Rep. Greg Landsman, a Democrat from Cincinnati, filed a bill on October 22 that would bring back the federal EV tax credit at $15,000, twice what it paid before Congress ended it last year. H.R. 10881, the 21st Century Vehicle Choice Act, also lifts the used-EV credit to $8,000, raises the home-charger credit to 50 percent of the cost, and makes all three permanent.

The money comes with new strings. A buyer could claim the new-car credit once in a lifetime, and the income limits drop by a quarter. Landsman filed nearly the same bill in October 2024. It drew no cosponsors and never got a hearing. A week after filing, this one has none either.

The Bill Caps Buyers at One Credit for Life and Lowers the Income Limits

The bill rewrites Section 30D so each of the credit’s two $3,750 halves becomes $7,500, and sets the amount to $0 for anyone who claimed the credit in an earlier tax year. Income caps fall to $225,000 for joint filers, $169,000 for heads of household and $112,500 for singles.

The two halves still hang on the sourcing tests the Inflation Reduction Act wrote in 2022: one for critical minerals, one for battery components. The bill does not touch them, and it leaves the $80,000 and $55,000 price caps alone too. So a car that failed the old credit would fail the new one. The bill text applies the new amounts only to cars placed in service after the bill becomes law. Nobody who bought after the old credit ended on September 30, 2025, would get anything back.

The used-car credit under Section 25E goes from the lesser of $4,000 or 30 percent of the sale price to the lesser of $8,000 or 60 percent. The $25,000 sale-price ceiling stays, so the full $8,000 needs a used EV priced at about $13,300 or more. The charger credit under Section 30C, which the same 2025 law ended on June 30, 2026, would come back at 50 percent of the cost. Its $1,000 cap per home charger stays, so the higher rate only matters on an install under about $3,300. Landsman’s press release calls that one a tax deduction. It is a credit.

Landsman Filed Almost the Same Bill in 2024 and Nobody Signed On

Landsman introduced H.R. 10046, also called the 21st Century Vehicle Choice Act, on October 25, 2024. It carried the same $7,500 halves, income caps and used-car and charger increases, went to the same three committees, and died with the 118th Congress in January without a cosponsor or a hearing.

The 2026 version adds two things. The lifetime limit is new, and so are the clauses that strike each credit’s end date, because in 2024 the credits were still scheduled to run through 2032. The new bill sits in Ways and Means, Energy and Commerce and Natural Resources, all run by Republicans, and President Trump signed the law that killed the credits. Senate Democrats have their own EV-credit bill, S. 5215 from Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, filed on August 3 with four cosponsors. It has not moved past the Finance Committee.

Landsman put it this way: “We have to make life more affordable and give folks more choices.”

Gas Costs $1.20 More Than a Year Ago and EV Sales Are Down 39.5 Percent

Regular gasoline averaged $4.25 a gallon nationally on October 28, AAA’s tracker shows, against $3.04 a year earlier. US EV sales came to 262,649 in the third quarter, Cox Automotive estimates, down 39.5 percent from a year ago and 6.4 percent of the market.

The year-ago quarter was the record, with EVs above 10 percent of sales, because buyers raced the September 30 deadline. Sales then collapsed in October 2025 and have climbed back 6.1 percent quarter over quarter since. States have started filling the gap on their own. California’s MyFirstEV rebate pays $3,500 at the point of sale and has gone to nearly 12,000 first-time buyers since August.

Landsman’s bill also orders the Energy Department to find the regions and the 100 routes with the most “gasoline super-users,” the top 10 percent of drivers by fuel burned, within two years. Rob Sargent, Coltura’s policy director, says in Landsman’s release that those drivers “could save over $4,000 a year by switching to an EV.”

EVXL’s Take

I’d take a permanent $15,000 credit tomorrow, and the design here is better than the one Congress killed. A lifetime cap and lower income limits put the money with first-time buyers instead of a household claiming it for the third time. But a bill filed twelve days before the midterms, by a sponsor whose near-identical pitch drew zero cosponsors two years ago, in a chamber run by the party that ended the credit, is a campaign flyer with a bill number. The cosponsor list is the honest measure of it, and that list is empty.

My worry is the shopper who reads “$15,000” and waits. The bill pays nothing on any car bought before it becomes law, and there is no path to that in this Congress. If you were going to buy an EV this quarter, buy it. H.R. 10881 dies with this Congress on January 3, the way H.R. 10046 did, so the test is whether Landsman refiles it in the next one and whether that bill gets a Ways and Means hearing. I’ll report the cosponsor count when he does.

Sources: H.R. 10881 bill text (U.S. Government Publishing Office), Rep. Greg Landsman press release, H.R. 10046 (118th Congress), Cox Automotive Q3 2026 EV sales report, AAA.

EVXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo.