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Tesla won’t slow despite Edmunds claim that loss of tax credit will “kill the U.S. EV market”
Edmunds has released a new study that claims the loss of federal tax credits for EV buyers is “likely to kill the U.S. EV market.” It goes on to say, “Without these credits, this market is likely to crash.” Edmunds bases its analysis on what happened when the state of Georgia repealed its EV incentive program in the middle of 2015. Not only did Georgia eliminate its EV incentive, it also imposed new fees on EV drivers designed to offset the loss of revenue the state experienced because cars with electric motors use less gasoline.
Up until then, Georgia gave every qualifying EV buyer a $5,000 credit — the largest in the nation. That was on top of the $7,500 federal tax credit and made buying an EV in Georgia a very attractive proposition. The biggest beneficiary was the Nissan LEAF. In June, 2015 — the last month the incentive was available — 1,008 of them were sold or leased. In July, after the rebate was no longer available, 66 cars were delivered.
Cars eligible for the state incentive accounted for up to 17% of the new car market in Georgia. Following the legislature’s decision to eliminate the credit, they have fallen to about 2% of sales. Note that is still higher than the percentage of EV sales in the US as a whole.
Should Tesla be concerned? Not really says the Motley Fool. Data compiled by IHS Markit and included in the Edmunds analysis shows a drop in sales of the Model S shortly after Georgia repealed its rebate but sales quickly recovered and have since gone on to set new records for the company in the Peachtree State.
The federal tax credit was originally a pump priming exercise intended to help EV manufacturers get started. The assumption Congress made when it first enacted the credit was that once a company had sold 200,000 cars with plugs, economies of scale would begin to kick in, making it possible to build and sell electrified cars profitably without government assistance.
Tesla is getting close to that figure and will surely pass it once the Model 3 gets into production this summer. After that, the federal tax credit for Tesla vehicles will begin to phase out. In addition, many people worry the Trump administration will kill the federal EV tax credit entirely. According to Edmunds, that means Tesla could suffer a dramatic decline in sales — at least in the US. Here’s why that won’t happen according to the Motley Fool.
Not so fast
First, any comparison between a 2015 Nissan LEAF and a 2018 Tesla Model 3 is a lopsided contest. The LEAF is a fine car but it suffers from a serious lack of range. Nor does it have any of the industry leading technology Tesla offers its customers. It relies on the CHAdeMO charging standard, which is rapidly losing ground to the CCS standard and the Tesla Supercharger network.
Red Tesla Model 3 at the vehicle unveiling event on March 31, 2016 from the company’s Hawthorne, CA Design Center.
Second, the base price of the Model 3 is $35,000, which happens to be very near the average selling price of a new passenger vehicle in the US market today. With or without incentives, the Model 3 will be highly competitive. With nearly 400,000 reservations worldwide, demand for the Model 3 is clearly not dependent on government financial incentives.
The real issue here is that electric car sales have not advanced as quickly as electric car advocates predicted. Range anxiety, lack of charging infrastructure, and fear of the unknown have kept many people from buying an electric car, whether from Tesla or any other manufacturer. The “tipping point” when electric cars become the first choice of mainstream car buyers is tantalizingly close but still not here yet.
Reasonable people may disagree about the best way to promote electric cars. Paying people to buy them may not be as beneficial to society as subsidizing the infrastructure needed to charge them. The interstate highway system was a hugely expensive undertaking but it unleashed an unprecedented surge in US economic output. Today it is still the backbone of commerce in America. Putting the money used to fund the federal EV tax credit to work building the nation’s charging infrastructure could be a more efficient use of resources.
By any analysis, the Tesla phenomenon is not dependent on government incentives. It is based on building compelling electric automobiles that outperform the competition. Elon Musk deliberately chose to start at the top of the market to attract those who influence public opinion. That strategy is working and will continue to work even if the federal tax credit is eliminated entirely.
Tesla has moved its Wireless Charging efforts for its electric vehicles forward, as it had a new patent published today, one that it submitted back in March.
The patent describes a system for detecting foreign objects on the wireless charging pad under varying temperatures, aiming to mitigate any undesired results that could come from something being on top of the charging pad.
🚨 Tesla has a new patent application published today, which was submitted back in March, for a Wireless Charging Pad:
“The present disclosure relates to methods and systems that can reliably detect foreign objects on a wireless charging pad under varying temperatures. In some… pic.twitter.com/LIeLfZAuDJ
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 1, 2026
The abstract of the patent states:
“The present disclosure relates to methods and systems that can reliably detect foreign objects on a wireless charging pad under varying temperatures. In some examples, an object detector can utilize a set of inductive coils included in resonant tanks, and excite the resonant tanks using signals in a range of frequencies including or near a nominal resonant frequency of the resonant tanks. The object detector can detect a metal object based on resistance of a coil increasing and inductance of the coil decreasing. By analyzing the shifts and/or distributions in resonant frequencies and output magnitudes (e.g., output voltage peaks), the object detector can distinguish between changes of frequencies and magnitudes caused by temperature and those caused by foreign objects to accurately detect the foreign objects.”
The object detection system will utilize a set of inductive coils included in resonant tanks, and “excite the resonant tank using signals in a range of frequencies including or near a nominal resonant frequency of the tanks.” Metal can be detected by an increase in the coil’s resistance and a decrease in the coil’s inductance.
