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At $35k+ with 240 miles of range, it's starting to get close but realistically not quite there yet for "mass market" adoption. I hope I'm wrong but this will li

At $35k+ with 240 miles of range, it's starting to get close but realistically not quite there yet for "mass market" adoption. I hope I'm wrong but this will likely be a minor seller. Also re: the $7500 federal tax rebate, most people can't take full advantage because they don't owe that much and it doesn't carry over past the first year. Still a good program but not a magic wand solution.

r00fus 9y ago
It's good if you lease for 36mo. That 7500 is taken right out of the negotiated amount.
usaphp 9y ago
> $7500 federal tax rebate, most people can't take full advantage because they don't owe that much I am pretty sure most of those who can afford to purchase a 35k+ car are making at least 40k / year and owe that much in federal taxes, unless I am not calculating something right
- phonon 9y ago
  A family making $40k/y will have a negligible/negative federal and state effective income tax rate. A single person might be somewhere around 10% or less. Maybe you are thinking of FICA?
- snuxoll 9y ago
  What kind of tax rate do you think people are paying that they owe $7500 in federal taxes making $40,000/yr?
- arrrg 9y ago
  What I never really thought is that that‘s still a pretty dumb was to subsidize any kind of purchase. It massivly advantages the rich(er). Why do it that way?
  - hedora 9y ago
    The US has a highly regressive tax system, at least for middle class earners and up. We do everything that way.
    - rhino369 9y ago
      No it doesn't. The fact that a 7k deduction doesn't help middle class people proves we don't have a regressive system. The US middle class is relatively lightly taxed.
    - cobookman 9y ago
      I think this helps the middle / poor class. Rich people lease expensive EV that would normally not sell. After 3 years rich person gets a new car and EV sells for peanuts. Just look at the cost of a used Nissan Leaf right now
  - satya71 9y ago
    It's a set amount money set aside to jump-start the market. The subsidies will end when the fund runs out and pure (if there is such a thing) market forces take over. Fossil fuels are subsidized permanently, however.
    - greglindahl 9y ago
      "pure market forces" won't take over until the negative externality of pollution is properly priced.
      - rebuilder 9y ago
        Market forces alone will never fully price in pollution, IMO. There's no incentive to do so without regulation, and even if there were, I don't see how price discovery would work. The environment is not a market participant, unfortunately. Anyway, this is pretty far off the original question of why EVs are being subsidized via tax rebates in the US.
  - imron 9y ago
- grigjd3 9y ago
  On 40k with the standard deduction and claiming yourself, you pay just under 4k in federal taxes.
- bzbarsky 9y ago
  There is no way you owe $7500 in federal taxes on a $40k/year salary. In the worst case (single or married filing separately; in this range the numbers look the same), the standard deduction is $6350 and the single personal exemption is $4050 in 2017. So your taxable income is $29,600 assuming you aren't putting any pre-tax money into retirement savings. The 10% tax bracket for those filing statuses goes to $9325 in 2017. The 15% bracket goes to $37,950. Tax on $29,600 ends up being $3974. To get to $7500 in tax you have to have about $47k of taxable income, and hence about $57k of gross income, for single or married-filing-separately filers. For married filing jointly filers, you have to have about $56k of taxable income, standard deduction is $12,700, two personal exemtions is $8100, so you need at least $76,800 in gross income to owe this much.
  - usaphp 9y ago
    > To get to $7500 in tax you have to have about $47k of taxable income, and hence about $57k of gross income The OP said “most people don’t pay $7500...” which is not true since I said you have to have “at least 40K+ salary in order to afford that $35k+ car. I did not say you have to have 40k salary to pay 7500$+ in taxes
