Subsidizing low- and middle-income adoption of electric vehicles: Quasi-experimental evidence from California
Abstract
Little is known about electric vehicle (EV) demand by low- and middle-income households. In this paper, we exploit a policy that provides exogenous variation in large EV subsidies targeted at the mass market in California. Using transaction-level data, we estimate three important policy parameters: the rate of subsidy pass-through, the impact of the subsidy on EV adoption, and the elasticity of demand for EVs among low- and middle-income households. Demand for EVs in our sample is price-elastic (−2.1) and buyers capture roughly 73 to 85 percent of the subsidy.