By analyzing shifts or disruptions in resonant frequencies and output magnitudes, the system can detect foreign objects. These types of safeguards need to be implemented through the normal operation of the charging pads.
Tesla says its Cybercab wireless charging efficiency is ‘well above 90%’
Tesla plans to utilize wireless charging with Cybercab and Robotaxi-enabled units to help streamline the fully autonomous experience from A to Z. The last thing the company wants to do is have any sort of small obstruction preventing the rider from experiencing Robotaxi as intended.
Tesla has launched its newest iteration of the Model 3 in China with a slew of new features, including the highly requested V2L (vehicle-to-load) feature and a new interior option.
The Model 3 now has a 16″ front touchscreen with improved resolution, a black headliner, V2L capabilities, Zen Grey interior in the Premium and Performance trims, as the White option has officially been discontinued, and 19″ Dark Nova Wheels, which are standard on the Model 3 Premium only.
🚨 Tesla has launched the Model 3 in China with a variety of new features and specs:
✅ 16” front touchscreen
✅ Black Headliner
✅ V2L Capability
✅ Zen Grey interior (Premium & Performance only)
✅ 19” Dark Nova wheels (Model 3 Premium only)
✅ Zen Grey Interior option… pic.twitter.com/ltTAEIYi2Z— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 1, 2026
The touchscreen in the U.S. version of the Model 3 is just 15.4″, so the newly upgraded screen is .6″ larger. Additionally, the Black Headliner, now standard on Model Y vehicles in the U.S., is coming to China.
Additionally, Tesla’s decision to end the white interior option has also made its way to the Asian market, as Zen Grey is the lighter color consumers can now go with. It is slightly different from the previously offered White option:
These options are available in China, Australia, and New Zealand as well, as Giga Shanghai serves those markets, bringing its mass-market vehicles to those countries in the South Pacific.
The Model 3 trims are now priced at:
- Rear-Wheel-Drive – 235,500 yuan (~$35,000)
- Long Range Rear-Wheel-Drive – 259,500 yuan ($38,700)
- Long Range All-Wheel-Drive – 285,500 yuan (~$42,600)
- Performance – 339,500 yuan (~$50,600)
These features have yet to make their way to the U.S., which might upset some buyers, but it is probably a good sign that Tesla will bring these changes to U.S. trims sometime next year. Potentially, these could come even sooner, as they could be used to stimulate demand for the year-end sales push.
Nevertheless, when things start at Giga Shanghai, they usually end up in the U.S. market. Tesla has also already started to install things like the Black Headliner and larger touchscreen in certain U.S.-built vehicles, so these things will be easy to implement across other vehicles in the lineup.
Elon Musk
The Pentagon taps Elon Musk to design the battlefield of the future
Hegseth named Elon Musk to help lead Project Meridian, a Pentagon study of future warfare.
Elon Musk has a new role in the Trump administration. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced on war.gov Wednesday that Musk will help lead Project Meridian, a new Pentagon study meant to identify the weapons and technologies the U.S. military will need to fight wars decades from now.
Hegseth unveiled the project during his State of the Force address at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia. Musk will direct the effort alongside Anduril founder Palmer Luckey and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, working under Pentagon Chief Technology Officer Emil Michael. All three men were in attendance, and Hegseth said their first meeting would take place directly after the speech inside a secure compartmented facility, according to The Hill.
Hegseth said the group “will be focused on discovering, developing, and fielding the weapons and systems that our children and our grandchildren will need in their lifetimes, without any creative limitations or restrictions, on any future battlefield, from under the Earth to beyond the Moon.” He added that Meridian is not meant to produce new strategy or policy documents.
SpaceX to become America’s Military data backbone for missiles, drones, and warfighters
A memo released after the announcement gives Michael until January 28, 2027, to deliver findings, a window of 120 days. It names artificial intelligence, autonomy, directed energy, robotics and biotechnology as the fields expected to change how wars are fought. The results will come as a public report with a classified annex. The memo says the study will run through a partner organization it does not name, and it does not mention Musk directly. His role comes from Hegseth’s speech and a Pentagon press release.’
Musk had not commented publicly on the appointment as of Wednesday evening. This will be Musk’s first official advisory role in the administration since he left DOGE last year.
The mandate overlaps heavily with Musk’s companies. SpaceX is one of the Pentagon’s largest contractors, with 2026 defense awards topping $8 billion, much of it tied to launches and a suspected Starshield buildout out of Vandenberg. The Pentagon’s release says Meridian will examine domains “from subterranean depths to the cislunar frontier,” which maps onto The Boring Company’s tunneling and Starship’s lunar plans. Tesla’s work on autonomy and Optimus falls within the fields the memo lists.
Meridian was one of six initiatives Hegseth announced Wednesday. Another is a new Autonomous Warfare Command, which the department wants operating as a four-star combatant command by October 1, 2027.
The news lands a day before SpaceX is scheduled to fly a classified National Reconnaissance Office payload on Falcon Heavy, one of three launches the company has planned for Thursday.
Tesla moves forward on Wireless Charging for vehicles
Tesla launches improved Model 3 in China with V2L, new interior option
