Chevy Volt Hybrid Tax Credit scam: Dealers selling cars to each other, cashing in.

I'm looking at 5 zero mile "used" Volts out 19 total listed on Yahoo Auto.
Used Chevrolet Volt Cars For Sale In Fresno, CA - Yahoo! Autos
Includes a Hyundai dealer.

Update to the story
Are EV Dealers Claiming $7500 Tax Credit For Themselves? GM, Nissan Think Not - Rumor Central

 

I'm still trying to have high hopes for the Volt. It's a big step above the malibu hybrid that came and went so fast you missed it if you blinked. I can't help remembering all the Hummers that couldn't be sold ... and dealers had to get really creative to unload them ... even as the ad man kept saying how wonderfully popular they are/were. I'm hoping it's not deja vu. Yea - what an irony that GM leadership would call the Prius a geek mobile ... wouldn't be caught dead in it ... only to find he'd set the stage for GM's fan base to have THAT kind of thought in the back on their minds. Way to go GM.

.

 

Wow, I smell something shady is going on!
I did not know that it would be possible for a vehicle with no miles or less than a dozen miles on the odometer be offered for sale as a used vehicle at a Hyundai dealer with a carfax report?

 

What should one conclude about there being 17 cars in the area for sale used with under 4 digit mileage. My first reaction would be, why? How crappy does a car have to be, to sell it after driving 28 miles? Doesn't sound like they are doing themselves a favor on the PR front.

 

Done that. It's a very nice looking ride. NOT too comfortable for my 6'-5" height ... but my over sized frame DOES fit remarkably better in both the Leaf and the Prius. BTW, those articles debunking the "scandal" seem to miss the point IMO. In essence, they say that GM can't control what the dealers do. Fine. That misses the point. What bugs people is the intent behind the action. Though technically legal (heck, let's just call it legal), it IS legal because often times when legislation goes through first revisions, they can't cover all the potential unintended loop holes. Think back to the bank failures just a couple years ago ... and/or AIG. TONS of money went to rescue a system ... and it was taken advantage of. Honest legislators never dreamed that bankers would take bail out money and put it in 'T'-Bills (so THEY, the stock holders), making a lot more money ... rather than lend it out, as was the intended. It's similar ... and there's no penalty, because it only violates ethics ... not the law.

.

 

At first I want to scream @*(#ing scam, but then I realize that if you cannot sell the vehicle to a customer with the $7500 tax credit you've basically jacked the price on them by $7500, so it's probably a wash, right? The intent of the incentive is to basically pass of $7500 in tax money per Volt, and they're still doing this, so maybe it's not as bad as it initially seems.

Check out sales on this farce, though. 600+ in March, under 500 in Apr and a few units less in May. How about those sales estimates, GM? lol

There was a malibu hybrid?

 

So long as the customer knows they are buying a used car and are not eligible for the tax credit I really do not see a problem. In fact, the dealers are taking a risk that the IRS will deny them the credit because the tax ruling forbids customers taking the credit if the car was bought with intent to sale. If the IRS wants to get nasty I imagine they will decide on a case by case basis depending how long the first owner kept the car. The provision is to prevent speculative buying, but honestly, nothing prevents a dealer from jacking up the price above msrp and leaving the car credit intact, so this entire business is a tempest in a teapot and mostly reflects movement of Volts out of officially designated markets.

If a customer outside of an official market wants to buy the car locally to them, this is the mechanism. I'm sure GM is glad of it; it helps prevent the unsightly scene of unwanted Volts on dealer car lots. E.g., this car has been posted on cars.com for about 3 weeks I think. Unless the dealer is keeping it on purpose I'm sure they would be delighted to sell it to another dealer who has a customer.

 

Volt: Chevy Volt dealers hoist prices, take tax credits - latimes.com

To prove that it is a scam. LA Times is saying some dealers are taking the $7500 tax credit, and selling cars < 100 miles as used, and then turning around and selling them for 20k over MSRP!! That is just wrong.

I understand supply and demand, that if demand outweighs supply, that cost can go up. I've seen that in new models of high demand/trendy cars, where MSRP can be 5k over, but up to 20k? That is just plain greedy.

By self titling these cars, and selling to each other to drive up sales numbers will just hurt the Volt more than anyone. Like the article said, it should be in peoples garages and not in the dealers lots. There is nothing as strong as self advertising, by getting the cars out in the real world and watching heads turn. Nothing is quite as strong and the desire to "keep up with the Joneses".

 

I see a 60 Minutes story in the making.

 

I am curious how much research/verification the LA Times did themselves. The National Legal and Policy Center mentioned in the article is the same group that put out the story linked to in post 1.

 

There sure was, and I even saw it on the highway as it passed through my state. It was even leading an unorganized random parade of hybrids.

There was only one, right?

 

Just some random thoughts.

I don't believe GM wants to sell to the public. Most of the posts I see on chat sites seem to be from leaseholders not owners. It's in how they describe their Volt deal and payment that makes me think this.

A sale to the dealers lease company gets counted as a sale, they pocket the tax credit, and and the leasee pay full price for the car over the term. If the lease company holds it for 3 years there's no problem with the credit. This makes potential warranty claims easier to deal with too. Except for the misleading sales figure this is fine by me.

Selling the car to another dealer owned by the same dealer group and jacking the price up 10K to 15K is just distasteful business. Who would pay this when they can be bought for MSRP at all the roll out area dealers? GM fanboy money to burn ego convenience thing?

The 2010 Prius had its price jacked up to in L.A. and NJ. Market adjustment fee or similar they called it but I've never seen online an owner who paid it.

Does The Volt translate to DeWalt in Swiss? or am I being to Bosch?

 

That is not a scam. If some idiot consumer wants to pay $60k for a Volt why not let them? Of course it's greedy, but only greedy idiocy would compel a person to pay that much for a Volt and it's not like they're paying for a basic necessity like food. If they want to pay $60k for a car that gets about the same MPG no premium as an 87 gas-only Elantra let them do it.

The Volt's sales are irrelevant, it has sold in its lifetime the amount Prius typically sells in about 1.5-2 weeks (and yes including only Prius North America numbers). Nobody who defends the volt has yet explained why last month and the month prior its sales are STILL under 500 after it had a whopping 600 sale month in March. Something is clearly bugged with its manufacturing line (functional or deliberate).

 

Why does it have to be a right wing conspiracy?? I don't think it matters what party line you tow. The whole deal sounds shady to me and the volt actually is a intriguing vehicle to me. Just not at the price point. Jacking up the price knowing the gov't offers a subsidy basically defeats the purpose.

SPH-D700 ?

 

Maybe they learned their lesson with the EV1 and are doing their best to keep numbers low so when its time to wrangle them up and crush them because "Americans just wouldn't buy an electric car" it will be a lot easier.

It just seems they are doing everything in their power to discourage sales which is quite a shame because the owners that have them here really seem to love them.

 

That's what I keep hearing as well. I would definitely be interested to drive one, but I still think the prius plugin will be more up my alley.

SPH-D700 ?

 

I've never even seen one...not that I know of anyways.

 

Let's be real. The source of the story is a right-affiliated group. The right didn't support the bailout, and they can't stand the fact that it has been successful. Go to the NLPC site and read their other pieces on the auto industry, or anything else for that matter. It's rather obvious that this is political.