Hmm, It had been my impression that the Volt's battery pack was sized to purposefully maximize the credit but I'll admit I don't know the specifics of the timeline. Do you have any citations of the timing of these rules to say that the Volt drove the legislation?
My understanding is the Volt design target was 40 miles EV range from the beginning. Here's a reference to that from May 2007: GM refocuses on Volt, thinks 2010 sales are doable - Autoblog First public details seem to have come out around Jan 2007: Detroit Auto Show: It's here. GM's plug-in hybrid is the Chevy Volt Concept By mid 2008 it was already being discussed that the price projections were creeping up from the original <$30k target to more like $40k. How Much Will the Chevy Volt Cost? The original plugin vehicle credit was part of the Energy Improvement and Extension Act signed by GW Bush October 2008. Public Law 110-343 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The Plug-in Prius demonstrators Toyota was testing in 2008 used a ~3.5kWh battery and would not have qualified for any tax credit. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/14/business/14plug.html The PiP battery was redesigned to meet the 4kWh minimum for the production version. I believe the only full BEV on the market in 2008 was the Tesla Roadster with a 56kWh pack. It seems like the Leaf wasn't announced in 2009.
I don't why Toyota settled on the pack size they released, but it had little to do with the credit legislation. In fact, Toyota lobbyists were there pushing the 5kWh minimum in the original draft down while GM's were working for the best deal for the Volt. Internal Revenue Bulletin - November 30, 2009 - Notice 2009-89
Miscrms: Your Alex Jones-style conspiracy is entertaining, but flat wrong, because Congress inserted the 7500 credit into the tax code in 2008..... it was not designed to either favor or punish the Volt or Prius Plugin, since neither existed at the time.
If you read the time line above, both were in active development in 2008 and both companies were lobbying hard. I was fairly active with Plug-in America and the cal-cars open source Prius+ at the time and was watching it all unfold in real time. GM said their future depended on the Volt. Then they said they couldn't deliver it at $30k, it would cost $40k. Pretty much everyone realized it would be a dismal failure at that price. Then the Gov showed up with a $7500 tax credit that was optimized to benefit the Volt. Like I said, I don't claim that was the wrong thing to do. On the whole I'd say its been positive for the EV industry. Just thinks its important to acknowledge that this was more about bailing out GM than it was about promoting the technology. And given everything else the Gov did to make sure GM stayed solvent, I don't think its a crazy conspiracy to think this was part of the package. Rob
Not sure what you're getting at, this is an IRS bulletin explaining the law. As far as I can tell it contains a typo in the top section saying 5kWh, as below it says 4kWh which matches whats in the law. Rob
