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Getting the discount off a new e-bike is as simple as … purchasing an e-bike.
1. Buy an e-bike
2. Get $450 off the price
The program is not without criticism, though. The list of approved retailers isn’t especially long, though it is growing in length. Currently, it includes 47 brick-and-mortar retailers and four online retailers, including Ride1UP, Vvolt and Priority Cycles.
The biggest criticism has come from the retailers themselves. Colorado is asking the retailers to bear the cost of the discounts for a full year. That means a participating retailer who sells an e-bike sold today must wait until they file their 2024 taxes to see that reimbursement. Selling 1000 e-bikes means having $450,000 in revenue they can’t access.
The program is administered by the Colorado Energy Office. Sarah Thorne, the senior program manager running the rebate program said that they anticipated a slow start to the program in 2024 due to the long wait for rebates, but that in 2025 she anticipates that they will offer quarterly reimbursements to participating retailers.
“We anticipated for 2024, it would be a fairly slow rollout and we wouldn’t have a large participation from retailers,” Thorne said. “Once quarterly reimbursements start in 2025, we should see a much larger uptake.”
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The state is working with two banks, ANB Bank and Colorado Enterprise Fund, to offer loans to shops to help bridge the gap between the sale and the reimbursement. It’s a step in the right direction, but loans come with interest, which means that ultimately retailers will end up paying a portion of that $450 rebate to the bank.
Statistics have shown that most households in the U.S. would struggle to cover an unexpected expense. Purchasing an e-bike means a fair bit of planning for most of us. One of the great features to this program from Colorado is that it is not means-tested; middle-class families can take part. Unlike Denver’s program, which allows for a finite number of participants, the Colorado program does not limit the number of participants.
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