I found this report while looking around for some more information on the relaunch of the rebate program. No wonder they blew through the money so fast, 93% of applicants received the full $5,000 incentive. And while that may lead some people to believe it was because of Leasehackrs and other savvy shoppers going for aggressive deals on Bolts and Ioniqs, it turns out that 83% of applicants bought Teslas 
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Additionally, it sounds like they are proposing some changes to the program, including making the PHEV incentive a (higher?) flat amount instead of being based on per mile, as well as capping the incentive to $2,000 dollars for vehicles over $45,000 and allowing vehicles under $45,000 to get the full $5,000 if they meet the mileage requirements. Iâm guessing that the big automakers and their NJ dealers probably lost their minds when they saw how badly Tesla drank their milkshake. The EV charger rebate doesnât sound like itâs going to be all that, only $250 dollars. Every little bit helps I suppose, especially if you can combine it with the federal incentive still available.
It is important to note that lack of available stock contributed to the lack of diversity
in the incentive disbursement. Many car buyers indicated that their vehicle of choice was not
present or offered in New Jersey. Stock was regularly found in neighboring states, but due to the
nature of the Program, out-of-state vehicle purchases and leases were not eligible for an
incentive.
This line is huge. I donât know of anyone else that was orchestrating increased Ioniq deliveries to NJ Hyundai dealers by the truckload. I personally believe Teslaâs percentage would have been higher if the work we were doing here was not triggering dealers to increase their stock of these vehicles.
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âMany car buyers indicated that their vehicle of choice was not
present or offered in New Jersey. Stock was regularly found in neighboring states, but due to the
nature of the Program, out-of-state vehicle purchases and leases were not eligible for an
incentive. Availability of EV product should be noted as a barrier to adopt a wide variety of EVs,
and New Jersey will need ample available EV product in order to successfully expand its market
and meet customersâ desires for more EV options.â
Personally, Iâm not buying this. What EV wasnât available in NJ during that period of time? The problem were the DEALERSHIPS that saw this incentive as a lottery ticket, or didnât know how to market it to customers at all.
Think about it this way⌠~7000 applications. Around 5800 of them ended up being Teslas. How many Ioniqs did you alone personally broker over that year long period? I can account for two of the remaining ~1200 just by myself.
Itâs not that the cars werenât available to the dealers. At least in the Korean car universe, itâs that the dealers were not adequately predicting demand, and werenât ordering enough cars from Hyundai factory/port.
I feel ever-so-slightly validated by this report, because it shows I was doing the right thing to grow adoption of cheaper EVs in NJ. I really had to beg the dealer partners to start ordering trucks of entirely Ioniqs (whereas theyâd usually just get 1-2 ioniqs on a truck of other Hyundais in their usual shipment).
This was a gamble at the time, which is why the dealers even stopped to take pictures of âmyâ trucks, and let me know âthis better workâ and things like that.
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Iâm going to take a guess and say that a lot of those buyers were well to do to buy a Tesla, rebate or no rebate, and just took free money as the opportunity to do so. Inventory or not, my guess is that a lot of the Tesla buyers would not have looked at the Bolt or Ioniqs even if inventory was there, just not the same buyer.
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My feeling is that most of these people probably would have bought a Tesla no matter what. It would be interesting to get a breakdown of the demographics of the average applicant. Income, education, county, etc.
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Nobody shoppping for a Tesla is cross-shopping an Ioniq.
Iâm not comparing Ioniq adoption to Tesla adoption. But I am proud of the level of Ioniq adoption, because the number would be a few hundred units lower if there wasnât someone begging NJ-based Sales/Inventory managers to allocate some EVs to NJ dealers.
Bottom line, the most valuable information for me, is that NJ EV demand for Bolt/Ioniq/Kona climbs dramatically, compared to the demand in neighboring states, when the CHARGE UP program is running. I need to continously remind my dealer partners of that, otherwise they will compare their EV sales figures from non-CHARGE UP months, when determining how many cars they need to order this summer.
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NEWSFLASH: Free money drives sales! That and other astonishing revelations at 11!
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You would be amazed how thick-skinned some legacy dealership management is. Whatâs obvious to me and you, is not always so obvious to them.
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pretty sure all the i3s were my deals lol
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Iâd love to have access to whatever data they collected and see exactly what impact this did have for everything that wasnât a Tesla. Chevy sold 4,334 more Bolts in 2020 than 2019. How many of those were in New Jersey? I think the Costco program accounts for the vast majority of that increase in sales nationally and it makes it a little harder to determine the Charge Up impact on itâs own. For me personally Charge Up on its own was more than enough to get me into an LT when the program first started and I was very happy with the end result. I never would have gotten another one, Premier or LT if it wasnât running in tandem with the Costco incentive.
I would never have gotten my Bolt if it wasnât for Costco & Charge Up. Itâs a fine car - but not something I would pay real money for. At less than $150/mo, itâs worth it. Any more than that and no thanks. At $1534 one pay deal that I got - itâs a no brainer. My family is regretting not leasing one when I got another offer for a $11xx one pay now that they sold one of their cars to ALGO to capitalize on the crazy car market.
People that got a Tesla werenât looking at getting anything else. Different buyers. I donât blame them, especially if you look at the sticker price - the Tesla is a better car all day long if your looking at the 40-45k range. But when you realize the incentives that the Bolt/Ioniq have, the story changes as these â$40kâ cars have a cap cost closer to 23k after all incentives vs 35-40k for the Tesla.
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If they are indeed switching to a âflatâ PHEV rebate that could make things even better for the 4xe in NJ, provided you can get a dealer to give an actual deal on one, be it ordered or in stock. My take is that they are essentially levying a âTesla Taxâ and shifting that money left on the table to significantly bump up the PHEV incentive so more dealers donât get left out in the cold.
I thought about leasing a Tesla but then saw the crazy deals on Ioniqs and Bolts on here. I imagine if people were more aware of the fact they could have gotten a Bolt for free or an Ioniq for under $100/mo there would have been a lot less Teslas.
Edit: Maybe a lot less is an exaggeration on my part. But definitely less.
Iâm not totally convinced of that. Carriers and manufacturers offer all kinds of great promotions on other premium smartphones and I donât really think they move the needle on iPhone customers at all. The iPhone is the status symbol. I think a lot of Tesla owners view it that way.
Thatâs fair, but unlike the hundreds of free smartphones when have cars ever been free? iPhones also work though. But, if you told me I could trade in my 12 for a Samsung and save $10k over three years Iâd do it.
Iâm probably the outlier but I canât imagine Iâm the only one that would take $10k-$15k to drive an Ioniq or Bolt over a model 3.
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Iâm in the same boat, which is why I have a Bolt and a Samsung instead of a Tesla and an iPhone 
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It will get real interesting with the improved programs on the Kona EV - which is a more substantial car than the Ioniq EV and more of a true competitor to the Tesla 3/Y.
Now with the Kona EV (and maybe Bolt EUV, but that is too new to know pricing/value), you can lease an electric car that has the same size battery as the cheapest Tesla, semi-autonomous driving technology, heated steering wheel, ventilated seats, excellent Infotainment system, etc - for something like 60-70%+ cheaper than the lease on the cheapest Tesla.
I consider the Tesla 3/Y and Kona EV to be in the âpremium EVâ segment whereas the OG Bolt and Ioniq are more in the âecnonomy EVâ segment. We are really, for the first time, getting to the point where Tesla has genuine direct competitors in a sub-$50k car segment.
If Tesla is trying to be like Apple, itâs not so hard to see a world where: Hyundai is to Tesla, what Samsung is to Apple.