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Electrek As sales of electric vehicles continue to surge in 2021, many new and prospective customers have questions about qualifying for federal tax credit on electric vehicles. You cannot simply go out and buy an electric vehicle and expect Uncle Sam to cut $7,500 off your taxes in April. In reality, the amount you qualify for is based on both your income tax as well as the size of the electric battery in the vehicle you own. While the credit amount is based on battery size, the amount of that credit you can receive is based entirely on your federal income tax and is implemented as such. For example, if you owned a Nissan LEAF and owed say, $3,500 in income tax this year, then that is the federal tax credit you would receive. If you owed $10,000 in federal income tax, then you would qualify for the full $7,500 credit. Read the article at Electrek. |
The Drive According to new research from Nature Energy, not everybody who takes the leap and buys an electric car sticks with the decision. In fact, around one in five people—or 20 percent—switch back to gasoline-powered cars. Why? Well, it’s for a variety of reasons, as it turns out. Those who were least likely to stick with electric vehicles were the ones who depended on them for their only means of transportation. Women also switched back to gas-powered vehicles at higher rates than men. Adopters who were most likely to ditch EVs were generally younger and were less likely to live in a standalone house, making home charging an issue. This makes it very difficult to secure 240v fast charging where these people live, so they’re completely dependent on public charging stations. Read the article at The Drive. |
The Verge UK-based EV startup Arrival is working with Uber to develop an electric car that will be “purpose-built” for ride-hailing. Arrival plans to put the car into production in late 2023 and says it will not be exclusive to Uber. The goal is to create an affordable vehicle that would appeal to the millions of ride-hailing drivers around the world. There may be “hundreds of small improvements, changes, and tweaks to the design that perhaps haven’t been applied before,” according to Tom Elvidge, Arrival’s senior vice president of mobility. There are a few subtle differences that could enhance the ride-hailing experience for both drivers and passengers such as, an ergonomically designed seat for the driver to ease the physical strain of sitting in a car for hours on end, and a folding front passenger seat to create more leg room. Read the article at The Verge. |
IIHS The new 2021 Ford Bronco Sport, a small SUV, earns a TOP SAFETY PICK+ award from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety with stellar performance in crashworthiness and crash avoidance evaluations. To qualify for TOP SAFETY PICK+, the higher of the Institute’s two awards, vehicles must earn good ratings in all six IIHS crashworthiness evaluations, including the driver-side small overlap front, passenger-side small overlap front, moderate overlap front, side, roof strength and head restraint tests. The Bronco Sport, which was introduced in 2021, hits all those marks. Both the standard and optional front crash prevention systems earn superior ratings in the vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-pedestrian evaluations. And the headlight system offered on all trims earns a good rating. Read the article at IIHS. |
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 Autoblog The semiconductor shortage has slashed vehicle production so much that rental-car companies can’t get the new cars they need, so they have resorted to buying used vehicles at auction. The problem started a year ago, when the pandemic decimated travel. Rental companies sold hundreds of thousands of cars, said Neil Abrams, president of Abrams Consulting Group Inc., which works in the rental industry. Then travel bounced back right when auto production was hit by a shortage of semiconductors. The demand is sending used-car costs soaring. The Manheim Index, which measures prices at wholesale auctions, shows they’re 52% higher than they were a year ago. The car crunch is a boon for rental companies, which likely will have strong profits because they’ll rent out every car they own at much higher rates than they charged before the Covid pandemic. But consumers will take a hit if they want to rent a car for vacation. Read the article at Autoblog. |
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 CNN Business Millions of people stuck at home for more than a year are expected to hit the road for much-needed post-pandemic vacations this summer. Good luck finding gas. Not that there’s a looming shortage of crude oil or gasoline. Rather, it’s the tanker truck drivers needed to deliver the gas to stations who are in short supply. Not just any truck driver is allowed to drive a tanker truck. It requires special certification, including a commercial driver’s license, and weeks of training after being hired. It is strenuous, difficult work. Drivers left the business a year ago when gasoline demand ground to a near halt during the early pandemic-related shutdowns. Holly McCormick, vice president in charge of driver recruitment and retention at Groendyke Transport, an Oklahoma tanker company said, “A lot of drivers didn’t want to do the safety protocols. We’re also working with an aging work force. Many said ‘I might as well take it as a cue to retire.'” Read the article at CNN Business. |
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 By Bill Bishop, Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing, FLD Remarketing Auto assembly lines shuttering from Kansas City to Beijing. Luxury car models like Mercedes Benz hoarding parts for their most expensive models, while simultaneously halting production on cheaper offerings. And some manufacturers – like France’s Peugeot – looking for ways to drop modern touches like digital speedometers in favor of previously obsolete analog models – something previously unthinkable. At a time when global demand for new vehicles may be at an all-time high, what in the world is causing such strange behavior from the world’s most powerful vehicle manufacturers? In a word – and a short one at that – chips. READ MORE |
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