In updates Friday, the U.S. EPA confirmed that some variations of the Tesla Cybertruck will qualify for the EV tax credit score—not less than for these fashions delivered in 2023.
As revealed simply over per week in the past, the Tesla Cybertruck will arrive in $79,990 All-Wheel Drive (dual-motor) type, with a $99,990 Cyberbeast (tri-motor) efficiency mannequin. A single-motor Rear-Wheel Drive mannequin is because of arrive in 2025.
That’s the place data posted on the EPA’s tax-credit web page—and noticed by associate web site CarsDirect—turns into a bit complicated. The Cyberbeast is listed as certified for the $7,500 EV tax credit score, with an MSRP restrict of $80,000.
EPA signifies Tesla Cybertruck qualifies for $7,500 EV tax credit score. – 12/2023
Nowhere else on the EPA web site is a mannequin that begins properly above $80,000 listed as certified. Neither is it seemingly that Tesla intends to decrease the Cyberbeast under $80,000 for deliveries earlier than the top of 2023, which is the time interval for the EPA’s present listing. Inexperienced Automobile Studies has reached out to the EPA for clarification; Tesla doesn’t reply press inquiries.
The pricing isn’t the one factor that doesn’t fairly measure as much as Tesla’s initially promised $39,900 begin. Whereas a variety of “500+ miles” had been advised on the Cybertruck idea reveal in 2019, the manufacturing Tesla Cybertruck arriving greater than 4 years later returns an estimated 340 EPA miles in All-Wheel Drive type.
2025 Tesla Cybertruck – Courtesy of Tesla, Inc.
The brilliant aspect of that is that by some lean engineering selections Tesla has managed to get that vary from a reported battery capability of simply 123 kwh—extra vary than the Ford F-150 Lightning from much less battery, as an example. However, getting something near the claimed 500 miles means choosing a “vary extender” battery that occupies a part of the cargo field, enabling as much as 470 miles.
It’s not shocking although that the Cybertruck makes the lower for the tax credit score, which has been revamped round emphasizing American-made EVs with home sourcing.
Tesla Battery Day vertical integration overview
Because it underscored in its Battery Day again in 2020, properly earlier than Biden’s EV coverage, Tesla is striving to make batteries and the entire provide chain for them a part of a vertically built-in—and localized—provide chain. The Cybertruck’s 4680 cylindrical cells are U.S.-made, and the Cybertruck is made in Austin.
These fashions aren’t but listed by the EPA for effectivity or vary scores, and so they may by no means be till lighter single-motor variations attain the market. Fashions with a gross car weight score above 8,500 kilos aren’t required to listing these numbers on the time of sale.
Not all Teslas will make the lower for the tax credit score, although. Tesla has already advised that the bottom LFP model of the Mannequin 3 received’t qualify for the credit score in 2024. That’s as a result of, not less than for now, it depends on foreign-made cells.
2023 Tesla Mannequin 3
Final month, the federal authorities launched the newest baked-in part of the credit score, as specified underneath the Inflation Discount Act. It eliminates the credit score for EVs containing battery elements equipped by or assembled by a “international entity of concern” (together with China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia).
Based on that language, an exclusion extends to company subsidies which are working elsewhere which are majority-controlled by companies based mostly in entities of concern. So disqualified fashions may—relying on interpretation—embrace U.S.-made Volvo and Polestar EVs (majority owned by China’s Geely) and Europe-made batteries from China’s CATL.
In 2025, the rule is because of get a degree deeper but—to cowl essential minerals that originate from or had been processed in a international entity of concern. Tesla’s vertical integration and management of its provide chain are prone to pay handsomely.
