FocusCanada Forums

The premier of the Canadian province of Ontario, Dalton McGuinty, reportedly plans to announce a major incentive program for plug-in vehicles today in Toronto. Ontario has already given several billion dollars to General Motors and Chrysler and wants to help boost the industry further to try and recoup some of its "investment." To that end, McGuinty plans to offer tax incentives of up to $10,000 toward the purchase of plug-in vehicles.

No details are available yet, but the plan would likely be similar to a U.S. program, with graduated incentives of up to $7,500 depending on the capacity of the battery. A wide array of plug-ins are expected to arrive over the next several years, including the Chevrolet Volt, Ford's Transit Connect and Focus based EVs, Toyota's PHEV Prius and Nissan's EV, among others. McGuinty will reportedly also pledge to have at least 20 percent of the province's vehicle fleet be plug-ins by 2020.

I already posted my thoughts elsewhere but in brief:

This is nothing more than posturing & puffery, given the inability of any automaker to produce hybrids in sufficient numbers.

For example, the 2010 Fusion Hybrid has a planned run of 20,000 units this MY for all of North America.

Guess how many Canada gets? If it's anything over 200 total for all of Canada I'll eat a brick and no the other manufacturers are no better. Hell if GM ever produces their electric car I'll faint, NVM their half assed "hybrids" (Including an Escalade hybrid... what a waste of technology <_<)

And if McDipstick isn't careful, they'll end up giving rebates on the Lexus hybrid <_<

The upshot is, he gets his warm & fuzzy "hug the Earth" moment and has to put out peanuts to do it.

NefCanuck

I like to see where Dalton is going with this, personally i would like to see Diesels being brought over, but thats just me.

Was watching motoring 2009 and Jim said it would take about 15 to 20 yrs before a hybird pays for itself, so i wonder if his openion of hybirds will change when he sees 10-4K rebate!