Elon Musk is no stranger to being critical of the government. The quick-typing CEO has found his political voice in recent months, quickly forming a fruitful alliance with President-elect Donald Trump. He’s even used his influence to call for the ending of the electric vehicle tax credit, something which Trump seems to be on board with. But despite the calls to end government subsidies, Musk is clearly miffed that Tesla has been excluded from the latest round of EV charger subsidies.

Welcome back to Critical Materials, your daily roundup for all things electric and automotive tech. Today, we’re chatting about Tesla being snubbed of government subsidies, its EV Semi charging corridor, Trump’s DOT pick calling for EVs to pay their share of the road tax, and America’s top dealer association has a new leader who’s aiming for direct sales. Let’s jump in.

30%: Elon Musk Is Upset That Tesla Isn’t Getting Subsidies For Electric Truck Chargers (Again)

Photo by: Tesla

The U.S. Department of Transportation recently pushed through a last-ditch effort of EV charger funding in the waning days of the Biden administration, releasing $636 million in funding for 49 EV charger projects across the nation. Tesla, which was banking on using some of that money for its own corridor of chargers for electric Semi trucks, wasn’t selected as a recipient.

Elon “End All Government Subsidies” Musk isn’t exactly thrilled about this. In a post on his social media platform, X, Musk gave a cryptic reply to another user’s post which called out the Biden administration for passing up Tesla’s request for funding. Needless to say, it looks like he isn’t thrilled that the government passed up Tesla on this round of funding:

 

According to TechCrunch, Tesla’s application would have accounted for $100 million of the $636 million given out by the grant. The project was aimed at creating a corridor of chargers for electric Semis between California and Texas, two states where Tesla conveniently operates. Telsa first requested this funding in 2023 where it also pledged to use $24 million of its own to build nine EV charging stops along the corridor. Each of the stations was to be equipped with eight 750 kilowatt EV chargers—open to all EV semis, of course, to satisfy federal funding requirements—and was aptly named TESSERACT, or, “Transport Electrification Supporting Semis Operating in Arizona, California, and Texas.”

Tesla was snubbed for the funding twice in 2024, and then once again for the Department of Transportation’s first round of funding in 2025.

This isn’t Musk’s first “do as I say, not as I want on my balance sheet” act with government spending. The CEO, who called for the ending of all EV subsidies (in part because he believes it will ultimately help Tesla in the long run), has publicly ridiculed other brands like Rivian for being the recipient of government-backed loans when Tesla benefited from the same programs in the past. In fact, it’s hard to argue that Tesla’s meteoric rise wasn’t, at least partially, aided by government subsidies and programs like the clean air credits.

And let’s not forget that Tesla also laid off its entire Supercharging team on a whim, so the feds may not have had much confidence in Tesla to pull off the project using federal funding with limited staff (even if many of them were rehired.) Or perhaps they were jaded with the CEO’s recently-found political voice or his call for ending EV subsidies.

Musk’s sanctimonious push for a seat for Tesla at the presidential table highlights a broader tension felt across the EV industry. It’s clear that Musk wants the rules bent—or eliminated—in Tesla’s (or his) favor. And when things don’t go according to plan, Musk isn’t afraid to vocalize his displeasure on the topic. But as EV competition starts clawing its way out of the shadows, whether or not Tesla can maintain its lead without any government assistance starts to come into question. Only time, or maybe another tweetstorm, will tell.

60%: Trump’s Transportation Secretary Pick Wants EVs To Pay More Road Fees

Photo by: InsideEVs

When the owners of combustion cars pull up to the pump, it’s not uncommon to gripe about the price of gas. But what is often overlooked is the cost of taxes that are baked into the price of each gallon of gasoline—this includes money going to both the state and federal government. Now, as new EVs displace the grip that gas cars have on the market, government budgets are starting to feel a bit lighter each year as fewer gallons of gas are sold to those making the move to electric.

Trump’s pick for Transportation Secretary isn’t blind to this. In fact, during his confirmation hearing this week, Sean Duffy, a former U.S. representative from Wisconsin, mentioned that he believes EVs should pay their fair share. This means figuring out a way for the government to siphon out extra revenue from EV owners that they would normally be paying at the pump. The problem is, Duffy has no idea how that’s going to work out.

