#incentives

Detroit City Council wrapped up a lengthy day of voting and approvals Tuesday, paving the way for a $2.5 billion Fiat Chrysler investment in two east-side assembly plants.

Part of the deal involves a complex series of land swaps benefitting both FCA and the land-rich Moroun family, plus a raft of tax incentives bound for the automaker. It’s a good thing FCA didn’t target its investment at New York City.

Pick your jaw up off the floor. As automakers struggle to offer electric vehicles deemed “affordable” by the motoring public, those buyers aren’t exactly swamping dealers with requests for EVs.

Even in the Europe Union, members of which punish drivers of fossil fuel-powered vehicles with high taxes, EVs amounted to just 2 percent of new vehicles registered last year. And yet the EU plans to drastically cut down on greenhouse gas emissions in the coming years.

New data from the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA) shows that the EU’s green dreams will be hard to realize without some sort of massive incentive for the purchase of electric vehicles, as right now those vehicles are only marginally popular in extremely wealthy countries. The EV “people’s car” is still a dream.

You may have read a first drive review of Volkswagen’s new flagship, the Arteon, earlier today, but you probably didn’t know the automaker is already offering discounts on the liftback sedan.

We’ve spoken of the difficulties VW faces in launching a large car in a crossover-hungry market; the addition of available all-wheel drive and a carefully disguised rear hatch doesn’t take away from the fact the Arteon is *not* an Atlas. Maybe a dealer cash incentive will help move this unfamiliar metal.

Forgive this writer for channeling Jonathan Pryce. Brush up on your secret handshake, too, as Tesla has a new version of the Model 3 customers can’t order online.

It’s a model that stands to become even more of a ghost than the U.S.-market Model 3 Standard Range, which disappeared from the company’s website after being on sale just a few days. American customers don’t apply here, as this cynical model’s sole purpose is to undercut a government EV incentive program’s price cutoff by a single dollar. A dollar, it should be said, that’s worth about 75 U.S. cents.

Who’s excited about 93 miles of range?

Studies have shown that purchasing a new Jeep Wrangler is almost as stable an investment as buying gold. In terms of retaining value, the Wrangler is king, boasting a rate of depreciation that undercuts the industry average by half.

With this in mind, it’s not common to see people shopping around, sniffing out boffo bargains on hard-to-sell Wranglers polluting local dealer lots. It simply isn’t a thing. If you’re in the market for one, however, now may be a good time to start searching.

U.S. light-vehicle dealers reported an operating loss for the first time since the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) began collecting data in 2009. While everyone continues reporting pretax net profits, concerns are beginning to swell around their dependency on factory incentives, which are not included in operating tabulations.

NADA’s analysis of 2019’s first-quarter auto sales shows that incentive spending is down compared to the same period a year ago. The group expects above-average discipline from automakers in terms of incentive spending throughout the year. According to J.D. Power, average incentive spending per unit was down $119 to $3,821 through March 2019 — with the brunt of that going toward trucks. However, if sales remain low, spending may creep back up to help clear out languishing inventories.

A piece you’ll see later this morning may have something to do with today’s topic. We’re talking handouts, incentives, rebates, discounts, credits — anything that can ease the financial burden of buying a new vehicle.

Specifically, that class of vehicle few people want to buy (and frankly, a class of vehicle more than a few people would rather not read about): Electric cars.

As Tesla and GM buyers face a once-juicy tax credit that’s now pared in half, and as other automakers stare down the barrel of a reduced federal incentive, we have to ask: what would it take, price-wise, to get you into one of them?

General Motors’ sole electric vehicle, the cheerful Chevrolet Bolt, will see its MSRP stand firm in the face of an EV tax credit that drops by half come April 1st, the automaker claims.

In the fourth quarter of last year, GM sailed past the volume barrier that triggers a wind-down of the federal credit, meaning Bolt buyers will see less of an incentive to get behind the wheel. The $7,500 credit falls to $3,750 next week, before halving again in six months time. Knowing that EV buyers still need a push, GM plans to make the Bolt more attractive to green penny pinchers.

