California EV loan company expands in Colorado as green incentives take hold

Toyota prototype electric and fuel cell vehicles at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden in 2012.Photo byDennis Schroeder / NREL via Flickr

(Across Colorado) A California electric vehicle loan company expanded into Colorado earlier this month, lured by state incentives for battery-powered automobiles.

EV Life, the California company that lets customers apply EV tax credits and rebates up front to lower their monthly car payments, launched their loan platform in Colorado on July 1 after launching in its home state less than a month earlier.

“When we learned that the Colorado tax credit was (more than) doubling to $5,000, we decided to expand to Colorado and help more Colorado residents use their tax credits to save upfront on driving electric,” EV Life co-CEO Peter Glenn told NewsBreak. 

The July 1 launch date coincided with the date the increased Colorado EV tax credit went into effect. That credit is on top of a federal tax credit of up to $7,500.

But those incentives don’t dent the upfront costs of buying an electric vehicle, which can be substantially higher than the price for traditional internal combustion engine automobiles. 

Glenn said that many of the middle-class buyers considering economy cars are surprised to find that Colorado and federal tax credits allow them to finance a Tesla with his company for the same monthly payments as a Toyota Camry. Those payments factor in interest rates as low as 5.89%, a $200 document processing fee and a $399 service fee for access to the company’s online tool that simplifies filing EV tax credits and rebates.

Colorado’s electric vehicle incentive program comes as the state aims to have 940,000 light-duty electric vehicles on the road by 2030 and increase their market share to nearly 100% by 2050.

According to the Colorado Automobile Dealers Association, sales of battery electric vehicles in the state rose to 8.1 percent of the market in 2022 from 4.8% in 2021. That took electric vehicle share up by 6.3 share points from 2018 to 2022.

As of July 7, there were more than 61,000 battery-powered electric vehicles on the road in Colorado, with light-duty electric vehicles accounting for more than 10% of original registrations, according to Atlas Public Policy. 

With electric vehicles gaining popularity in the state and globally, demand for batteries is increasing. Colorado has been attracting manufacturers as part of a clean tech industry the state says has a $4.6 billion annual economic impact. 

In March, California-based lithium battery maker Amprius Technologies said it would open a factory in Brighton. Louisville-based Solid Power, which was founded in 2011 and spun out from the University of Colorado Boulder, is developing solid-state batteries for electric vehicles and the mobile power markets.