Ohio Democratic Representative Greg Landsman introduced legislation on October 22 that would restore the federal electric vehicle tax credit and double its maximum value to $15,000, more than a year after the original incentive expired.
The bill, known as the 21st Century Vehicle Choice Act (H.R. 10881), would also raise the used-EV credit and the home charger credit while making all three incentives permanent.
What the bill would change
According to Landsman’s office, Landsman introduced the 21st Century Vehicle Choice Act to make clean vehicles more affordable and to help families save money on gasoline. The bill would increase the Alternative Fuel Vehicle Refueling Property Credit from 30 percent to 50 percent, allowing for more of the purchase price of EV charging stations to be claimed as a tax deduction.
The legislation also rewrites the core new-vehicle credit under Section 30D of the tax code.
Each of the credit’s two $3,750 components rises to $7,500, for a maximum of $15,000, with the amount dropping to $0 for anyone who claimed the credit in an earlier tax year. The used EV credit cap rises from $4,000 to $8,000, and the share of the sale price it can cover goes from 30% to 60%.
Income caps would drop to $225,000 for married couples filing jointly, $169,000 for heads of household, and $112,500 for single filers.
Why Landsman is pushing the bill now
The push follows the elimination of the original credit under the 2025 reconciliation law. The proposal lands a year after the One Big Beautiful Bill Act ended the $7,500 new EV credit and the $4,000 used EV credit for vehicles acquired after September 30, 2025.
The federal credit for home EV chargers followed on June 30, 2026.
In the official release announcing the bill, Landsman said, “We have to make life more affordable and give folks more choices. Our bill would make electric vehicles more accessible and help families save money on gas.”
Rob Sargent, policy director at Coltura, a group backing the bill, argued that the highest-mileage gasoline drivers “could save over $4,000 a year by switching to an EV.”
A long road through Congress
The measure faces steep odds. It was referred to three House committees: Ways and Means, Energy and Commerce, and Natural Resources and would still need to pass both chambers and be signed into law before any of it takes effect.
Landsman has tried before: he introduced a nearly identical bill in October 2024, and it never made it out of committee.
Democratic leadership has not rallied around the idea. Rank-and-file House Democrats want to restore the $7,500 credit Republicans ended in 2025, but party leaders have not committed to it, Politico reported. More than 160 House Democrats back a rival bill restoring the original $7,500 credit, but House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York is not a cosponsor, Politico reported.
Critics on the right have also pushed back. “The credit is not good policy,” Adam Michel, director of tax policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, said in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The fiscal stakes are significant. Ending the credit for buyers of new electric cars is projected to save the federal government $77.8 billion from fiscal 2026 through fiscal 2034, according to Joint Committee on Taxation estimates cited in a December 2025 Congressional Research Service report.
What it means for buyers today
For now, shoppers cannot count on the credit returning soon. The bill has only cleared the introduction stage, and independent analysts have cautioned that the push could complicate buying decisions.
The uncertainty arrives as automakers continue to adjust pricing strategy amid tariff reimbursements that have already reshaped vehicle pricing this year.
It also follows a wave of manufacturer-driven discounting, including moves detailed in GCN’s coverage of leased EVs returning to lots as automakers work to keep EV demand steady without federal support.
Whether Landsman’s bill advances will depend on whether Democratic leadership embraces it as a unified platform position, something that has not yet happened according to reporting on the intraparty divide over the measure.
