Good morning. This is まさきん.
Last time, I wrote about the process from ordering to delivery of my Tesla Model Y L. This time, as a follow-up, I want to share my experience applying for EV subsidies.
I applied for both the national subsidy and the Tokyo metropolitan subsidy. Between gathering documents and a few misunderstandings about the system along the way, it turned out to be a process with a lot of lessons in it.
This post touches on both cars and money, so I think it’s especially relevant for readers of this blog.
What’s Inside the Two Subsidies: National and Tokyo
To start, there are broadly two subsidies you can use when buying an EV. The first is the national “CEV subsidy.”
The CEV subsidy is run by the Next Generation Vehicle Promotion Center, or NeV. The amount is fixed per vehicle model and grade, and it’s published ahead of time.
For the grade of Model Y L I bought, I checked the model code against the official subsidy list PDF on their site. The amount that applied to me was 1.27 million yen.
The subsidy amount changes in fine detail depending on grade and model year. Even under the same “Model Y L” name, the figure seems to shift once the model code is different. I was glad I’d checked the official PDF ahead of time.
The other one is Tokyo’s “ZEV subsidy.” The point of contact is an organization called Cool Net Tokyo, and applications go through an online portal called Graffer.
The Tokyo subsidy works as a base amount plus add-ons. If your home electricity contract runs on a renewable-energy plan, you get an extra bump on top.
According to the official simulator, mine came out to about 850,000 yen. That figure includes the renewable-energy bump, but not the add-on for V2H/V2L — the systems that let you draw power back out of the car.
Tesla vehicles don’t support V2H/V2L, so that part simply didn’t apply to me. A bit of a shame, but I suppose that’s just how it is.
Add the two together and it comes to roughly 2.12 million yen. Even having gone through the applications myself, the size of that number caught me off guard all over again.
Four Paperwork Pitfalls I Ran Into
The application itself is simple enough once the documents are ready — everything is done online. The national one uses a web form, and Tokyo’s uses Graffer; each took less than half a day to submit.
Gathering the documents, though, was where I kept tripping up. Here are the four things that actually gave me trouble.
- A loan contract with no contract number: The copy the dealer gave me didn’t list a contract number anywhere. In the end, I had to separately request an application receipt from the loan company to cover it.
- An expired driver’s license scan: The scan I already had on hand turned out to be of an expired license. I scrambled to renew it and rescanned the current one.
- A wrong assumption about the deadline: At first, I assumed the deadline was “within one year of registration.” In reality, it’s a fixed date each fiscal year — around March 31 of the following fiscal year — which was as much as eight months off from what I’d assumed.
- How to prove a renewable-energy electricity contract: I’d braced myself for needing some special certificate, but a screenshot of my utility’s online account page was enough. All I had to do was save the page showing my plan name and power source mix.
The deadline mix-up honestly gave me a real scare. If I hadn’t checked the official information PDF, I might have missed the application window entirely.
It really drove home that you shouldn’t judge a deadline by a general rule of thumb like “one year from registration” — always confirm it against official information. It seems the program can also be revised from one fiscal year to the next.
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What the Subsidy Process Taught Me About the Real Cost of an EV
Having gone through both subsidy applications, my sense of the real cost of buying an EV changed quite a bit. If you only look at the sticker price, I think it’s easy to get the wrong impression.
Of course, approval and the actual payout take a few months. It isn’t money that comes back right after you apply.
Even so, 2.12 million yen isn’t a small amount for any household budget. Gathering the paperwork took some effort, but I think it was worth it.
What stood out to me was how much of the required paperwork overlapped between the national and Tokyo applications. The invoice, the loan contract, and the vehicle inspection certificate could all be reused for both.
Once you’ve assembled the documents, all that’s left is submitting them to the two different offices. Honestly, I didn’t appreciate how efficient that could be until I’d actually done it.
One more thing worth remembering is the registered seal certificate. It’s a document required for a lot of procedures, but it’s only valid for three months.
Get the timing wrong and you could end up scrambling right before you apply. In our house, we made a point of getting one early and keeping it on hand.
By the way, I go into more detail comparing running costs against a gasoline car in a separate post. Even just factoring in the subsidies changes how the economics of an EV look.
Wrapping Up, and the Connection to the Rakuten Ecosystem
This time, I talked about applying for subsidies when buying an EV. The national and Tokyo programs are different systems, but once you’ve gathered the documents, you can move through both efficiently.
Not judging deadlines or proof requirements by assumption was the single biggest lesson here. I think it connects to the idea of “building a system” that I wrote about before in how to get started reviewing your fixed costs.
Our household has long taken the approach of shifting as many payments and perks as possible into the Rakuten ecosystem. The idea is to centralize household finances around Rakuten Mobile, Rakuten Card, and Rakuten Points.
I feel like this EV subsidy story shares the same root idea. Properly researching a program and using it to the fullest seems to feed into raising the level of your entire household finances.
If you’re not on Rakuten Mobile yet, trying out their fee simulation might be worth a look.
This Tesla series isn’t over yet. Next time, I plan to write about living with the car without a home charging setup.
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