Not that I necessarily agree with the government handing out 10k a pop for a trade in. I disagree with this bill ever passing wholeheartedly as it is a subsidy to the seller of efficient vehicles. However, I think that the people on this board would be interested to learn of this legislation that is now in the Senate.

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:S.3737:

Key points:

1. you make less than 25k (ind) or 40k (married).
2. you own less than 3 vehicles.
3. you trade in an old car for a new car that is "fuel efficient", the Government pays the seller 10k on top of the trade in value

So, for those individuals, at a price of 40k for the volt, with a $7000 dollar tax rebate max, the ind will get back the 4k he paid in taxes for the year,the married couple would get the full 7k. For anyone who qualifies, this brings the price down to somewhere between 26k - 23k minus trade in value, minus down payment.

At 12% interest rate and a 5 year loan, this is a $512 - $580/mo insurance add $120/mo for car insurance and I think this is almost reachable for an individual who might want to purchase a volt and doesn't have many other bills.


If money just really could be created out of thin air, the volt might have a chance.

thanks guy,I hope your post can help me,good luck to you!

I disagree with this bill ever passing wholeheartedly as it is a subsidy ...
If money just really could be created out of thin air, the volt might have a chance.
It certainly is a subsidy, just as the $700 Billion (now in the trillions) was a subsidy.
The only difference here is that this particular subsidy unlike the Wall Street/Banker bail-out will actually produce something.
I would like to see this legislation only apply to American fuel efficient cars, no $10 K trade in so you can buy a Prius.
Yes I know its protectionism, but this country is in bad shape right now.

BigRedFed, money can be made out of thin air.
The privately owned Federal Reserve has been doing it ever since its inception in 1913.
Ever get the feeling that there's something very wrong with the fact that our government has zero control over its own money supply?

It is my pleasure to read your post,though I can't help you ,still to support you.

Here are some funny parts of the linked bill ....at least they are funny to me ;)



(2) ELIGIBLE INDIVIDUAL- The term `eligible individual' means an individual--
(E) who has not acquired an automobile under the Program; and
(F) who did not file such return jointly with another individual who has acquired an automobile under the Program.


So if you acquire an automobile you are not eligible?

You only get this once.


(3) ELIGIBLE NEW AUTOMOBILE-
(ii) was manufactured by an automobile manufacturer that has--
(II) operated a manufacturing facility that produced automobiles or automobile components in the United States throughout the 20-year period ending on the date of the enactment of this Act;
(iii) was assembled in the United States
(iv) has a fuel economy that--
(I) is not less than 25 miles per gallon



So any vehicle with over 25 MPG counts?
Even if it is less than the old trade in too :rolleyes:

So any company who has been in the U.S. for over 20 years counts.



(4) ELIGIBLE OLD AUTOMOBILE- ...
(B) was first registered in any jurisdiction by any person not less than 10 years before the date on which such trade is initiated;


So the trade in car has to be over 10 years old?




(f) Disposal of Eligible Old Automobiles-
(1) IN GENERAL- A seller who receives an eligible old automobile in exchange for an eligible new automobile under the Program shall deliver such old automobile to an appropriate location for proper destruction and disposal as determined by the Secretary.


So the car has to operate but the seller that gets it... has to destroy it ... and is not allowed to resell it?

Here are some funny parts of the linked bill ....at least they are funny to me ;)



So if you acquire an automobile you are not eligible?

You only get this once.



So any vehicle with over 25 MPG counts?
Even if it is less than the old trade in too :rolleyes:

So any company who has been in the U.S. for over 20 years counts.



So the trade in car has to be over 10 years old?



So the car has to operate but the seller that gets it... has to destroy it ... and is not allowed to resell it?

I support the idea but the implementation seems way off, as usual.

Seeing how we are well on our way to nationalizing the domestic auto industry, why not consider feebates? The idea makes more sense to me than the 2008 Efficient Cars Act and it is revenue neutral -- theoretically anyway. I wonder how much the 2008 Efficient Cars Act is going to cost taxpayers?



Feebates (Winning the Oil End Game; Page 186-190)

The centerpiece of our policy recommendation is the “feebate,” which provides a rebate for or levies a fee on each new vehicle depending on its efficiency. Buyers of new light vehicles that exceed a certain annually defined fuel economy benchmark, called the “pivot point,” would receive a rebate to be subtracted from the purchase price. The amount of the rebate would depend on how much the vehicle’s fuel economy exceeds the pivot point for vehicles of that size. Conversely, buyers of new vehicles with fuel economies lower than the pivot point for vehicles of that size would pay a corresponding surcharge on their purchase price. The feebates we propose are revenue-neutral, with no net flow of dollars into or out of the Treasury. Instead, the fees paid by buyers of less efficient vehicles (which impose social costs) would be used to pay the rebates to buyers of more efficient vehicles (which save social costs), with a tiny bit left over to pay the feebates’ administrative costs. Feebates are typically described as a dollar value for every gallon per mile difference from the pivot point (see Box 19)—not mile per gallon, since the goal is to save gallons in a linearly proportional manner (i.e., all gallons saved are equally valuable). As the fleet becomes more efficient, the pivot point would gradually shift toward lower fuel intensity (higher mpg), eventually surpassing Conventional Wisdom vehicles. If we ever ran out of worthwhile technologies, we could declare victory and stop.

