The largest cost identified by the report was that on buyers of gas cars.
The argument made was that as car manufacturers incur costs in order to meet federal and state mandates to make more electric cars than they would otherwise, they pass those costs on to buyers of their gas cars.
According to the paper, around 16 states have ‘zero emission vehicle’ (ZEV) mandates whereby the state sets a number or percentage of new vehicles sold that must be zero-emission.
‘Of course, the cost to meet these mandates is not limited to the states that impose them but spread out over the entire fleet of each automaker trying to meet them,’ read the paper.
On top of that, federal regulations impose similar obligations on automakers that incentivize them to make more electric vehicles.
‘The largest source of financial support for EVs comes not from direct subsidies but from hidden costs driven by federal regulations,’ read the paper.
‘These regulatory standards are applied on a fleetwide basis and allow for the trading of regulatory credits, the costs of which are passed on to buyers of gasoline and diesel vehicles.’
The Texas Public Policy Foundation paper estimated the value of those credits was around $27,881 per vehicle.
Median-income earners can no longer afford a new median-priced gas car but above-average earners enjoy subsidies on their EVs.