car was being bought directly off their lots. In this strictly run program, the car you turned in had to be older than a 1995 make, had to be driveable, and had to be insured during the most recent six months. This was in order to get a rebate of $300, or discounts on a bicycle or a bus pass. This program didn’t do that well even though consumers indicated that they want to help the environment.

 

It was the car manufacturers who then requested more of a commitment from the government. They wanted a program that would pay consumers $3,000 rather than the $300 that had been paid. For many consumers this meant that it was coming out of their own pockets anyway, in the form of taxes or car purchase prices.

 

Latest news has the Ontario government now offering a new “cash for clunker” program along with many environmental changes they have proposed. Buyers of electric or hybrid vehicles are to be the recipients of the cash.

 

The much-discussed Electric Vehicle Incentive Program (EVIP) is now essentially paying drivers to drive more electric cars. Current rebate amounts vary: while a Tesla or Porsche electric vehicle purchase will net drivers a $3,000 rebate, a Ford Focus electric vehicle purchase provides a $10,635 rebate and a BMW i3 PHEV purchase gives $13,000 in a rebate.

 

How much would it take for you to buy an electric vehicle?