    - bzbarsky 9y ago
      I admit I don't quite understand. What you wrote was "are making at least 40k / year and owe that much in federal taxes". My point was that you don't "owe that much in federal taxes" unless your salary is at least $57k. I have no opinion on what the actual incomes are of people who buy $35k cars, because I don't have any data to that effect. I'd really _hope_ they all make more than $57k/year gross, but given the weird things people do with debt I'd love to see actual data on this point.
      - usaphp 9y ago
        You are right, I did not phrase my opinion correctly.
  - compsciphd 9y ago
- pilom 9y ago
  You're not calculating it right. 40,000 - 6300 for the standard deduction - 4050 for an exemption = ~29,000. First ~9000 is taxed at 10%, next ~20,000 for this person is taxed at 15%. Total income tax that could be reduced by the $7500 rebate for this person would be ~$4000 worst case.
seanmcdirmid 9y ago
You don't even have to itemize (it isn't a deduction), so I think most people would be able to take full advantage of it. I would bet anyone who is in the market for a $35k+ car (or even 28.5k+) is going to be at a point where they can take full advantage of the rebate.
- dasil003 9y ago
  It's a credit yes, but it's not a refundable credit. Which means you need to owe at least that amount of tax. So for 2016 that means a single person has to earn at least $46,900 to get the full benefit (assuming no other non-refundable credits). The median US personal income for 2016 was about $31,100, so I think it's fair to say the majority of Americans can not take full advantage, although I agree with your last statement.
  - MaysonL 9y ago
    That's 46,900 after exemptions and deductions. 6k standard deduction & at least one 4K exemption.
  - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
    That number is deceptive: a married joint-filing income would be around $60k, so they would qualify if they only bought one of these.
    - bzbarsky 9y ago
      For married-filing-jointly you need a gross income of at least $76,800 in 2017 to owe $7500 in federal taxes.
      - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
        What table are you using?
        dasil003 9y ago
JackC 9y ago
In Massachusetts, if you do benefit from the tax rebate, the final price is $22k. For a lease it's $115 per month, with no money down after rebate: http://massenergywebservices.com/drivegreen/table-all.php#bolt http://massenergywebservices.com/drivegreen/table-all.php#bo... I've confirmed other prices through this program and believe they're accurate.
SkyPuncher 9y ago
I agree. We were in the market for a new car this past summer and I was really intrigued by the Bolt but had to pass on it. It's still just a bit too expensive and a bit too short on range to make it a primary vehicle. Not to mention, it's not a particularly "cool" looking car. I'm excited to see where things are in 3 to 5 years when we're in the cycle for another vehicle. If a moderately equipped package can land in the $30k range and travel 350+ on a single charge, it will be very intriguing.
jrs95 9y ago
Agreed. Even if I were going to spend that much on a car, it wouldn't be this car at that price point. I got a lightly used Fiesta ST for around $15k, and I'm very happy with it and probably wouldn't even want the Bolt for the same price (even if it's more practical)
- SubiculumCode 9y ago
  Is it is manual transmission? I heard the auto is junk, and avoided.
  - jrs95 9y ago
    Yeah, they actually only make the ST in manual.
bane 9y ago
I love the idea of Electric cars and even own Tesla stock, but I think they're still a ways off from me seriously considering buying one. Why? I drive a large Hybrid sedan. I get a bit above 600 miles on a tank of gas without thinking about it. That's a trip from NYC to Toronto with about 100 miles of driving around range left before having to think about finding a gas station...or for our European friends, Paris to Munich with 160 km to spend looking for parking. If I try for range I can easily add another 50-75 miles to that just by being mindful of my driving. My previous car got 300-350 miles to a tank and during a normal