New ‘Replace Your Ride’ Incentives in Vermont to Move to Electric Vehicles
Vermont has launched the first phase of a new incentive program to help lower-income residents replace older, highly polluting light vehicles with clean transportation alternatives.
Below the Replace your ride program$3,000 incentives are available on a first-come, first-served basis for income-eligible Vermont residents who are retiring an operational highly polluting vehicle at least 10 years old and transitioning to a new or used plug-in electric vehicle (PEV).
The Replace Your Ride program uses the same income requirements as the Vermont incentive program for new plug-in electric vehicles and MileageSmart, the state’s used vehicle incentive program. In this first phase, Replace Your Ride applicants are eligible to stack the $3,000 incentive with one of the existing (new or used) plug-in electric vehicle incentives. Information about these programs is available from Drive Electric Vermont’s website.
“The transportation industry is responsible for about 40% of Vermont’s carbon emissions. The state is working to quickly reduce these harmful emissions by giving Vermonters incentives to switch to cleaner transportation options, and combining those incentives with existing state and local aid programs for even greater cost savings,” said Transportation Secretary Joe Flynn. .
To be eligible for the Replace Your Ride program, applicants must be Vermont residents and listed on both the new PEV purchase or lease agreement and the old, replaced vehicle registration. Incentives are currently available at the point of sale or lease, and limited to one per person for the duration of the program.
In a second phase of the program, which will start on November 2, 2022, participants will be able to opt for alternatives to personal car ownership. Eligible applicants may receive a card pre-loaded with a $3,000 voucher to use toward eligible clean transportation charges at participating electric bike shops or for shared mobility options.
STATE VERMONT
Agency of Transport
Replace Your Ride will be funded with $4.5 million through 2021 and 2022 transportation bills.
The Vermont Agency of Transportation selected the Nonprofit Renewable Energy Center (CSE) to develop and operate the Replace Your Ride program as part of a series of cleaner transportation incentives. CSE runs clean transportation incentive programs in seven states and has engaged with half a million buyers of new electric vehicles.
“Scrap-and-replace programs like Vermont’s that take inefficient older vehicles off the road are essential to accelerating harmful greenhouse gas emissions,” said Mark Bielecki, CSE’s Senior Director of Transportation Programs. “Replacing a 10-year-old combustion engine vehicle with an EV will prevent up to 27 tons of CO2 from being emitted during 100,000 miles of driving. Vermont is a leading state in adopting these types of programs, and we expect more to follow suit.”
Incentive electric bike
The eBike incentive program began on July 21, 2022, but closed shortly after on September 16, 2022, when the $105,000 authorized for program funding was exhausted. Vermont residents age 16 or older were eligible on a first-come, first-served basis for up to $400 toward the purchase of an electric bicycle, with higher incentives for households and lower-income individuals.
Incentives were available through participating local bike shops at the point of sale, or as an after-sales discount for retail purchases (including online). Learn more about the Drive Electric Vermont here website.
Jetson electric bike connected and charged. Photo by CleanTechnica.
Thanks to Vermont Agency of Transportation
About Center for Sustainable Energy
Center for Sustainable Energy® (CSE) is an independent, non-profit organization transforming markets for clean transportation and distributed energy through software program design and management. CSE has managed more than $2 billion in incentive programs for governments, utilities and the private sector in the U.S. Visit energycenter.org.
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