U.S. feebates should be structured to be revenue-neutral, technology neutral, and neutral as to vehicle size so as to enhance and not distort customer choice. We therefore suggest having the feebate system apply the same slope ($/gpm) to each and every new light vehicle without exception, but with a separate pivot point for each size class (measured by interior volume or areal footprint as the best metric of customer utility—not by weight). Size-class-based feebates will preserve the competitive position of each automaker regardless of where in the market it concentrates its offerings, and thus put no U.S. automaker at any disadvantage. Feebates apply to each vehicle, not to the average of all sales by each manufacturer. However, treating feebates by size class also nearly eliminates the potential for shifting customer choice between classes, and avoids complaints about interference with freedom of choice. Whatever size of vehicle you prefer, you have a choice whether to get one that’s more or less efficient, with the corresponding rebate or fee attached. So a business buying a powerful, high-capacity Class 2b truck would pay no more (and may pay less) for a fuel-efficient version of that vehicle with Feebates than for an inefficient version in a system like today’s, without feebates—and that business will also pay far less for fuel. All gain, no pain.

Unlike standards, feebates reward and propel continuous improvement. Feebates are provided to the customer, but they actually incentivize the manufacturer to incorporate energy efficiency improvements that cost less than the feebate “reward,” thus maintaining an attractive retail pricepoint. Unlike fuel taxation, feebates directly signal the value of efficiency to the buyer at the time and place of choosing the vehicle. Feebates are a continuous mathematical function, and are completely transparent and predictable to manufacturers and customers, making feebates more efficient than standards. They’re also less prone to “gaming,” although any system will be gamed somehow. And feebates make money for everyone: under a $1,000/0.01-gpm feebate, automakers’ net sales would increase by nearly $10b/y, while customers would save ~$15b/y through 2020. Astute manufacturers will also multiply their higher volumes times the higher margins earned by superior value proposition and first-mover advantage.

Feebates would apply to all new light vehicles, rather than distorting the market by discriminating between different types (e.g., CAFE exempts the heaviest light vehicles, like Hummer, and the gas-guzzler tax applies only to cars, leading makers to ensure that their least efficient vehicles are legally classified as light trucks so they avoid the tax; otherwise a 15-mpg Expedition would cost $3,000 extra). We see no reason to perpetuate in feebate structure the highly gamed historic distinction that CAFE regulations now draw between cars and light trucks, nor between imported and American-made vehicles; these simply distort the market. We haven’t modeled size-class disaggregation, but, as Greene et al. (2004) found by modeling up to 11 subclasses, it wouldn’t make much difference to our findings.

Endorsed by the National Research Council’s 2001 study, feebates would best be adopted federally for uniformity to both manufacturers and customers, and for ease of administration. In time they would supplant CAFÉ standards by making them (and the gas-guzzler tax) irrelevant, though for the time being those should remain to deter recidivism. But if the federal government failed to act, many states are poised to step in, having already considered such initiatives for more than a decade.

why not consider feebates?

Fine idea... but will never happen...

We currently exclude large vehicles from even having to have MPG ratings... we exclude the overly large vehicles from emissions testing... in short we currently do the opposite. :rolleyes:

still a nice idea ;)

BigRedFed, money can be made out of thin air.
The privately owned Federal Reserve has been doing it ever since its inception in 1913.
Ever get the feeling that there's something very wrong with the fact that our government has zero control over its own money supply?

I know that debt, which is used as money, can be created out of thin air. The printing presses are running night and day right now to create all the "money" for the various bailouts. However, purchasing power is actually limited and can't be created out of thin air. So with all the bailouts, the super-duper new deal that the obama is going to implement to "save" the economy, and everything else that the government does over the next two years, we are no longer inching towards hyper inflation, but just waiting for the cracked dam of idiocy that has been built with the bailouts to break.

My point, which I was esoterically trying to make was that if hyper-inflation does insue over the next couple of years, 17k towards the purchase of a volt won't be anywhere near enough.

So any vehicle with over 25 MPG counts?

Seems really low. I mean even the automakers are only claiming that 30MPG or greater is good (even though it's not).

I definitely believe we need to move to more efficient transportation but this is a real scary way to legislate it. Cheap gas today will drive usage that will lead to more expensive gas tomorrow and this is only considering the raw economics. Economic cycles will continue to be dictated or exacerbated by oil prices if we do not decouple ourselves from it as a main energy source. The cylces will worsen as "baseload" demand widens while supply becomes more constricted and more expensive.

Here's a stream of consciousness idea. We should implement an indexed sales tax while also increasing the federal taxes. The federal taxes have been the same ($0.24/gal I believe) for many years now. This tax should be increase by $0.10 every six months for the next two years. While not possible to index the tax for retail sales, this is implementable at the distribution level. The tax should basis should increase as the cost is reduced and decrease as the cost rises. For example it could start out at 25% for todays wholesale price of gas and be reduced 1% for every $0.10 increase in wholesale price. Since the revenue is variable and cannot be budgted. It should be used to reduce government debt.