How Vermont is committing to electric vehicles

These are the incentives, goals, policies, and privileges offered for EVs and other alternative-fuel vehicles in Vermont.

Government goals, policies, and requirements:
- Established goal to deploy one public EV charging port within a mile of all interstate and highway exits and within 25 miles of other chargers along state highways
- Beginning with model year 2026, manufacturers will be required to sell zero-emission trucks as an increasing percentage of their annual sales
- Requires at least 75% of state-purchased vehicles to be EVs or hybrids

Monetary incentives:
- Grants to purchase or lease new EVs (for low- and moderate-income residents, local and state governments, businesses, and nonprofits)
- Grants to replace personal vehicles with new or preowned all-electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles
- Grants for projects focused on reducing emissions from heavy-duty diesel engines and buses, including converting or replacing vehicles (for local, state, and regional agencies or departments, businesses, institutions, and nonprofits)
- Grants to install EV chargers (for workplaces, multifamily housing developments, and other public charging locations)
- Low-interest loans to finance public EV chargers and natural gas fueling stations (for municipalities, regional development corporations, political subdivisions, and private companies)

External collaborations:
- Multi-State Zero-Emission Vehicle Task Force

Other:
- The state transportation agency is required to administer a pilot program to install EV chargers at multifamily and affordable housing units

In the U.S., the transportation sector is the single leading source of pollution, contributing about 28% of greenhouse gas emissions in 2022. Three-quarters of Americans drive a car to work, most of them alone, and trucks transfer over 60% of freight. As a result, passenger vehicles and freight trucks offer a major opportunity to reduce pollution within the transportation sector.

Efforts to curb vehicular emissions vary widely from state to state. California has led the charge to reduce vehicular greenhouse gas emissions, adopting legislation in 2022 that will require all new vehicles sold in the state to be electric or plug-in hybrids by 2035. Medium- and heavy-duty vehicles like box trucks and semitrucks will follow suit in 2045. Since California's precedent-setting decision, 16 other states have adopted similar mandates with varying timelines and EV sales quotas.

Many states have adopted monetary incentives to promote EV adoption as well. Over half of states provide such incentives to install EV chargers and adopt electric or other alternative fuel buses. Meanwhile, 18 states and Washington D.C. provide monetary incentives for individual residents to purchase EVs. These efforts and others are funded in part by Volkswagen settlement funds, through which the company has paid $2 billion into EV charging infrastructure and $2.9 billion into a state mitigation trust fund in damages for cheating federal emissions tests on nearly 600,000 diesel vehicles.

On a national level, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is set to invest $7.5 billion in a network of EV charging stations, aiming to add 500,000 chargers across the country. The law includes formulaic state-by-state EV infrastructure funding each year between 2022 and 2026, estimated to total $4.2 billion in all.

Additionally, the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act provides Americans with a $7,500 tax credit for buying new EVs and $4,000 for used EVs, plus credits for commercial clean vehicles, EV charging station properties, continued development and manufacturing of clean energy and transportation technologies, and more.

Many of these efforts may face the chopping block if Trump wins this year's presidential election. The Republican nominee has said he will not allow states to ban gas-powered cars or trucks and may end the national EV tax credit. Meanwhile, Democratic nominee and current Vice President Kamala Harris has supported EV expansion efforts from within the current administration, even casting the tie-breaking vote on the pro-EV Inflation Reduction Act.

The outcome of the election is likely to have major implications for EV adoption and automobile regulation. Read the national analysis to get a deeper sense of efforts across the country—and which states may be most affected by federal policy changes.

This story features data reporting and writing by Paxtyn Merten and is part of a series utilizing data automation across 48 states and Washington D.C.