Subsidizing Mass Adoption of Electric Vehicles: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from California

Abstract

Little is known about demand for EVs in the mass market. In this paper, we exploit a natural experiment that provides variation in large EV subsidies targeted at low- and middle-income households in California. Using transaction-level data, we estimate two important policy parameters using triple differences: the subsidy elasticity of demand for EVs and the rate of subsidy pass-through. Estimates show that demand for EVs amongst low- and middle-income households is price-elastic and pass-through is complete. We use these estimates to calculate the expected subsidy bill required for California to reach its goal of 1.5 million EVs by 2025.

Original document

The different versions of the original document can be found in:

• http://dx.doi.org/10.3386/w25359

• http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/00j7f0t8

• https://escholarship.org/content/qt00j7f0t8/qt00j7f0t8.pdf?t=pktfsx

• https://www.nber.org/papers/w25359.pdf,

https://escholarship.org/uc/item/00j7f0t8,

https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/25359.html,

https://econpapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:25359,

https://academic.microsoft.com/#/detail/2903698818