Month: April 2022

Enlarge / US Senator Joe Manchin likes the coal industry, doesn't like electric vehicles. (credit: J. Scott Applewhite-Pool/Getty Images)

Senator Joe Manchin called federal tax credits for electric vehicles "ludicrous" in a Senate hearing on Thursday. The West Virginian politician, who continues to make millions from the coal industry, has been a regular critic of subsidies for EVs, which have been a key part of the Democratic Party's plan to decarbonize the transport sector.

Since 2009, the US has used federal tax credits as a way to offset the higher price of EVs thanks to their battery packs.

Currently, the credit is for any plug-in vehicle (both battery EVs and plug-in hybrid EVs) with at least 5 kWh of battery capacity and ranges from $2,917 to $7,500, depending on the exact kWh total. But it's a credit, not a rebate, so to receive the full $7,500, an EV buyer has to have at least $7,500 in tax liability that year. The tax credit also sunsets once a car manufacturer has sold 200,000 plug-in vehicles, although so far, only Tesla and General Motors have crossed that threshold.

Enlarge / The number of days between the first 50 Falcon 9 launches, the second 50, and the last 50. (credit: Eric Berger)

SpaceX launched its first Falcon 9 rocket on June 4, 2010, nearly a dozen years ago. During those first years, the company grappled with a whole host of challenges, from things as seemingly simple as trying to transport the rocket over land instead of by sea or air to more demanding tasks such as producing enough Merlin engines.

The company's first 50 flights took nearly eight years to complete, and in that time SpaceX engineers and technicians learned much about building large rockets, testing and transporting them, and then flying them. From 2010 to early 2018 SpaceX would make three major "block" upgrades to the rocket, as well as debuting the Falcon Heavy variant of the booster.

During this learning period of activity, SpaceX managed to launch a Falcon 9 rocket only every 56.6 days. As it started to experiment with reusing the first stage, of its first 50 launches, seven of those were on reused rockets. Also during this learning period, SpaceX had one launch failure, CRS-7 in 2015, and one failure during pre-launch activities, the Amos-6 accident in 2016.