obama
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It's long been known that purchase rebates--buy a car, get a check--are a more effective incentive for purchase of any kind of car than an income-tax credit, which may take a year or more to affect the buyer's cash position. But the current tax credits for purchase of plug-in cars, up to $7,500 for battery packs of 16 kilowatt-hours or more, was enacted because it was simpler. It used a mechanism already in place to provide tax credits to purchasers of hybrid-electric cars, which had been scheduled to expire at the end of 2010. Yesterday, Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow introduced a bill...
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Obama Sticks With 1 Million Plug-Ins by 2015, Cuts Oil Sweetheart DealsHis party may be under increasing pressure from the Tea Party movement as it fights conservative attempts to stifle everything from healthcare reform to government spending, but President Obama is still keen to push the electric car revolution. Speaking at last night’s State of the Union...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Obama Doubles Down on Plug-In Cars, More Policy Tweaks Coming
Last night, in his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama reiterated his support for expanding U.S. production and sales of plug-in cars that run on grid power. Today, according to the Detroit News, a slew of policy changes will be unveiled by Vice President Joe Biden to advance that...
John Voelcker -
GM Confirms, Yes, We're Losing Money on Every Volt We Build
Doug Parks, vehicle line executive for the 2011 Chevrolet Volt, GM's range-extended electric vehicle, confirmed Tuesday that the company loses money on every Volt it sells. This should hardly be a surprise. It's called R&D, folks Every major automaker spends billions of dollars a year on...
John Voelcker -
EPA Proposes 10-to-20-Percent Gas Mileage Rise for Big Trucks
Well, now we know the numbers. And there are a lot of them. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Transportation jointly proposed cutting greenhouse-gas emissions from medium and heavy duty trucks by 10 to 20 percent, starting in 2014 and extending through 2018. (The actual...
John Voelcker -
California Wants 1 Million Electric Cars On Its Road By 2020
During his 2008 campaign for president, Barack Obama famously said that he wanted one million plug-in cars on U.S. roads by 2015. That's a goal that many experts continue to think will be extremely hard to attain. Now California has adopted the same goal for the state alone, but with a different...
John Voelcker -
There's no better time to make a public announcement than when you have the President of the United States with you. Today,President Barack Obama visited the Detroit-Hamtramck plant where GM is building its 2011 Chevrolet Volt extended-range electric vehicle. And the company took full advantage of that situation to announce that it would increase 2012 production of the Volt by a remarkable 50 percent due to strong and increasing public demand. GM has previously said it would build 10,000 Volts between the start of production and the end of 2011, and another 30,000 during calendar 2012. Now...
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Obama Meets The Volt: Sparks Barely Fly
President Barack Obama’s electric vehicle tour climaxed last Thursday with a visit to the Compact Power battery plant in Holland, Michigan, where he was treated to his first extensive experience with the upcoming 2011 Chevrolet Volt. The Holland plant just happens to be the place where LG Chem...
Viknesh Vijayenthiran -
Long-Haul Truckers Beg For Rescue From Nasty Gas-Saving EPA
It's pretty rare when a group of drivers begs a government agency to regulate them. But when it could avert what they think would be even worse regulations from another agency, anything's fair in love and war. The drivers in this case are the nation's long-haul truckers or, more precisely, the...
John Voelcker -
Obama and EPA Launch 34.1-MPG Fuel-Economy Rules for 2016
The other shoe has dropped: Yesterday, two U.S. government agencies jointly announced the final fuel-economy rules for model year 2012 through 2016 vehicles, giving automakers a single national set of standards and averting the threat of state-by-state regulation. Starting with 2012, automakers...
John Voelcker -
States Bite Back Against Emissions Regulations, Even California
When automakers and the Obama White House announced agreement on a single national standard for emissions and fuel economy last May, the entire auto industry heaved a huge sigh of relief. The issue was settled, at least until 2016. Yesterday, however, the state of Texas filed suit in the U.S. Court...
John Voelcker -
Why $2.4 Billion of Battery Grants? To Get US Competitive in Electric Cars
It's now clearer than ever: Electric cars are coming to showrooms near you. They will be fully competitive, their makers are deadly serious, and they will be "real cars" rather than the golf carts people seem to worry about. At GreenCarReports.com, we've experienced the 2011 Chevrolet Volt mule...
John Voelcker -
Here at GreenCarReports.com, we read a lot. And increasingly, our friends send us stuff they think we'd be interested in. Which is how we came across an abstract of a study done by one Christopher R. Knittel at the University of California-Davis. Knittel looked at the factors affecting carmakers' corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) from 1980 to now, in particular the tradeoffs among engine power, vehicle weight, and gas mileage. His conclusion? The results suggest that if weight, horsepower and torque were held at their 1980 levels, fuel economy for both passenger cars and light trucks...
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Why Obama Could Be The Best Thing For Detroit Since Henry Ford
President Barack Obama has come under fire for using taxpayer funds to rescue the auto industry; we beg to differ
John Voelcker
