Plug-In Hybrid Vehicle Credits Sweeten Bailout Bill

The original "bailout plan" by Treasury Secretary Paulson was 3 pages long. The Senate version that was passed last night (H.R. 1424) is now 451 pages long and it has "sweeteners" for everybody and their dogs.

PHEV Credit
One of those is a plug-in hybrid vehicle tax credit that was probably first seen in some GM wet dream: "The credit is a base $2,500 plus $417 for each kWh of battery pack capacity in excess of 4 kWh, to a maximum of $7,500 for light-duty vehicles," up to $15,000 for vehicles weighting more than 26,000 pounds. Because the Chevy Volt has a 16-kWh battery pack, it would get the maximum credit.

Read on for more details.

Related:
Honda's Green Push: Hybrid Insight, Hybrid Motorcycles, Electric Motorcycles

Could A New Lamborghini Be A Hybrid?

America's Latest Fuel Sipper: Dodge Challenger?

Comments

[Wilburrr]

I'd love to have a plug in hybrid, but NOT a Chevy, that I could charge off of my solar panel array. Cut my short transportation costs down to battery replacement. Why not a Chevy?

100,000 miles on my current Toyota Tacoma pick up = fluid changes, normal maintenance only
98,000 on last Chevy = 2 transmissions, 3 alternators, failed ABS system, failed A/C compressor

I'm not going there again any time soon...

[realpolitic]

To Prosper Financially Vote Democratic

"But Democrats, it turns out, are much better for the stock market than Republicans. Slate ran the numbers and found that since 1900, Democratic presidents have produced a 12.3 percent annual total return on the S&P 500, but Republicans only an 8 percent return.

(Most of the 20th century's bear markets, incidentally, have been Republican bear markets: the Crash of '29, the early '70s oil shock, the '87 correction, and the current stall occurred under GOP presidents.)

Democrats had some awfully good streaks of peace and prosperity in the '30s, late '40s, and '90s. These could be chance, or it could be that Democrats more tightly regulate the markets, which gives investors confidence. Democrats are more likely to spread the wealth around through public spending on education or transportation, which may stimulate the economy more broadly. The foundation of recent GOP economic policy—tax cuts—may offer narrower benefits than Republicans claim. High defense spending, another GOP hallmark, may only boost one sector while hurting the whole economy in the form of bigger federal deficits and higher interest rates."

http://www.slate.com/?id=2071929

[realpolitic]

Why are Democratic presidents better for the economy than are Republicans?

"Democratic presidents have consistently higher economic growth and consistently lower unemployment than Republican presidents.

The dataset that delivers these results now covers more than 50 years, 10 administrations, and half a dozen different measures.

Under Democratic presidents, every income class did well but the poorest did best. The bottom 20% had average pretax income growth of 2.63% per year while the top 5% showed pretax income growth of 2.11% per year.

Republicans were polar opposites. Not only was their overall performance worse than Democrats, but it was wildly tilted toward the well off. The bottom 20% saw pretax income growth of only .6% per year while the top 5% enjoyed pretax income growth of 2.09% per year.

In other words, Republican presidents produce poor economic performance because they're obsessed with helping the well off. Their focus is on the wealthiest 5%, and the numbers show it. At least 95% of the country does better under Democrats."

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_05/006282.php

The real incomes of middle-class families grew more than twice as fast under Democratic presidents as they did under Republican presidents.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/27/magazine/27wwln-idealab-t.html

[NL207]

What does incentives for specific types of motor vehicles have to do with insuring the credit of home mortgages? This is just obscene pork wrapped in a trojan horse.

This dreadful "bailout" bill should never have seen the light of day. I hope every Congreesman who voted for this piece of crap goes down at the polls in November.

[realpolitic]

This entitlement is the pork that so-called fiscally conservative GOP congressmen needed as an incentive to pass Bush's bail out of the financial services industry after his economic anti-regulation philosophy led to its collapse.

Even former neocon Francis Fukuyama agrees:

"Reaganism reversed a trend toward ever-larger government. Deregulation became the order of the day not just in the United States but around the world.

It's hard to fathom just how badly ...the American brand has been discredited.

Many commentators have noted that the Wall Street meltdown marks the end of the Reagan era.

Like all transformative movements, the Reagan revolution lost its way because for many followers it became an unimpeachable ideology... A concept was sacrosanct: that financial markets could be self-regulating.

The second Reagan-era article of faith—financial deregulation—was pushed by an unholy alliance of true believers and Wall Street .... They argued that long-standing regulations like the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act (which split up commercial and investment banking) were stifling innovation and undermining the competitiveness of financial institutions. They were right—only, deregulation produced a flood of innovative new products like collateralized debt obligations, which are at the core of the current crisis. Some Republicans still haven't come to grips with this, as evidenced by their proposed alternative to the bailout bill, which involved yet bigger tax cuts for hedge funds.

