Traditional gasoline-powered cars are still, generally speaking, considerably cheaper than EVs. In order to incentivize people to buy EVs, the government offers a tax credit of up to $7,500. Last year, President Trump and Republicans wanted to revoke the tax credit, causing EVs to become even more expensive. Fortunately, the US government voted to keep the tax credit, which has been in place since 2009. Now Hybrid Cars reports that the tax credit is in danger once again.

Republican Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming has just introduced a bill, which would kill of the EV tax credit. Not only would this make the cars more expensive to buy, but Barrasso has plans to make them more expensive to own as well. EVs are exempt from the gas tax, which is used to fund infrastructure improvements. Barrasso's bill would add a "Federal Highway user fee for alternative fuel vehicles," which would charge EV drivers a fee to use public highways. The full text of the bill isn't available yet but the basic intentions would not be beneficial for EV owners.

The $7,500 tax credit is already set to run out for automakers like Tesla, who have surpassed the cap of 200,000 vehicles. Surprisingly, a second bill to extend the tax credit is also circulating in Congress but it only has 17 co-sponsors (all of whom are Democrats). It seems as though neither of these bills will reach a vote anytime soon, so the tax credit will likely remain as-is, at least for now. Hopefully, the government can decide once again to keep the credit in place.