Dealers needs more electric cars to meet demand
Windsor area GM dealerships are lucky to get a dozen all-electric Bolt cars a year
Bob Aylesworth had his mind made up years ago: When the time was right he was going to buy a battery-only, electric vehicle.
That time came for the retired St. Clair College professor at the beginning of this year when he made the purchase of a new 2017 Chevy Bolt.
The problem was he made his $47,000 buy without even seeing the car — then he had to wait three months before it arrived at the local dealership.
“I am a strong environmental-oriented person,” Aylesworth said. “When I bought it in mid-January they didn’t even have the brochures at that time. I got it strictly based on online reviews.
“It was a little bit scary. I didn’t know anyone else with an electric car.”
Today, Aylesworth can breathe a huge sigh of relief because he “just loves” his new Bolt, which, after a government rebate of $14,000, cost him $33,000 “all-in.”
“It’s just a really smooth, quiet vehicle,” he said. “It gets a lot of positive attention and I’m not burning gas.”
The Windsor resident has read about the slow sales of electric vehicles, but he believes the reason for it has nothing to do with the quality of the cars, but their availability.
“People walk in to buy a car and there is not one available, so they buy something else,” he said. “People are not buying them because it’s so hard to find them.”
Aylesworth purchased his Bolt at Gus Revenberg Chevrolet Buick where he was one of only a handful of locals who was lucky enough to purchase the vehicle.
General Motors will stop producing the 2017 Bolt next week and start producing the 2018 version in January, according to Mickey Pierre, general sales manager at Revenberg.
But dealers have been told it will be a shortened production year for the electric vehicle ending in the summer. That will keep availability on this side of the border tight, he said.
Dealerships are allocated a certain number of Bolts for the year based on their sales volumes, Pierre said.
Buyers will be forced to continue buying the Bolt sight unseen and waiting anywhere from three to six months to receive their car, he said.
Dealerships in the Windsor area will be lucky to have a dozen or so Bolts available for sale.
Pierre agreed with Aylesworth that sales would jump if dealerships had them stocked in larger numbers.
“We could sell 20 to 25 a year if we could get the numbers (in stock) of that car,” Pierre said.
While the Bolt will be hard to come by, the Chevy Volt, which runs primarily on battery, but also fuel, is more readily available with two currently sitting in the showroom at the dealership, he said.
“You will be able to find them in stock at most dealers,” Pierre said.
Volts can be test driven and then — if special ordered — will arrive in eight to 10 weeks, he said.
General Motors manufactures both vehicles in Michigan, so each are more widely available across the border.
An issue for local dealerships has been receiving timely reimbursement for the $14,000 rebates being handed out to EV buyers.
Local MPP Percy Hatfield (NDP — Windsor Tecumseh) just over a week ago sounded the alarm bell at Queen’s Park on the issue since some of the province’s larger dealerships are owed hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The money has since “started trickling in,” Hatfield said on Friday.
“The problem was they didn’t have the bureaucracy in place to process (the rebates),” Hatfield said. “The good news is more of these vehicles are being sold and we are getting them on the road. People understand it makes sense for the environment.”
As of October, the province has provided incentives through the Electric Vehicle Incentive Program (EVIP) to support the purchase of more than 10,000 electric vehicles representing a total value of over $84 million, said Bob Nichols, spokesman for the Ministry of Transportation.
That includes incentives provided to both individuals and dealerships which breaks down to about 50 per cent each, he said.
Nichols indicated the ministry is not able to “accurately calculate the total incentive value waiting for approval.”
“Some dealerships operate independently while others are part of a broader network of multiple dealerships, which can result in a larger number of applications from one applicant waiting to be processed,” he said.
MTO is currently working to improve program administration by assigning additional resources and by working with dealers to develop a more streamlined process to approve applications, Nichols said.
“We are making progress,” he said. “In fact, over the last few weeks MTO has approved payment for over 2,000 dealer applications.”