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America’s president-elect wants to reduce federal spending and it could put electric vehicle incentives in jeopardy. That means, no more Chevy Bolts for under $30k.
Reduced or outright loosing the federal incentive could drive up the Bolt’s MSRP and negatively affect Bolt sales. The success of the first generation of affordable long range electric vehicles including the Tesla Model 3 is largely based on the U.S. tax credit which can go up to $7,500. Without it, both Chevy and Tesla may not sell as many units as originally predicted.
That in turn may affect the manufacturing plant in Orion, Michigan, as that is where the Chevy Bolt is being produced. Counterproductive if you take into account Trump’s plans to increase manufacturing jobs in the automotive industry.
According to Autoweek, short term product development plans shouldn’t be affected as models that are set to be launched between now and 2018 are already paid for. Maybe this would motivate LG to come out with even cheaper lithium ion batteries in order to give manufacturers a little more breathing room. Back in 2011, battery costs were around $300 per kilowatt-hour and now it’s around $145. Maybe we’ll see prices drop to around $100 per kilowatt-hour in another 6 years.
This is all speculation for now. An incentive cut may not come to pass and the Bolt should be hitting dealerships nationwide before any tax credit changes are made.