GM’s EV Sales Trigger Tax-Credit Phaseout

General Motors Co.’s cumulative sales of electric vehicles in the U.S. reached 200,000 units in the fourth quarter of 2018, thereby triggering a one-year phaseout of federal tax credits for buyers, a source tells Reuters.

The maximum credit of $7,500 per vehicle currently available to GM customers will drop to $3,750 in April, $1,875 in October and disappear entirely in April 2020. Tesla Inc.—the only other EV maker to reach sales of 200,000 units in the U.S.—began the same phaseout schedule on Jan. 1.

Congress set the 200,000-unit sales cap in 2009. GM has said previously that it expected to reach that volume sometime before the end of 2018, mainly because of growing demand for its $37,500 Chevrolet Bolt five-door electric hatchback (pictured). The Trump administration has said it favors scrapping the tax scheme.

GM and Tesla are urging Congress to bolster the nascent EV market by either lifting the 200,000-unit limit or extend the program in its current form. Reuters says a congressional report in November projects the cost of the EV tax break will be $7.5 billion if it is extended from 2018 to 2022.