As Farago mentioned earlier, the Senate has approved a consumer-end PHEV tax credit of $2,500-$7,500, which Automotive News (sub) modestly calls “Volt-friendly.” By which they mean it was designed specifically for the Volt, making the size of the credit dependent on how much charge a qualifying vehicle’s battery can hold. And though battery capacity is a poor measure of efficiency, choosing that metric handily favors the Volt’s EREV design which qualifies for the maximum tax break, while Toyota’s plug-in Prius won’t. And people say that GM’s $14.3m lobbying budget is a waste of money. But America’s Volt subsidy isn’t limited to DC. The Michigan Economic Growth Authority has approved $130m in tax breaks to attract Volt production to the state. The package includes a $122.5 million state tax credit over 15 years for the $838m overall investment and a $10 million brownfield tax credit for the Flint engine plant construction. Automotive News (sub) reports that GM need only retain about ten percent of the 20k jobs at the five existing sites to qualify for the tax benefits. With GM getting a chunk of the $25b bailout loans for production plus $130m in tax breaks and a $7,500 consumer tax break for consumers, the Volt had better freaking cost less than $40k. Not that anyone’s holding their breath.
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Perhaps GM should honor taxpayers’ contribution by renaming it the VolksVolt.
All good news!
Well if it ends up being $35k or below with incentives there might be larger interest in this car than TTAC is anticipating. I’ve seen this car written about quite a bit in newspapers and people seem to be aware and excited about it.
Dumb question: If the amount of charge the vehicle can hold is the metric for qualifying on tax break, where does this leave the Tesla and Chrysler Its-Not-A-Tesla-really sports vehicle? Aren’t they both Plug-in vehicles that hold a pretty substantial amount of charge? or does it only qualify to Plugins that are also hybrid?
I’d expect Toyota and Honda to all of a sudden up the amount of charge their batteries can hold to get their cars under that subsidy.
Since my money is paying for it, that means I get one for free… just like the Smithsonian, right?
DrBiggly :
September 24th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
Dumb question: If the amount of charge the vehicle can hold is the metric for qualifying on tax break, where does this leave the Tesla and Chrysler Its-Not-A-Tesla-really sports vehicle? Aren’t they both Plug-in vehicles that hold a pretty substantial amount of charge? or does it only qualify to Plugins that are also hybrid?
Well, the actual Tesla has a problem, since it’s built by Lotus in Great Britain. I imagine whatever Chrysler ends up building (if anything) will qualify, though.
Having been a reader here for a few years, it has been drummed into my head that GM has too many dealerships. That leads to many problems, one of which is that the dealers need to reduce prices so that the customer doesn’t head to the other GM dealer down the street.
To me it looks like the individual states have the same problem. Michigan is giving up near a billion dollars just to keep GM from leaving. Why? Because otherwise, the state just down the street will do the same thing.
Seems silly to me.
God bless the Unified Socialists of America!
If the Prius maintains it’s mid 20k price point, it will still be cheaper than a Volt + credit. Unlike the Volt, you’ll be more likely to find one and it’ll suffer less depreciation.
A lady stated that she lives in one of the colder states and they already have plugs for your car.
The plugs are used to heat your engine while you are shopping. Now that sounds like a deal, Your fuel will be so cheap you can simply plug in for free and nobody cares.
Why are we all complaining so much. Maybe we love paying for OPEC gasoline while pumping the gas and the cash.
whatdoiknow1 :
God bless the Unified Socialists of America!
But I thought we were “in the hand of BIG BUSINESS”, giving our money away to the oligarchs of Wall Street? Corporate welfare, special interests, and all that?
Pick one, please. Is Wall Street buying Washington or is industry being nationalized?
With all the incidents of auto theft and vandalism that are prevalent in today’s society, how long before some Volt owners go out to unplug their car, only to find it’s already been unplugged, and perhaps even had the plug at the end cut off with a wire cutter or knife? Takes about 5 seconds to cause a whole lot of problems for a Volt owner. Of course, they still got the gas engine to fall back on.
I’m gonna start buying stock in companies that make heavy duty extension cords.
Where do you plug the Volt in to recharge it if you live in an apartment building, or you live in the city. You gonna run a long cord out your window, down the sidewalk, and out to your car ?.
Somebody will start making armored extension cords if that is such a problem.
Just another reason not to live in a place so crowded that I have to put a $40K vehicle beside the curb. Something that expensive better spend the night locked in my garage or parked outside in a town that is safe enough we don’t even lock the cars half the time.
You better believe I’d lock something that expensive. Our first house wasn’t much more expensive and it was a nice place with a yard on a quiet dead end street.