New $6,000 PHEV tax credit could boost Chevy Volt
The Ways and Means Committee in the House of Representatives (the goofy name means they handle tax legislation) has apparently approved a bill proposed by Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) that could provide a huge boost to cars like the Chevy Volt. The bill HR 1331 would provide a tax credit of up to $6,000 to people who buy a plug-in hybrid vehicle that has a battery capacity of at least 4kWh. Folks who have or are considering investing thousands of dollars to upgrade their old Prius or Escape will be out in the cold since the bill specifies "New Qualified" vehicles. The base credit would be $3,000 + $150 for flex fuel capability + $250 for every kWh of battery capacity over 5kWh (up to a maximum of $3,000). That would give a vehicle like the first iteration of the Volt with a flex-fuel engine and 16kWh battery a credit of $5,900.
It's not clear from the wording of the bill if a diesel hybrid that can run off of biodiesel as well as petroleum diesel would qualify for the flex-fuel credit. If this comes to pass, it at least takes the cost of lithium batteries partly off the table when it comes to developing mainstream PHEVs.
[Source: KXAN.com via Hugg, thanks to Linton for the tip]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Robert M. 3:02PM (5/29/2008)
Of course GM will use the tax credits to increase the cost of their product to the upper limits of what market research shows the Consumer is willing to pay. That's the argument they are using: "Unless you toss the consumer a bone that allows them to afford the product we want to supply them with, we'll keep our toys to ourselves and won't produce anything."
Congress is deliberately dragging its feet on moving our nation to totally electric cars and solar energy for houses for the sake of the fossil fuel industry. It's been that way since President Carter left the White House.
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WarrenPeace 7:47PM (9/30/2008)
This bill was written to solely support the pathetically engineered inefficient poor excuses for a hybrid made by Chevy. Which means this will encumpas ALL US auto makers hybrid vehicles. Their battery sizes are the only ones that can qualify for this subsidy. They need these large batteries because they are inferior in design and completely inefficient. Take a look at the foreign hybrids. Prius only has a 1.2 to 1.4 KWh battery. Civic or the Altima have relatively the same. This bill was designed so YOU the American people HAVE to buy (ok have incentive) US Auto manufacturers products because their products can not sell themselves. The first post hits the nail on the head. Think about it, The Volt will be $30,000.00. Will any of you buy this thing especially while it is in it's infancy? All of the hybrid's developed by the US big auto are designed exactly like the gass guzzler predecessors. This generation just doesn't suck up gas, it sucks up your battery capacity, big news there huh? You can see that in the big ass batterey in the Volt. See: http://gm-volt.com/2007/08/29/latest-chevy-volt-battery-pack-and-generator-details-and-clarifications/
On top of all this, the big US auto makers are asking the Govt for low rate loans to help "Re-tool" their production. This is a joke! They should be giving the American people low rate loans to help the US economy. The auto makers are basically trying to squeze the govt for $$$ because they did not see the writing on the wall. This is entirely their fault. Gas prices have been going up for years now and still they produce neighborhood BRADLEY TANKS!
In order for the Toyota's, Civic's and Altima's to be able to take advantage of this, they'd have to increase the batteries by 2 or more.
Typical US Govt garbage, cater to the Automakers.
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Tim 1:29PM (6/22/2007)
Now, how do we know that the auto manufacturers won't just jack up the prices (and their profits) to offset this tax rebate? You know, get tax money from both ends in the form of "research grants & tax incentives" AND "profits boosted by increased sales prices boosted by purchase tax incentives?" By the way, don't the poor consumers ALWAYS pay for all “welfare” corporate and otherwise in the form of higher prices caused by inflation of the increased money supply? Somebody's getting VERY rich here...
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susan.kraemer 1:49PM (6/22/2007)
Sadly, the Energy Bill that passed last night originally had this hybrid subsidy in it, but that part got shot down by Republicans (theres not enough of a majority of Democrats in the Senate - unlike the House bill that has 108 cosponsors) so we could have had good news this morning.
The Senate version was better than the House version as it had had a subsidy of $7500 on conversions (to plug-ins) of hybrids as well, which cost $12000. $12000 - $7500 = $3500.
Lets say someone buys a secondhand Prius, and for little more than the cost of a new transmission: $3500, could convert it so it virtually never runs on blood...that is - I mean oil, unless you drive 300 miles a day, and frankly how many of us do that many miles before we sleep?
Next step for all of us to get what we want is to contact Obama, Hatch, Cantwell to force The Freedom Act through the Senate.
(202) 224 3121 take a second to contact your Senator to pass this bill.
The reason we don't get the actions we want is the auto lobbies have more time and money than us citizens to nag at Senators.
But the success of our acting against both of the nasty coal-to-fuel Synfuel provisions (would have = twice the carbon of gasoline!) shows that we citizens CAN in fact override powerfull industry lobbies.
The coal lobbies are just as tough as the oil lobbies, yet we citizens put enough presssure on the Senate that we killed both the Synfuel production provisions in this energy bill. Thats the good news.
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Ron Fischer 2:34PM (6/22/2007)
We may be heading for a situation where conventional hybrids are losing all their legislative support to plug-in hybrids, none of which are being built. In other words: what happens if all the legislative support goes to technologies that automakers never build?
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Joseph 1:58AM (6/23/2007)
I don't understand why used alt. fuel vehicles don't get the same benefits of new alt. fuel vehicles.
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Joseph 1:57AM (6/23/2007)
Double post!
I mean I understand why new alt. fuel vehicles get benefits vs. used ones, but it isn't fair!
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susan.kraemer 8:49PM (6/22/2007)
that bill subsidised certified autoshops doing the conversions, think companies like Hymotion..the auto companies would sell them that way if enough people demonstrated they wanted plug-in hybrids
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Nathaniel Sears 2:20AM (6/23/2007)
That bill is nice and all but why should you get a tax incentive for a PHEV and not an all-electric.
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