Automotive Engineering - April 2019 - 62

READER
FEEDBACK

Kill the EV Tax Credit!

Your EV taxpayer-funded subsidy is on target. For a Federal
budget of over $4T and a national deficit over $20T, any lowhanging fruit to help reduce the hemorrhaging of taxpayer
dollars toward programs with little or no benefit for the masses should be plucked now. Not five years from now. This taxpayer giveaway has been no more effective than Cash for
Clunkers, when one considers the average age of vehicles on
the road right now. You have the stats.
Let EV's stand or die on their
own merit in the marketplace. The
vehicle battery-charging infrastructure is way behind where it needs
to be for practical long-range use,
in addition. I know that this thinking doesn't square with the socialist Green New Deal inside the
Beltway. My suggestion has a touch
of sanity to it that is non-existent
with the GND.
The staff at SAE Automotive
Engineering continues to do a really good job bringing timely topics
to our attention.
Steve Lyman
President, All American Dynamics
I agree with editor Brooke's prescription to end the EV tax credit,
which has already lasted too long
and produced almost nothing. I
believe electric vehicles are viable
for the future, but it should be the
market that drives their adoption,
not government subsidies. I would give the existing credits
two more years at most.
Stu Kaplan
Madison, Wisconsin
Thanks to AE for taking a stand on the electric vehicle taxcredit boondoggle. Let the market decide if EV technology
can be self-sustaining.
Harold Chu

industry would have to pay for its own "security forces," mercenaries, or private paramilitary organizations.
In addition, the U.S. provides many other subsidies in the
form of tax exemptions, write-offs and other legal-weasel
tactics that have been in progress since the early 20th century. If we eliminate the tax incentives for EVs, we should also
eliminate all subsidies and incentives for the oil/gas-fueled
internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles. If we did that, the
EVs would easily outsell the oil-burners. The price of the
multi-trillion-dollar wars would
then have to be carried by the ICE
vehicle owners. I do understand
that ending such oil/gas industry
subsidies would impact homeowners who heat with oil or gas, but
that is a separate issue that can be
addressed via a combination of
better home insulation, passive
solar heating and electrically-powered heating.
Constantine Kortesis, CMfgE
The writer was part of GM's EV-1
team and involved in the NASA development of hydrogen fuel cells for
the U.S. space program.

Needed: A step beyond
STEM

Sam Abuelsamid is right on in his
article "Needed: a step beyond
STEM" [February]. We need to include the arts in our education and
consideration in all things engineering. What is interesting is that I am seeing this in what
seems to be a grassroots effort to promote STEM with the
arts included here in Central Iowa and they are calling it
"STEAM." Far too many engineering decisions are made without consideration of the fellow man.
If we all were a little more educated in the arts, just maybe
we would see more products that are truly engineered for the
betterment of mankind in mind.
Richard W. Job
Ankeny, Iowa

Your editorial "Kill the EV tax credit by 2025" makes a great
argument for saving "taxpayers about $20 billion over the
next decade." However, according to recent articles, the U.S.
has already spent $5.9 trillion on the wars since 2001 that are
essentially subsidies for the U.S. oil/gas industry. The wars are
gifts to the oil industry. Without U.S. military support, the oil
READERS: Let us know what you think about Automotive
Engineering magazine. Email the Editor at Lindsay.Brooke@
sae.org. We appreciate your comments and reserve the
right to edit for brevity.

62 April 2019

AUTOMOTIVE ENGINEERING

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Automotive Engineering - April 2019

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