Trump might take away EV tax credits. This carmaker will give them to you anyway

[ResidentialBusiness]

For anyone considering buying an EV this year, there’s a looming question: Will the federal tax credits for clean vehicles still be around by the time you file your taxes in 2026?

Harbinger Motors, a startup that makes electric delivery vehicles for commercial use, decided to help its customers with what it calls an “IRA Risk-Free Guarantee” (referring to the Inflation Reduction Act). If the tax credit is discontinued, the company will cover enough of the cost to make the EV the same price as the diesel equivalent.

“The tax credit is impactful,” says Harbinger cofounder and CEO John Harris. “We built the company around the belief that you have to sell these vehicles at the same price as diesel vehicles for them to make sense for most customers. And when you start to throw all this uncertainty at the customer around, ‘Well, maybe the price is going to be $20,000 higher than you think it is,’ these customers don’t have the margins to gamble like that.”

[Photo: Harbinger Motors]

Harris believes that the odds of the credit disappearing are low—which is why the company is willing to take its own risk in offering the program.

“There’s a lot of noise coming from the White House about electric vehicles,” he says. “It’s mostly focused on mandates . . . but there is no mandate in the IRA. What the IRA really looks like is massive federal support for automotive manufacturing—which last time I checked is a priority for this administration. If there was a 60-40 split in Congress, maybe the IRA would get repealed. But consider that the House margin is three seats. There are a dozen or more elected representatives just from Michigan. What you’re really talking about is, can you convince all the elected representatives from Michigan to vote out the auto industry? I just don’t think they’re going to do that.”

Though the political odds may keep the incentive in place, “it’s sort of scary for a lot of customers, and so we’re prepared to just take the uncertainty out of the equation for them,” Harris says. “It’s not the customer’s responsibility to employ a government relations firm and understand all of these political dynamics.”

[Photo: Harbinger Motors]

Harbinger makes the chassis for delivery vehicles that are roughly the size of FedEx trucks; some preproduction vehicles are in use with its customers now, and around 1,500 are on track to be delivered later this year. One chassis has a list price of around $103,200 (in the standard way that this type of vehicle is built, another company completes the vehicle for additional money).

The leading diesel competitor has a similar list price for its own chassis, but dealers usually give discounts, so the typical transaction is $90,000. To make the vehicle truly cost-competitive, Harbinger is offering a $12,900 discount that will help replace the tax credit if it disappears and bring the cost down to around $90,000.

If the tax incentive stays in place, customers will make a second payment to cover that discount. But because the tax credit itself is even larger—up to $40,000—customers could ultimately get the vehicles for less than they would have paid for a diesel truck. (Operating an EV, and fueling with electricity instead of diesel, is also much cheaper.)

Most commercial EVs are much more expensive up front; the price difference between an EV and a comparable diesel version is often more than the full tax credit, so manufacturers are unlikely to offer a similar program.

Harbinger has competitive pricing in part because of its manufacturing process. At its factory in Orange County, California, it builds its own parts—including battery packs and motors—rather than using a complex supply chain. And instead of dealing with multiple layers of suppliers, it buys materials like copper in bulk at commodity prices. The company also has little exposure to the tariffs newly imposed on Mexico, Canada, and China because it builds its own parts.

Companies that sell passenger EVs may also be unlikely to offer to cover the cost of the tax credit if it’s revoked, both because automakers are struggling with uncertainty about tariffs and because the vehicles are sold at higher volumes. In many cases, however, those cars and trucks are already close in price to the gas equivalents.

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