All this suggests that the Reagan era should have ended some time ago."

http://www.newsweek.com/id/162401/page/1

[avehicle4changedotcom]

Hello beautiful people! I am helping my friends fundraise by selling Obama Car Flags. They also sell them wholesale if you are interested in selling to fundraise yourself and donate to the Obama campaign or just making a little extra cash. Check out the website to help us reach our goal and suport the next president of the United States!

www.avehicle4change.com

Obama '08

[NL207]

Obama is not even a mainstream American. How can he possily be the President? Even more to the point, Obama is up to his arse in this FannieMae/­FreddieMac fiasco.
He appointed Jim Johnson, one of the former CEO's as the chairman of his VP search committee. Public pressure forced him to recant.

Obama also sought advice from and is supported by Franklin Raines, the architect of the FannieMae debacle.

Obama received $109,000 in campaign contributions from FannieMae and its employees over the last 4 years, more than any other politician except Sen. Chris Dodd D-CT, who received $120,000.

As a "community organizer" with ACORN, Obama helped pressure local banks into lending mortgages to unqualified and underqualified borrowers at regular rates under the aegis of FannieMae and FreddieMac, thereby contributing directly to this economic collapse.

Franklin Raines, former CEO of FannieMae belongs in a jail cell. He is directly responsible for cooking the books from 1997-2004 such that FannieMae was fined $400,000,000 for criminal wrongdoing. Jaime Gorelick, Vice Chairman of FannieMae during this time belongs in the cell next to Raines. Barack Obama belongs in the cell next to Gorelick, not in the White House and not in the Senate.

[realpolitic]

Obama never even worked for Acorn, although he represented them once as an attorney as pat of a larger coalition. Again the fallen NL is using Fox News talking points.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/03/obama-camp-debunks-voter_n_131686.html

Actually, it is McCain's campaign manager who who lobbied directly for FreddieMac and FannieMae and recieved millions from them for his influence peddling. Freddie and Fannie have benefitted from the McCain ideas of deregulation. "Senator John McCain’s campaign manager was paid more than $30,000 a month for five years as president of an advocacy group set up by the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to defend them against stricter regulations, current and former officials say.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/22/us/politics/22mccain.html

Since we are now putting people in jail for guilt by association, then McCain must have a deeper, darker cell certainly than has Obama, but not quite so deep as the criminal mastermind George W. Bush whose corruption of the entire Justice Department is now under investigation by a special prosecutor.

[mamacat]

Glad to see that logic and facts are not needed here.

[mamacat]

Reading the article, I see that the early models of the PHEV Prius will be excluded. I read elsewhere that Toyota was planning on building a new Prius plant here in the states. I wonder if GM's abililty to skew the bailout in their favor will cost those Americans who would have worked for Toyota their jobs.

We need what is good for Americans, not just what is good for GM. If and when the two goals can overlap, that is fine. When they do not, why should GM benefit while Americans don't?

[KillTheMessenger]

The other thing that came to mind is how stupid this bill is, again. Instead of giving an incentive for fuel economy and let the market and the customers decide how to achieve it, it gives incentives for a certain type of vehicle. In the end it means that the US consumer will not get what they need but what some Washington lobbyists have managed to establish as the only financially viable type of vehicle.

Stupid is as stupid does, says Forrest Gump's mother.

[OCKerouac]

I'm not sure if your root concern is with the bailout agreement, or General Motors, but either way, I assure you the Volt did not kill your dog, wizz in your cornflakes, or call your mom a naughty name. There is no reason to slam a new technology not even yet tested because you're angry at someone or something else.

The beauty of free will is that this proposal, which is an infinitesimal drop in the bucket compared to the full impact of the bill, does not require you, or anyone else to go out and buy a Volt. If you don't like the car, don't buy it. I'm sure there will be another form of alternative fuel vehicle along shortly that will better tickle your fancy. The market is too large for all the auto makers to not jump in with new ideas just as quickly as they form them...

[KillTheMessenger]

I am not slamming a new technology because the Volt is not new technology. Academics have been researching series hybrids for decades.

I am not even angry at the bailout. It had to happen. I don't think it will help but by all means we have to try because the consequences of not trying are far worse. See my other posts on the topic. I am against it out of principle but I am not angry that they did it because I can see the practical consequences.

I am amused to see that protectionism is alive and well in the US and that GM's Volt did exactly what I keep telling people it was designed for: to give them a fig leaf for why they should be rescued by Washington.