commuting period I had to fill it up every couple of weeks. I now go a month or so between fill ups. I've gotten so used to this kind of range that I often forget to even check how much fuel I have left since I only ever have to fill it up 12-15 times a year. My "low fuel" light comes on when I have 75 miles of range left. During city driving, the gas engine is usually off and I spend lots of time driving around on pure electric (the drive-train favors the electric motor when possible and has no gearing transmission at all). Total fill-up time, <10 minutes. With the freakishly low U.S. gas prices and since the car takes 87 octane fuel, it's about $40 to fill up or about $500 - $600 per year or about $2,500 - $3,000 in fuel costs over a 5 year lifetime of the vehicle. The vehicle cost me $27k loaded (plus interest blah blah) out the door, I paid cash. TCO over 5 years for this vehicle is expected to run somewhere between $33-$35k and that includes regular maintenance, tires, oil changes (but minus insurance and taxes) or somewhere in the neighborhood of $.75/mile. I'll probably keep the car longer than that so the cost/mile gets better. The newer model of my car estimates out to around 700-750 miles per tank, so TCO figures should be adjusted accordingly. The cost to charge a Bolt depends on local electrical rates, but the average cost in the U.S. is $.12/kWh. The cost to charge a Bolt for a year with my profile turns out to be $400-500/yr or about $2500 over 5 years. The Bolt is a smaller car, 0-60 is similar, takes 9 hours to charge off a wall socket every 238 miles (which will be realistically less) or if I have thousands of dollars in fast charge infrastructure in place about 30 minutes to get 200 miles. I know several electric car owners who got Leafs on the cheap, and those are pretty appealing to be honest, and they use them as commuter cars. Range isn't a problem for them typically because they just charge every night, I'm sure the same is true for Bolt owners (and Tesla owners). But I'm lazy, and probably would forget to charge it half the time, and right now I'm going 4-5 weeks between "charges" (fill-ups). In a pinch, I have no place to charge my car at work at all, or most of the other places I currently frequent. The nearest fast charger to me is a 20 minute drive, one way without traffic. If I had a Tesla, the nearest Super Charger is 30 minutes away without traffic. So when I think about "going electric", I have to compare things and on most metrics, I have a better car than the Bolt, and on many metrics I care about a better car than a Tesla Model 3. You don't even have to wait in line or pre-order to get my car. Just go to a local dealer and drive off the lot with one. We're not there yet. Closer, but still maybe 7-10 years out. Modern Hybrids are the state of the art at the moment and mass consumers won't be interested in regressing.
MBCook 9y ago
> At $35k+ with 240 miles of range, it's starting to get close but realistically not quite there yet for "mass market" adoption. Really? Why is that? For me and I’m sure tons of other people 250 miles is more than enough. I think it’s extremely rare I’d go 100+ in a day. If this was from Honda or Toyota I’d probably jump at it if I needed a new car. I’ve never had any experience with GM, and their reputation isn’t exactly stellar.
- s0rce 9y ago
  For me that's like the main use my car. I'll bike to work and often run small errands on my bike. I'll use the car to go to the mountains since that would be too far to bike (and there is a large dull valley in the way).
  - pilom 9y ago
    Totally agree. I work from home and walk or bike most of the time. Most of my car's miles are put on doing >200 mile trips. Plug-in hybrids for me until the charging infrastructure vastly expands.
hwillis 9y ago
The average person doesn't buy new cars. The average new car is $33,500[1], so the bolt is right there at the average price. I guess the question is how well it holds its utility as the price drops. [1]: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2015/05/04/new-car-transaction-price-3-kbb-kelley-blue-book/26690191/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2015/05/04/new-car...