“They should pay for use of our roads,” said Sean Duffy during his confirmation hearing with the Senate Committee. “How to do that, I think, is a little more challenging.”

To Duffy’s credit, EV owners are getting a significantly cheaper ride by not paying the federal gas tax. Traditionally, that funding is used as the backbone of funding for road maintenance, repairs, and new infrastructure projects. But with EVs not needing to stop at the pump, the federal government is missing out on hundreds of dollars per year, per vehicle.

But exactly how much is the fair share, anyway? The formula to figure that out is surprisingly easy. For you math nerds, here’s a simple equation: x=(C/A)*T:

• X = Fair price
• C = Annual average commute
• T = Cost of gas tax (per gallon)
• A = Average economy

Let me explain:

The average fuel economy, according to the EPA, is 24.4 miles per gallon for passenger cars. Light trucks and vans yield a lower result of around 17.8 miles per gallon. The average commute across all drivers in the U.S. is 13,476 miles, so says the U.S. Federal Highway Administration. This means that we can assume the average passenger car in America will consume 552.3 gallons of gas each year, while light-duty trucks sip up an average of 757 gallons. Lastly, Federal gas taxes are $0.184 per gallon.

If we plug all these numbers into the above equation, we get $101.62 for gas cars and $139.29 for light-duty trucks. And that’s the EV-equivalent of “fair share” road taxes which are normally covered by Federal excise tax on gasoline.

Now that we know a dollar amount, let’s talk about how the government can actually collect that money. The skinny of it is that the government has no idea. Duffy even admitted that the idea of collecting this tax is “challenging,” after all, it’s not like the federal government charges an annual registration fee for your vehicle to be on the road.

But something will have to give. With the rise of electric cars and trucks hitting the road, the government is missing some serious cash from its budget. Americans bought 1.3 million EVs in 2024, that’s anywhere between $132.1 million and $181.1 million in annual gas tax revenue (or around 16 miles of six-lane highway construction) that those new EV drivers won’t be paying.

90%: Dealers Target Direct Sales

Photo by: Scout Motors

Scout Traveler Electric SUV

Both Scout Motors and Afeela are two EV brands backed by traditional automakers—Volkswagen and Honda, respectively. And both are notable for wanting to do Tesla-style direct sales of EVs, in defiance of their parent companies’ existing dealer networks. Naturally, this is leading to some legal challenges, but at the very least, Scout Motors thinks it will prevail in the end. 

But while the National Automobile Dealers Association is getting new leadership soon, its outgoing president Gary Gilchrist told Automotive News that a priority for the new guard will be going after direct sales and defending the franchise system: 

It’s to continue with the strategies that we have in place now, which is to continue defending the franchise system against direct sales. It’s always important to have an involvement and engagement of the dealers across the nation as far as understanding the issues at hand. It’s still critical that we continue to enhance and strengthen our relationships with ATAEs across the country, and the third is to continually monitor the government overreach as far some of the policies that are set up. It’s something we can always rally around and unite around and try to get our business partners, the OEMs, to rally around, too.

You’re going to see that as it starts unfolding, but it’s a real simple answer: It will be challenged nationwide. That’s as simple as I can make it. It’s going to be challenged. Stay tuned as it starts to unfold.

Gilchrist also repeatedly mentioned Hyundai’s program to sell cars on Amazon, which clearly has dealers spooked. If it doesn’t meet the franchise laws in each state, he said, “It will be challenged.” Expect more of this for sure in the coming year. 

100%: What’s The Fair Way To Charge EV Owners For Road Tax?

Photo by: InsideEVs

You know, Duffy’s point is one to consider. Considering that 83% of EV charging is done at home, throwing a small tax on a DC Fast Charger isn’t going to be the answer here.

Some states are now charging a per-year registration fee for EVs in order to make up for the missed gas tax revenue, however, the federal government doesn’t operate this way. Sure, it could mandate a fee be thrown on top of a state’s registration, but considering that some states are already charging hundreds of dollars to register an EV each year, another hundred on top could prove to be cost-prohibitive for some (compared to a gas tax which is spread out over the year with a couple of dollars collected with each fill-up).

With that being said, if you were in Duffy’s seat, how would you propose that the U.S. collect the road tax for EV owners? Let me know in the comments.