President Obama on Wednesday proposed sweetened tax incentives and subsidies to spur the market for alternative-power cars and trucks, promoting his “all of the above” energy strategy while warning against other politicians’ “quick fixes” to the latest spike in gasoline prices.
Mr. Obama made his fourth trip in less than six months to North Carolina, an election battleground state he won narrowly in 2008, to describe his ideas at the Daimler Trucks North America manufacturing plant near Charlotte. There, he was met with news that his support in the state has inched higher but that more residents still disapprove of how he is handling his job and the economy than approve of it, according to a poll by Elon University and The Charlotte Observer newspaper.
The president called for increasing to $10,000 an existing $7,500 credit per vehicle for consumers and businesses that buy cars and trucks powered by electric battery, natural gas or hydrogen. He would also expand the technologies that qualify and allow buyers to benefit at the time of purchase, by transferring the credit to the dealer or financier.
The credit’s enhanced value would bring the purchase price of alternative-energy vehicles more in line with conventional models, supporters say. Partly because of the vehicles’ costs, sales have been a problem. General Motors announced last week that it was suspending production for five weeks of the Chevrolet Volt, a plug-in hybrid that Mr. Obama has promoted in the past. On Wednesday, he did not mention his goal of having one million electric vehicles on the nation’s roads in 2015.
Why do we taxpayers have to finance a car that nobody wants to buy???
Mr. Obama made his fourth trip in less than six months to North Carolina, an election battleground state he won narrowly in 2008, to describe his ideas at the Daimler Trucks North America manufacturing plant near Charlotte. There, he was met with news that his support in the state has inched higher but that more residents still disapprove of how he is handling his job and the economy than approve of it, according to a poll by Elon University and The Charlotte Observer newspaper.
The president called for increasing to $10,000 an existing $7,500 credit per vehicle for consumers and businesses that buy cars and trucks powered by electric battery, natural gas or hydrogen. He would also expand the technologies that qualify and allow buyers to benefit at the time of purchase, by transferring the credit to the dealer or financier.
The credit’s enhanced value would bring the purchase price of alternative-energy vehicles more in line with conventional models, supporters say. Partly because of the vehicles’ costs, sales have been a problem. General Motors announced last week that it was suspending production for five weeks of the Chevrolet Volt, a plug-in hybrid that Mr. Obama has promoted in the past. On Wednesday, he did not mention his goal of having one million electric vehicles on the nation’s roads in 2015.
Why do we taxpayers have to finance a car that nobody wants to buy???
