$450 Credit Off E-Bikes In Colorado: No Forms Needed

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Getting the discount off a new e-bike is as simple as … purchasing an e-bike.

The State of Colorado began offering a e-bike discount program on April 1. The program is a tax credit, and to qualify you must be a resident of the state, and you must purchase from an approved retailer, but Colorado made the program as simple and streamlined for buyers as possible. From the perspective of the buyer there are only two steps:

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.”

The list of approved retailers can be found here.

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There’s a concern on the part of retailers that they will lose out on sales to rural customers due to the direct-to-consumer brands, such as Ride1UP. The truth is, they’ve been losing sales to those brands ever since consumer-direct bike purchasing began. The real issue is that having so much revenue tied up in a tax rebate could pinch a bike shop’s operations.

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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Getting the discount off a new e-bike is as simple as … purchasing an e-bike.

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