That headline was originally typed as “government cash,” except that wouldn’t be quite accurate, would it? Canada’s federal government tabled its budget Tuesday, and within those dry, dry pages was a helping hand for the struggling electric vehicle segment. While two of the country’s 10 provinces offer their own EV rebates (Ontario used to pony up a princely sum until a change in government last year saw the program kiboshed), there was never a federal program to stimulate the sale of green vehicles.

How does $5,000 pooled from your friends and neighbors sound? Good? Hold your horses, Tesla fans. You don’t apply.

Jaguar hopes U.S. buyers fling some woo its way this month, and it’s flinging bundles of cash at dealers to make it happen.

As the British brand is reportedly incentivizing its U.S. dealers to go above and beyond to break sales targets in the early part of 2018, savvy customers stand a good chance of finding a bargain.

Good news for would-be Volt owners? Not really. Chevrolet’s soon-to-be-discontinued plug-in hybrid won’t live long enough to suffer the indignity of a halved federal EV tax credit. It’s dead in March, though remaining examples of the car everyone should want will no doubt linger on lots through the spring.

On Wednesday, General Motors announced, as expected, that it became the second automaker to pass the federal government’s 200,000-vehicle threshold, kicking off a three-month countdown to a chopped incentive.

White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow announced Monday that the Trump administration is seeking an end to federal subsidies on electric cars. Interestingly, the move appears to be related to General Motors’ plant closings and layoffs. The company’s restructuring plan hasn’t gone over well with policy makers or the American public, with many accusing the automaker of abusing years of tax breaks, only to reduce its workforce as a way of pursuing new technologies, businesses, and further bolstering its profit margins.

However, cutting GM out of the electric vehicle subsidies deal is more likely to impact its rivals than anything else. The company said it’s on the cusp of the EV tax credit ceiling already, with the gradual phase-out of those incentives likely to take place through 2019. Yet Kudlow pointed to the elimination of the credits as one way of punishing GM for eliminating so many jobs, echoing President Donald Trump’s threats from last last week.

“As a matter of our policy, we want to end all of those subsidies,” Kudlow explained. “And by the way, other subsidies that were imposed during the Obama administration, we are ending, whether it’s for renewables and so forth.”

In Europe, diesel now holds a reputation as favorable as that of the dark lord of the underworld, while electric propulsion may as well have descended from Heaven. It wasn’t this way just a few years ago.

That said, in the UK, government incentives towards green vehicle purchases have, like the U.S., been ongoing since 2011. A recent study of corporate plug-in hybrid fleet vehicles purchased with the assistance of government grants reveals many buyers were just looking to dodge diesel taxes while bilking the taxpayer for a cheaper ride. Plugging in these plug-ins was not a priority.

Flat new vehicle sales and an industry that’s far more interested in making crossover lovers’ dreams come true add up to a poor environment for a traditional new car buyer.

We’ve already told you how high demand for a shrinking supply of off-lease sedans and hatchbacks has sent used car prices through the roof compared to just a few years ago. That erased a go-to option for many thrifty buyers. In the new car market, however, automakers’ need to boost profits in a stagnant market means incentive spending is dropping as fast as used car prices are rising.

It’s not just sedans that saw a decline in discounts last month.

The European new car market is in a period of extreme flux. Once-dominant diesels are on the way out thanks to new regulations, looming bans, and cancelled tax incentives, with electrified vehicles poised to take over the high-MPG role.

But not everything’s rosy in the clean, green market on the other side of the Atlantic. A new, more accurate way of measuring fuel economy went into effect last month, and governments — as well as automakers — suddenly realized certain vehicles weren’t as clean as initially thought. Looking to buy a plug-in hybrid in the UK? Say goodbye to that juicy government incentive.