r00fus 9y ago

It's good if you lease for 36mo. That 7500 is taken right out of the negotiated amount.

usaphp 9y ago

> $7500 federal tax rebate, most people can't take full advantage because they don't owe that much I am pretty sure most of those who can afford to purchase a 35k+ car are making at least 40k / year and owe that much in federal taxes, unless I am not calculating something right

phonon 9y ago
A family making $40k/y will have a negligible/negative federal and state effective income tax rate. A single person might be somewhere around 10% or less. Maybe you are thinking of FICA?
snuxoll 9y ago
What kind of tax rate do you think people are paying that they owe $7500 in federal taxes making $40,000/yr?
arrrg 9y ago
What I never really thought is that that‘s still a pretty dumb was to subsidize any kind of purchase. It massivly advantages the rich(er). Why do it that way?
- hedora 9y ago
  The US has a highly regressive tax system, at least for middle class earners and up. We do everything that way.
  - rhino369 9y ago
    No it doesn't. The fact that a 7k deduction doesn't help middle class people proves we don't have a regressive system. The US middle class is relatively lightly taxed.
  - cobookman 9y ago
    I think this helps the middle / poor class. Rich people lease expensive EV that would normally not sell. After 3 years rich person gets a new car and EV sells for peanuts. Just look at the cost of a used Nissan Leaf right now
- satya71 9y ago
  It's a set amount money set aside to jump-start the market. The subsidies will end when the fund runs out and pure (if there is such a thing) market forces take over. Fossil fuels are subsidized permanently, however.
  - greglindahl 9y ago
    "pure market forces" won't take over until the negative externality of pollution is properly priced.
    - rebuilder 9y ago
      Market forces alone will never fully price in pollution, IMO. There's no incentive to do so without regulation, and even if there were, I don't see how price discovery would work. The environment is not a market participant, unfortunately. Anyway, this is pretty far off the original question of why EVs are being subsidized via tax rebates in the US.
- imron 9y ago
grigjd3 9y ago
On 40k with the standard deduction and claiming yourself, you pay just under 4k in federal taxes.
bzbarsky 9y ago
There is no way you owe $7500 in federal taxes on a $40k/year salary. In the worst case (single or married filing separately; in this range the numbers look the same), the standard deduction is $6350 and the single personal exemption is $4050 in 2017. So your taxable income is $29,600 assuming you aren't putting any pre-tax money into retirement savings. The 10% tax bracket for those filing statuses goes to $9325 in 2017. The 15% bracket goes to $37,950. Tax on $29,600 ends up being $3974. To get to $7500 in tax you have to have about $47k of taxable income, and hence about $57k of gross income, for single or married-filing-separately filers. For married filing jointly filers, you have to have about $56k of taxable income, standard deduction is $12,700, two personal exemtions is $8100, so you need at least $76,800 in gross income to owe this much.
- usaphp 9y ago
  > To get to $7500 in tax you have to have about $47k of taxable income, and hence about $57k of gross income The OP said “most people don’t pay $7500...” which is not true since I said you have to have “at least 40K+ salary in order to afford that $35k+ car. I did not say you have to have 40k salary to pay 7500$+ in taxes
  - bzbarsky 9y ago
    I admit I don't quite understand. What you wrote was "are making at least 40k / year and owe that much in federal taxes". My point was that you don't "owe that much in federal taxes" unless your salary is at least $57k. I have no opinion on what the actual incomes are of people who buy $35k cars, because I don't have any data to that effect. I'd really _hope_ they all make more than $57k/year gross, but given the weird things people do with debt I'd love to see actual data on this point.
    - usaphp 9y ago
      You are right, I did not phrase my opinion correctly.
- compsciphd 9y ago
pilom 9y ago
You're not calculating it right. 40,000 - 6300 for the standard deduction - 4050 for an exemption = ~29,000. First ~9000 is taxed at 10%, next ~20,000 for this person is taxed at 15%. Total income tax that could be reduced by the $7500 rebate for this person would be ~$4000 worst case.

seanmcdirmid 9y ago

You don't even have to itemize (it isn't a deduction), so I think most people would be able to take full advantage of it. I would bet anyone who is in the market for a $35k+ car (or even 28.5k+) is going to be at a point where they can take full advantage of the rebate.

dasil003 9y ago
It's a credit yes, but it's not a refundable credit. Which means you need to owe at least that amount of tax. So for 2016 that means a single person has to earn at least $46,900 to get the full benefit (assuming no other non-refundable credits). The median US personal income for 2016 was about $31,100, so I think it's fair to say the majority of Americans can not take full advantage, although I agree with your last statement.
- MaysonL 9y ago
  That's 46,900 after exemptions and deductions. 6k standard deduction & at least one 4K exemption.
- seanmcdirmid 9y ago
  That number is deceptive: a married joint-filing income would be around $60k, so they would qualify if they only bought one of these.
  - bzbarsky 9y ago
    For married-filing-jointly you need a gross income of at least $76,800 in 2017 to owe $7500 in federal taxes.
    - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
      What table are you using?
      - dasil003 9y ago

JackC 9y ago

In Massachusetts, if you do benefit from the tax rebate, the final price is $22k. For a lease it's $115 per month, with no money down after rebate: http://massenergywebservices.com/drivegreen/table-all.php#bolt http://massenergywebservices.com/drivegreen/table-all.php#bo... I've confirmed other prices through this program and believe they're accurate.

SkyPuncher 9y ago

I agree. We were in the market for a new car this past summer and I was really intrigued by the Bolt but had to pass on it. It's still just a bit too expensive and a bit too short on range to make it a primary vehicle. Not to mention, it's not a particularly "cool" looking car. I'm excited to see where things are in 3 to 5 years when we're in the cycle for another vehicle. If a moderately equipped package can land in the $30k range and travel 350+ on a single charge, it will be very intriguing.

jrs95 9y ago

Agreed. Even if I were going to spend that much on a car, it wouldn't be this car at that price point. I got a lightly used Fiesta ST for around $15k, and I'm very happy with it and probably wouldn't even want the Bolt for the same price (even if it's more practical)

