MIMA tax credit?

[james]

OK, maybe I've been staring at tax forms too long, but I think it's possible that MIMA might qualify for the "Clean Fuel Vehicle" credit. In addition the the $2K credit for buying a new Insight, IRS Publication 535, chapter 12 says

"Any property installed on a motor vehicle (including installation costs) to enable it to be propelled by a clean-burning fuel if:

a) The property is an engine (or modification of an engine) that can use a clean-burning fuel, or

b) the property is used to store or deliver that fuel to the engine or to exhaust gasses from the combustion of that fuel."

MIMA counts as an engine modification, I think, and electricity is pretty clean-burning. Any thoughts?

PS: You think you have problems doing your taxes? I have to do them for two countries, in two languages. Each one seems to require information that I don't have until I finish the other one, which I can't finish until I get the first one done...

[Rick]

Your going in to a grey area there. I think the intent would be if it had any off board source of charging then maybe, but the electricity comes from the engine at some point otherwise. Probably not worth risking an audit over.

[IamIan]

the trick is in the :

"Any property installed on a motor vehicle (including installation costs) to enable it to be propelled by a clean-burning fuel if: "

part....

Sinse the ICE a non-clean fuel has to run whenever the IMA motor is running via honda computer or via MIMA.... it is not being propelled by the clean fuel... only part of the propultion comes frome the clean fuel.

second trick... is that since normal MIMA still gets all of its electircity form Gas a non-clean fuel... normal MIMA still would not qualify... as the losses from generator to battery and then back from battery to generator mean losses.

Booster pack could get it's electricity from a cleaner source like solar and so forth.... but wouldn't get around the first part about it not being propelled only by the clean fuel....

The EV mode Add on... that with grid charging and you might have something.... espeically if you are chargeing the batteries with something cleaner than the ~70 MPG Numbers the Insight gets for non-modification.

I think the last time I checked the polution numbers per kWh from the power companies... that even with loss of transmission and allowing for the portions of the power that come from dirtier power plants... the net over all pollution per kWh ment that a Full conversion EV getting 5~6 Miles per kWh polluted about the same as a straight ICE car getting like 100MPG .... The Full EV conversion of the Insight I have seen on-line said it was getting soemthing like ~9 Miles per kWh on pure EV all the time.... Splitting that with the MIMA Hybrid + Booster pack means you will do even better.... but at the worst even dirty grid charging is cleaner than ICE unless you can do better than 100 MPG... And there are even cleaner ways to get the Electricity than the Dirty Grid... like Mike's Solar Cells.

[james]

Yeah, but how much of that does the IRS know? They're accountants The Insight itself is listed explicitly in the instructions as qualifiying for the same credit.

[IamIan]

what the IRS doesn't know or doesn't care about .... is not a good thing to you.... If there is something unclear... then they can claim it means anything they like... and you have to prove otherwise... sometimes by going to court about it.... And in the case of the IRS .... you have to prove your possition when they audit you... they don't have to prove anything.... If you fail to prove your claims to thier satisfaction then they fine you... or file criminal charges... or both.

I would not even atempt this myself unless I had the pure EV add on for my insight with a minimum of a 10 Mile range.