The Biden-Harris administration’s green energy boondoggle is finally coming to an end.
But two major American car companies weren’t ready to give up their taxpayer-funded gravy train.
And Ford and GM got caught running one sneaky scheme that has taxpayers seeing red.
Ford and GM scramble to milk the dying EV tax credit one last time
The $7,500 electric vehicle tax credit – one of the Biden-Harris administration’s most expensive climate change giveaways – officially sunsetted at the end of September.
For years, this program has been nothing more than welfare for wealthy liberals who wanted taxpayers to subsidize their virtue signaling.
President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed in July finally put this boondoggle out of its misery.
But Ford and General Motors weren’t going down without a fight.
Both companies launched last-minute schemes with their dealerships to squeeze every possible dollar out of the dying tax credit before it disappeared forever.
Ford’s financing arm started making down payments on electric vehicles for customers, while GM worked with dealers on "extended offers" to help buyers claim the tax credit on leases.
Steve Milloy from the Energy & Environment Legal Institute didn’t mince words about what these companies were really doing.
"It is outrageous that Ford and GM are scheming to defraud taxpayers by conspiring with their own franchisee car dealers to ‘purchase’ their own EVs by the end of today in order to capture the $7,500 tax credit that is expiring," Milloy told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The timing wasn’t coincidental – these companies knew exactly what they were doing.
The real victims of the EV tax credit scam
For years, working Americans have been forced to subsidize electric vehicles they couldn’t afford for people who didn’t need the help.
Sterling Burnett from The Heartland Institute exposed exactly who was really benefiting from these tax credits.
"The tax credits were, from the outset, nothing more than welfare for the well-to-do, with the vast majority of the vehicles sold and tax credits claims going to people in the highest income brackets," Burnett told the DCNF.
Think about that for a moment.
Your tax dollars went to help some Hollywood executive buy his third Tesla while you’re trying to figure out how to afford gas for your 10-year-old pickup truck.
"There is no reason average folks, who sensibly continued to purchase reliable fossil fuel powered vehicles, should be helping the rich purchase boutique, high-tech vehicles, many of which serve as second cars," Burnett continued.
The whole program was designed backward from the start.
Rich people who wanted electric vehicles were going to buy them anyway.
And working families who needed reliable transportation couldn’t afford these overpriced gadgets even with the tax credit.
So the government essentially created a massive wealth transfer from regular Americans to the wealthy elite.
Trump’s policies let the market decide what Americans actually want
Jason Isaac from the American Energy Institute explained what this really means for American car buyers.
"This subsidy propped up demand for vehicles consumers didn’t want, while gas-powered cars were punished through backdoor regulations like the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) penalties, which were zeroed out in the One Big Beautiful Bill," Isaac stated.
The Biden-Harris administration didn’t just subsidize electric vehicles.
They actively punished companies for making the gas-powered cars that Americans actually wanted to buy.
It was economic warfare against common sense.
"With these incentives vanishing, it marks a ceremonial end to the federal EV mandate," Isaac said. "The market can finally begin to correct itself, and the American auto industry can start to heal."
That’s exactly what should happen in America.
The government shouldn’t be picking winners and losers in the marketplace.
If electric vehicles are really the future, they should be able to compete on their own merits without taxpayer subsidies.
And if they can’t – well, maybe that tells us something important about what consumers actually value.
"Washington shouldn’t be picking winners and losers, and after years of failed top-down mandates, consumers are finally back in the driver’s seat," Isaac concluded.
The desperation from Ford and GM in these final hours shows just how dependent they became on government handouts.
Instead of building cars people wanted to buy, they built cars the government wanted to subsidize.
Now they’re scrambling to grab every last dollar of taxpayer money before the well runs dry.
The Biden-Harris green energy agenda was always more about control than climate.
They wanted to force Americans into vehicles that served their political agenda, not our practical needs.
Thanks to President Trump’s decisive action, that era is finally ending.
¹ Audrey Streb, "Major Auto Companies Reportedly Race To Save Sunsetting Tax Credit For Green Boondoggles," Daily Caller News Foundation, September 30, 2025.
