The e-bike rebate is only mostly dead as supporters plot next steps

Billions of dollars for expanded tax credits for electric cars are included in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.

The bill's authors decided to eliminate funding for the one type of vehicle that has the most potential to fight climate change, reduce car emissions, and make our cities and streets safer and more Livable: e- bikes.

Bike advocates have been pushing for a tax credit for the purchase of a new electric bike for a long time, but it was left on the floor of the congress by the negotiators.

Noa Banayan is the director of federal affairs at PeopleForBikes. We are disappointed about the chance to act on climate and to put forward progressive climate policy that can make a difference.

The advocates were close to passing a federal policy to encourage e-bike sales A tax credit worth 30 percent of a new e-bike's purchase price was included in the original proposal. The e-bike tax credit was eliminated by Senator Joe Manchin.

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Urbanists and bike advocates were disappointed. A visiting fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School's Taubman Center for State and Local Government called it a "maddening omission". It was declared a blind spot by the Washington Post. The elimination of the e-bike tax credit was called ashame by Bicycling magazine.

The e-bike credit is not dead. According to congressional sources, supportive lawmakers are working on a Plan B to pass legislation that could juice e-bike sales by the end of the year.

The chances of including an amendment for the e-bike credit on the Inflation Reduction Act are slim to none, according to one source close to the negotiations. The bill to delay the amortization of research and development expenses will be voted on before the end of the year.

The Democratic source said that the provision was a tax one. If there is an effort at the end of this year from a lot of members to include that provision, that opens the door for us to include other tax related measures.

The founder and co-chair of the Congressional Bike Caucus vowed to continue pushing for the bill.

One way to shift people from cars to bikes is through the use of electric bikes. It is disappointing that my bills to make it easier to commute by bike was not included in the inflation reduction act, but it is important that Congress not give up on severing our dependence on fossil fuels. The package is the most important investment in the fight against the climate crisis. I will continue to advocate to make it easier for people to purchase electric bikes as we work to pass this legislation quickly.

The failure to include funding to help shift people from cars to e- bikes in a bill that is supposed to be about fighting climate change is indicative of the American mindset. Cities need to be designed with more walking, biking, and transit use in mind to fight climate change. It requires a multipronged approach that includes infrastructure improvements to build out a network of protected bike lanes, more frequent train and bus service to encourage transit use, and tax credits and other incentives to help steer more people towards electric bikes.

The vast majority of driving in the US takes less than five miles and e-bikes are the best way to replace it. Electric vehicles are an important step towards decarbonizing the transportation but experts say that reducing driving trips altogether will have a more measurable impact if we are to slow down the warming of the planet

The average price of an e-bike is between $1,000 and $8,000, which is more than the average cost of a normal bike. They can be used to replace car trips for many people. If 15% of car trips were made by e-bike, carbon emissions would go down. According to a recent North American survey, nearly 50 percent of e-bike commute trips replaced automobile commute trips, and a more thorough review of European studies showed that e-bike trips replaced car trips 47 to 75% of the time.

The cost of subsidizing the cost of e-bike purchases was reported to be $4.1 billion by the Joint Committee on Taxation. The bicycle commuter benefit, which would make available pretax commuter benefits to cyclists similar to those who drive or take public transportation to work, scored less than expected.

Congressional Democrats may try to include language in the bill that encourages more domestic manufacturing, similar to how the EV tax credit was reworded to apply only to vehicles with a significant share of parts made in the US or by trading partners. The congressional source said that onshoring the bike industry could help draw more support.

Yonah Freemark, senior research associate at the Urban Institute, said that the Inflation Reduction Act is an important step forward for the climate overall.

The bill doesn't make any effort to address the fact that electrification of the car system is just one of many ways to reduce the climate impacts of transportation, according to Freemark. Getting people out of cars and instead walking, biking, or taking transit is a more effective way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions than moving people from a gas- powered car to an electric one.