SubiculumCode 9y ago
Is it is manual transmission? I heard the auto is junk, and avoided.
- jrs95 9y ago
  Yeah, they actually only make the ST in manual.

bane 9y ago

I love the idea of Electric cars and even own Tesla stock, but I think they're still a ways off from me seriously considering buying one. Why? I drive a large Hybrid sedan. I get a bit above 600 miles on a tank of gas without thinking about it. That's a trip from NYC to Toronto with about 100 miles of driving around range left before having to think about finding a gas station...or for our European friends, Paris to Munich with 160 km to spend looking for parking. If I try for range I can easily add another 50-75 miles to that just by being mindful of my driving. My previous car got 300-350 miles to a tank and during a normal commuting period I had to fill it up every couple of weeks. I now go a month or so between fill ups. I've gotten so used to this kind of range that I often forget to even check how much fuel I have left since I only ever have to fill it up 12-15 times a year. My "low fuel" light comes on when I have 75 miles of range left. During city driving, the gas engine is usually off and I spend lots of time driving around on pure electric (the drive-train favors the electric motor when possible and has no gearing transmission at all). Total fill-up time, <10 minutes. With the freakishly low U.S. gas prices and since the car takes 87 octane fuel, it's about $40 to fill up or about $500 - $600 per year or about $2,500 - $3,000 in fuel costs over a 5 year lifetime of the vehicle. The vehicle cost me $27k loaded (plus interest blah blah) out the door, I paid cash. TCO over 5 years for this vehicle is expected to run somewhere between $33-$35k and that includes regular maintenance, tires, oil changes (but minus insurance and taxes) or somewhere in the neighborhood of $.75/mile. I'll probably keep the car longer than that so the cost/mile gets better. The newer model of my car estimates out to around 700-750 miles per tank, so TCO figures should be adjusted accordingly. The cost to charge a Bolt depends on local electrical rates, but the average cost in the U.S. is $.12/kWh. The cost to charge a Bolt for a year with my profile turns out to be $400-500/yr or about $2500 over 5 years. The Bolt is a smaller car, 0-60 is similar, takes 9 hours to charge off a wall socket every 238 miles (which will be realistically less) or if I have thousands of dollars in fast charge infrastructure in place about 30 minutes to get 200 miles. I know several electric car owners who got Leafs on the cheap, and those are pretty appealing to be honest, and they use them as commuter cars. Range isn't a problem for them typically because they just charge every night, I'm sure the same is true for Bolt owners (and Tesla owners). But I'm lazy, and probably would forget to charge it half the time, and right now I'm going 4-5 weeks between "charges" (fill-ups). In a pinch, I have no place to charge my car at work at all, or most of the other places I currently frequent. The nearest fast charger to me is a 20 minute drive, one way without traffic. If I had a Tesla, the nearest Super Charger is 30 minutes away without traffic. So when I think about "going electric", I have to compare things and on most metrics, I have a better car than the Bolt, and on many metrics I care about a better car than a Tesla Model 3. You don't even have to wait in line or pre-order to get my car. Just go to a local dealer and drive off the lot with one. We're not there yet. Closer, but still maybe 7-10 years out. Modern Hybrids are the state of the art at the moment and mass consumers won't be interested in regressing.

MBCook 9y ago

> At $35k+ with 240 miles of range, it's starting to get close but realistically not quite there yet for "mass market" adoption. Really? Why is that? For me and I’m sure tons of other people 250 miles is more than enough. I think it’s extremely rare I’d go 100+ in a day. If this was from Honda or Toyota I’d probably jump at it if I needed a new car. I’ve never had any experience with GM, and their reputation isn’t exactly stellar.

s0rce 9y ago
For me that's like the main use my car. I'll bike to work and often run small errands on my bike. I'll use the car to go to the mountains since that would be too far to bike (and there is a large dull valley in the way).
- pilom 9y ago
  Totally agree. I work from home and walk or bike most of the time. Most of my car's miles are put on doing >200 mile trips. Plug-in hybrids for me until the charging infrastructure vastly expands.

hwillis 9y ago

The average person doesn't buy new cars. The average new car is $33,500[1], so the bolt is right there at the average price. I guess the question is how well it holds its utility as the price drops. [1]: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2015/05/04/new-car-transaction-price-3-kbb-kelley-blue-book/26690191/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2015/05/04/new-car...