any readers are surprised to learn that Charged is
headquartered not in California, but in St Peters-
burg, Florida. Once a sleepy retirement center
nicknamed “God’s Waiting Room,” nowadays “The Burg” is
a hipster hotspot, replete with art galleries, craft breweries
and vegan eateries.
Another distinction that places St Pete in the avant-garde:
it’s an EV hotspot. For example, it’s the #1 city in Florida for
Chevrolet EV sales (and Florida is the #2 state after Cali-
fornia). Almost one out of three Chevy EVs sold in the state
are driving the palm-shaded streets of St Pete. According
to GM, Chevrolet sold 235 plug-in vehicles (195 Volts and
40 Bolts) in St Petersburg in 2018, far ahead of second-place
Orlando (60 plug-ins) and running neighbor and friendly
rival Tampa (28 units) off the road.
It isn’t just the city’s hipster vibe that’s at work here. All
these EV sales were closed at Chevy’s sole St Pete dealer,
Maher Chevrolet. Maher Executive Manager Greg Soulliere
told us that GM’s sales figures are actually short - in 2018,
Maher sold 145 new Volts and 101 Bolts, plus a substantial
number of pre-owned vehicles. Maher claims to be not only
the biggest seller of Chevy EVs in Florida, but the top seller
of Volts outside of California. GM itself has done nothing
in particular to push its EVs in Florida. “The success of Bolt
EV in Tampa/St Pete is owed to our incredible local dealers,”
Chevrolet spokesperson Katie Minter told Charged.
Maher is an exception among auto dealers around the
country, to say the least. As Charged and others have docu-
mented, most dealerships have little or no interest in selling
EVs. Consumer surveys and “secret shopper” projects
organized by the Sierra Club, Plug In America and other
advocacy groups have found that most dealers keep few or
no EVs in inventory, and that sales personnel are unable to
answer basic questions about EVs, and tend to steer custom-
ers to ICE models.
At Maher, buyers looking for a plug-in vehicle will en-
counter quite a different attitude. Sales and Lease Consul-
tant Zach Bacon is an EV expert, and he told Charged that
pretty much all the salespeople at Maher are knowledgeable
enough to educate customers about EVs. About 20 of the
company’s employees own Volts. The dealer has 27 charg-
ing stations on its lot, and solar panels on its roof. Maher
keeps plenty of plug-ins in inventory (on a recent visit to the
company’s web site, there were 61 Bolts and 22 Volts for sale)
and it features Volts and Bolts in its daily full-page ads in
the Tampa Bay Times.
However, the main reason Maher’s plug-in sales are in
high gear is that the company leverages the federal EV
tax credit to bring down the up-front cost of an EV. For
many buyers, the federal tax credit of up to $7,500 (recently
reduced to $3,750 for GM) isn’t that great a deal. The credit
can only be used to offset federal income tax, and it can’t be
carried over to a future tax year, so unless you have a siz-
able tax bill for the year you buy your vehicle, you can’t take
full advantage of it. A cash discount on the price of the car
would be much more valuable, and Maher has found a way
to make that happen.
Maher claims the federal EV tax credit on each car, then
uses it as a courtesy vehicle for three months. The company
sells the car as a pre-owned vehicle, and is able to pass on
the full amount of the tax credit, plus other incentives, to
buyers, resulting in a discount of as much as $10,000 to
$18,000 off MSRP. It’s not just the savings that drive sales- having Bolts and Volts in the loaner fleet lets prospective
customers experience plug-in vehicles on the roads.
Frank Jackalone, Director of the Sierra Club’s Florida
Chapter, recounts his personal experience: “I purchased a
2015 Volt with 2,000 miles on it from Maher for $21,823
($24,475 out the door). The MSRP for that car was $37,460.
I surveyed more than 20 dealers in South Florida for lease
and purchase prices on their Volts and determined that
Maher had the best deal if you are willing to purchase a
slightly used demo.” Jackalone has a wide network of eco-
conscious friends and acquaintances, and word of mouth
has surely resulted in a few more sales.
In some cases, Maher has been able to offer a Volt for
around the same price as its gas-powered cousin the Cruze.
When the price premium is eliminated, and a salesperson
can explain the advantages of driving electric, the EV sells
itself, Zach Bacon told us.
Of course, a little perspective is in order. Plug-in vehicles
continue to be more of an R&D project than a profit center
for GM, which sold almost 3 million vehicles in the US
in 2018. And this doesn’t seem likely to change any time
soon - GM has discontinued the Volt, and has not yet an-
nounced firm plans for any new plug-in models. Even at
Maher, while you’ll see a Bolt or two charging on the lot,
the valuable “shop window” frontage along US Highway 19
is reserved for the “lifted trucks” that make up the bulk of
the company’s sales.
M
EV outliers By Charles Morris
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SS003246 CWIEME AMERICAS CHARGED EV PRESS AD AW 1.indd 1 25/06/2019 15:48St Pete dealer Maher Chevrolet claims
the federal tax credit itself, uses the
car as a courtesy vehicle for three
months, then sells it as a pre-owned
vehicle and passes the incentives to
buyers at the point of purchase.Image courtesy of Maher Chevrolet