Regardless of less than expected sales and suspended production of electric cars in the United States, France is redoubling its investment in electric car infrastructure and tax preferences. A new 50 million Euro investment was announced on October 3rd to support the purchase of zero and low-emmission vehicle and cover the costs of deploying charging stations on highways, public parking lots and parks. Electric cars will also benefit from preferential fees and tolls. The consumer bonus for purchasing an electric vehicle will be increased from €5,000 to €7,000 in 2013, and hybrid bonuses doubled to €4,000. French officials admitted that the French auto industry is in trouble and needs the investment. It produced only 2 million cars in 2012 compared with 3.5 million in 2005. In the United States, GM has suspended the production of it long range electric vehicle, the Chevy Volt because of lower than projected sales. The Nissan Leaf has also not sold as well as expected, and Toyota announced plans to scale back the release of its all electric eQ. But no one in the fossil-fueled mainstream press seems to remember the taxpayer funded bailout of the US auto industry just a few years ago
As part of its overall its overall automotive industrial plan by the Minister of Industrial Renewal, the GRIEVE (Groupement pour L'Itinérance des Recharges Électrique de Véhicules) system is established to promote commonality for recharging electric vehicles, thus assuring French motorists that they can use and locate charging stations regardless of who owns them. One of the major reasons attributed to lack of consumer acceptance of electric vehicles in the United States is the lack of widespread charging infrastructure as well as limited vehicle range. An analyst with the Center for Automotive Research in Michigan said, "Electric vehicles make no more sense than they did in 1912". Of course he made that statement before someone he got the memo about global warming and its effects on climate.