None of this makes the Volt a bad car. Not even the price. Plenty of people who have it will buy one if GM lets them. And they should. We are a free country and everybody has a right to buy the toys they crave. What will make the Volt a bad car is if they screw up the batteries and it dies on you after 50,000 miles. Only time will tell us that one.

[KillTheMessenger]

The fundamental problem, and please take my concerns seriously, is that we still have not learned that HOW we regulate matters just as much as THAT we regulate.

What is in the interest of the public is the function (to save energy), not the implementation (to carry a battery of a certain size).

But Washington likes to prescribe how something has to look instead of telling us what it has to do, which is counterproductive. You won't achieve the function by starting to design the form.

Let's say somebody comes up with a hydraulic (really pneumatic) plug in vehicle tomorrow that costs half as much and needs even less fuel. How much do they get for it? Exactly $0 because it does not have a battery... because it does not need a battery.

This isn't well thought out because it isn't thought out at all. It was put in by somebody who works for the lobbyists of the US car industry.

[KillTheMessenger]

Bwahhaahhh­aahahahaha­aaaahahhha­aaaah...

Rolling on the floor here.

The Chevy Volt needs $7500 in government subsidies to be viable? Give me a break. Open market? Free trade? Nonsense. Good old style protectionism. That's what this is. Pure and simple.

Come on, Volt aficionados, tell me that the Volt is not just a political money machine for GM! I am listening to your arguments.

[zull2]

What's so bad about protectionism? This country built itself on protectionist policies going all the way back to Alexander Hamilton. The economy only began to fall apart when it started experimenting with free trade.

Apparently, we were the only ones at the table that were showing our cards. Everyone else was keeping them hidden. The analogy here is that we cut our import tariffs while our trade partners didn't, resulting in the proverbial knife in the back of our industrial economy.

And here's your argument about the Volt...are YOU going to be mass producing a phev vehicle any time soon that can be sold at a price that everyone can afford, that also can make a realistic range and charge in a realistic, practical amount of time? Because apparently biodiesel and oil are never going to be the most environmentally friendly fuels out there. Current hybrids are barely better than gas burning vehicles. If you got to switch everyone to primary electric powered engines, it'd be a whole lot better to make them right here than to pour all our dough into another economy.

[KillTheMessenger]

"What's so bad about protectionism?"

Nothing. Except maybe that the world will leave the US behind and partially already has. You can't turn back the clock just because you like grandpa's times better.

"Apparently, we were the only ones at the table that were showing our cards...."

I have absolutely no clue what you are talking about. You need to explain this one a bit.

"And here's your argument about the Volt...are YOU going to be mass producing a phev vehicle any time soon that can be sold at a price that everyone can afford, that also can make a realistic range and charge in a realistic, practical amount of time?"

Of course not. Why would I? Why would anyone? It's not a mature technology and it can not compete at this time. As a toy technology, sure. That's what the Tesla is. Go for it. As a mass produced car for the next step in getting energy independent? That's about one technology too far.

"Because apparently biodiesel and oil are never going to be the most environmentally friendly fuels out there."

Neither is a coal power plant charged PHEV. Unless the vehicle comes with solar panels or part of a wind turbine for free it's not going to make any appreciable ecological difference.

[KillTheMessenger]

"Current hybrids are barely better than gas burning vehicles."

Actually, they are. They are probably about 20-30% better if you do a serious comparison against cars that are roughly equal. They are 50-80% better if you compare against megalocars.

"If you got to switch everyone to primary electric powered engines, it'd be a whole lot better to make them right here than to pour all our dough into another economy."

First of all, you don't have to and it's not possible to begin with. Secondly, Toyota is going to make the next Prius right here in the US. So what's your complaint?

[degenerate1991]

It is, if they really wanted gas mileage (or thought people would buy them) they could just make a Geo metro 2.0. ~45 city 48 Hwy isn't a bad place to start.

[KillTheMessenger]

And half the price. Or less. Fully agree.

[OCKerouac]

MPG is to a plug-in-hybrid what a shotgun is to swatting flies... It's not the best tool to use...

The point you seem to miss in your analysis is that while 45/48 mileage is very good, it's infinately worse than the gas 70% of American commuters would be using on a daily basis driving a plug-in-hybrid with a 40 mile battery radius.

Driving an older 3 banger is definately a good start, and a much cheaper option, but the whole point of this credit is to shrink that gap. There's no reason to accept that it's one or the other, why not give the people an option of both?

[mamacat]

I think that we will eventually see hybrid technology even in cars like the Geo Metro. Instead of getting 45 mpg, we will see them getting 60 mpg and more.