The price for the 2010 Chevy Volt has been going up. Once pitched as a direct Prius competitor, the mostly-electric Volt is now expected to sticker for around $40k. Not kosher, as Toyota's hybrid stickers just north of $22k. Automotive News reveals the General has a plan: make you pay for it. No, not "you" as in Volt customers– "you" as in American taxpayers. GM is hoping to get a $7K tax credit for "extended-range electric vehicles." That would put the plug-in electric – gas hybrid Chevy Volt's price within spitting distance of the Prius' Monroney. I guess when Slick Rick stated "we want to bring the Volt to the market in 2010 at a price of less than $30,000," "we" meant GM and the taxpayer. (Of course, when he said "we want to make money on the Volt from the beginning," the taxpayer was nowhere in that picture.) As for product readiness, an unnamed source says "We still have a lot of development and testing to go." Let's hear it for representative democracy.
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but but but but but the Prius was designed using money from the Japanese government!!!
the imports don’t play fair!
Are we supposed to believe that the other car companies are NOT hoping for tax breaks on EREVs? With all the legitimate reasons to bash GM, this seems to be a stretch.
Considering the US government has already given away probably over a billion dollars in tax credits for the Prius, this doesn’t seem too out there.
Hey, we already spent tons of taxpayer money on the Clinton Administration era “Supercar” “80 mile per gallon hybrid technology cars” supposedly designed by GM, Ford and Chrysler.
Why do they need more taxpayer money so they can p!ss it away too?
‘coz not one “supercar” was ever produced.
Instead, Toyota coughed up THEIR OWN MONEY (and they are still denying that the Japanese taxpayers assisted) and developed the Prius and other hybrids, and Honda coughed up THEIR OWN MONEY and developed the Insight and Civic Hybrids, too.
If we the taxpayers get to throw yet more money at GM in this fashion, why shouldn’t we the taxpayers get a choice on our tax return about it? Kind of like “would you put $2 towards the Presidential Election Fund” – instead it would read (if honest) “would you put $500 towards a gift to General Motors Corporation so they can try to compete with competent and profitable automobile companies in the hybrid field?”
(Answer to both: NO)
No car deserves government subsidies of any kind (tax breaks, HOV exemptions, E85, nada).
(Don’t even get me started on rebates for flower shop owners’ Hummers.)
Umm, if I am not mistaken, the next gen Prius with a larger battery would be eligible for the same tax credit as the Volt (as would any other vehicle satisfying the requirements).
So why are people complaining over preferencial treatment to GM?
There is also no way that the next gen plug-in Prius with a larger battery will sell for the same price as the Prius “Classic”.
The Washington people will skew it somehow to screw Toyota again.
That’s what happened with the prior (quite small in comparison) tax relief plans.
While I actually loathe socialism, I’m kind of like Ron Paul in that “well, if those are the rules of the game, I may as well take advantage of it if it is not illegal”.
Ron Paul will lobby for pork for his Texas constituency, and I took advantage of getting a legal $788 tax relief on my 2008 Prius (had a two week window of opportunity before Prius was ineligible for ANY tax relief) and obtained approximately a $400 tax relief on my 2005 Prius.
Let’s see… A Prius goes for about 22k, less 7k tax credit= 15k. Is that the math? Or is it just a deduction? Either way, I’m gonna be on that like a dog in heat.
There is also no way that the next gen plug-in Prius with a larger battery will sell for the same price as the Prius “Classic”.
And you have some special insider source or are you speaking completely ex rectum?
Someone on this site said when the question of Toyota receiving Japanese government subsidies toward the development of the Synergy Drive system that if a U.S. government initiative had borne such fruit, the politicians involved would never stop crowing about it.
Politicians are fickle friends, though, and any company that relies on tax breaks to make their products price competitive is, as my grandfather used to say, “cruising for a bruising.”