President Donald Trump’s new tariffs are likely to make imported electric vehicles unaffordable for most Americans and will raise prices for many others that are assembled here, according to a new study.
The chief price-raisers are finished EVs imported by automakers — think Japan’s Nissan and Honda, and Germany’s BMW and Mercedes — and any car that runs on a battery from China.
More than a third, or 35 percent, of the 1.5 million EVs that Americans bought last year were imports, according to the report issued Monday by BloombergNEF.
The waves of tariffs that Trump imposed to force other nations to relocate their manufacturing to American shores will raise the price of the lowest-priced imported EV from $32,000 to $40,000. That reduces the possible market by 58 percent, BNEF calculated.
