The Charge Up New Jersey electric vehicle (EV) incentive program offers consumers up to $5,000 in cash-on-the-hood incentives toward the purchase or lease of a new, eligible EV and has been open and accepting applications for reimbursement since Tuesday, July 6, 2021, the start of Year 2 of the EV program.
Applications are being processed and approved regularly. Payments are supposed to be made to dealers, via ACH transfer, within 30 days of the application approval. NJ CAR has received reports that payments on some of the earliest approved applications were delayed due to a backlog in addressing outstanding consumer applications from Year 1 of the program, errors that needed to be corrected on some of the early applications from Year 2, and multiple layers of approvals for Years 1 and 2 needed at the Board of Public Utilities (BPU) before funds could be released.
CSE, the company tasked with implementing the Charge Up New Jersey program on behalf of the BPU, has reported that the payments for Year 2’s first batch of applications, approved through July 27th, should begin hitting dealership accounts next week. The second batch of approved applications was sent to BPU on Friday, August 13th, and a third batch of approved applications is expected to be sent to BPU today (August 19th). CSE will continue to batch approved applications weekly, or possible twice per week, if the volume warrants more frequent submissions. This increased frequency is expected to reduce the number of approvals necessary at BPU and speed up payments to dealers.
NJ CAR has repeatedly told CSE and BPU that, with so few cars to sell, dealerships’ cash flow is a real concern. We stressed the difficulty some dealerships may face if reimbursement of tens of thousands of dollars (or more) in incentives they have advanced the customer are held in limbo for such a long period of time.
NJ CAR wants to know if dealers are having any difficulties with the application process or concerns about anything related to the Charge Up New Jersey incentive program. Please contact Brian Hughes ([email protected]) or Magdalena Padilla ([email protected]) and they will forward any issues to our contacts at CSE to get them addressed as quickly as possible.
Meanwhile, here are some tips to avoid applications being rejected and to speed up approval:
- Make sure applications include an itemized list of all incentives the customer receives on the vehicle, including a line item for “Charge Up New Jersey EV incentive” and the corresponding amount. If your DMS system, ROF or Lease Agreements either combine all incentives and rebates into one lump sum or you don’t have the technical ability to modify your forms to itemize the incentives, you can create a separate typed incentive/ rebate sheet that itemizes the various incentives and rebates the customer receives. This sheet needs to be signed by both a dealership representative and the customer.
- Make sure applications include a Charge Up New Jersey program Terms and Conditions document, signed by the customer. This signed document is required for the dealership to apply the incentive to the transaction on the customer’s behalf and request reimbursement.
CSE is expected to release a detailed Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) document soon that will address additional questions that have come up during the first few weeks following the relaunch of the Charge Up New Jersey program. We will forward that to dealers as soon as it is finalized.
For more information about the Charge Up New Jersey EV incentive visit the program website HERE.