General Motors has no plans of reducing the Chevrolet Bolt price tag despite the fact that the U.S. federal tax credit drops from $7,500 to $3,750 starting this Monday.
This is due to the automaker’s total EV sales surpassing the 200,000 unit mark, where the federal scheme stipulates that tax credits are reduced by 50 percent.
According to Reuters, however, the carmaker will not cut the EV’s MSRP to shift more units of the Bolt EV now that federal incentives have been significantly reduced. A GM spokesperson justified this by saying “it is easier to react to the market by working with dealers and your marketing team than it is to change sticker prices.”
The General announced last week that they will invest $300 million in their Orion plant in Detroit to produce a new electric Chevrolet model based on the Bolt platform and that they’ll soon boost their EV marketing. That could mean that while Chevrolet isn’t going to reduce the price of the Bolt, they might offer their customers some new incentives for EVs. The 2019 Bolt comes with a MSRP of $37,495, including destination fees and excluding any incentives.
In contrast, Tesla dropped the prices of its models by $2,000 in January, after seeing their EV tax credit getting halved from $7,500 to $3,750. GM’s credit will drop to $1,875 in October before being phased out completely in April 2020, while Tesla’s will be reduced to $1,875 in July and expire by the end of the year.
GM’s future EV strategy involves launching at least 20 EV models by 2023. Sales of the Chevrolet Bolt were down by 23 percent in the U.S. last year, with 18,000 units being sold.