State transportation officials review electric-vehicle incentive programs as funds run low

State transportation officials updated the House Committee on Transportation on Jan. 21 about Vermont’s electric-vehicle incentive programs, saying the state has funded thousands of incentives since 2020 but that many programs ran out of money in early October.

Patrick Murphy of the Agency of Transportation, who directs the state's EV efforts, told the committee that incentive programs were explicitly designed to prioritize lower-income households and to accelerate adoption: “EV purchase incentives were included as critical pieces of that transition in the Vermont Climate Action Plan,” he said. Murphy said program modeling called for tens of thousands of plug-in vehicles to meet climate goals and that, as of the third quarter of last year, Vermont had “about 17,000 vehicles or so,” leaving the state roughly 10,000 vehicles short of the modeled target.

Murphy walked the committee through the major programs, the funding history and the steps taken in 2023 and 2024 to get incentives to households more quickly. Key points presented to the committee:

- Funding and scale: Act 184 of 2022 directed the largest single infusion of funds: $12 million for a new PEV (plug-in electric vehicle) incentive…