The Wayne County Airport Authority prohibits motorists from parking at the Detroit Metro Airport Chevrolet Bolts that have not received the repairs recommended by a recall notice from General Motors. The authority cites concerns that the vehicles could catch fire.

“For customer safety, Chevrolet Bolt electric vehicles that have NOT been repaired by the recent recall are prohibited from parking at all DTW facilities,” said the notice on the airport’s website.

Screenshot of Detroit Metro Airport's website.

Bolts that lack the needed repairs could cause catch on fire, Matt Morawski, director of communications at the airport authority, told Michigan Capitol Confidential in an email. The airport is reviewing parking policies for electric vehicles, he added.

“This work is being done under an environment of changing regulatory and technological requirements,” Morawski added.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration warned Bolt owners on Aug. 20, 2021, to park their vehicles outside, citing safety concerns.

The concerns expressed by the airport authority show what happens when government policies get ahead of markets and technological development, said Jason Hayes, director of energy and environmental policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

“When governments force products into the market before they have been adequately tested and vetted, you often end up with bad (or even dangerous) results,” Hayes told CapCon in an email.

Mandates and financial incentives from state and federal governments encourage automakers to produce electric vehicles, Hayes said.

Consumers, not the government, should take the lead in using new technologies, said Theodore Bolema, senior editor at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and a member of the Board of Scholars at the Mackinac Center.

“When the government tries to artificially speed up the adoption of a technology by pressuring manufacturers to accelerate their development of new products, there will be more unanticipated problems and less opportunity for manufacturers in the industry and related markets to address the problems before the products hit the market,” Bolema wrote to CapCon in an email.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer mandated all state-owned vehicles to be electric by 2040.

Consumers have taken a more cautious approach, with approximately 50,000 EVs registered with the state, compared with millions of gas-powered vehicles. Nationally, sales of electric vehicles declined in the first quarter of 2024, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration

Ford Motor Co. announced in April that it was slowing production of its electric vehicles.

General Motors gave notice in 2023 that it would discontinue making the Chevy Bolt. It then reversed course and said on Oct. 8, 2024, that production would resume, with a new Bolt to be offered in 2026.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer wants Michigan to slap a 32% wholesale tax on marijuana, suggesting that this general fund revenue could be used for her long-deferred plan to fix the state's roads.

The second-term governor, who promised to "fix the damn roads" in both of her election campaigns, says the tax would raise $470 million.

Whitmer also wants to hike the corporate income tax, promising that this would raise another $1.6 billion and that the increase in revenue would finally enable the state to fund road repairs. The governor said the state could also cut an unspecified $500 million in spending from other areas.

But a prominent Detroit law firm is pushing back against the governor's basis for requesting the new pot tax.

The governor claims that the state’s thriving cannabis industry benefits from a tax loophole.

“After voters legalized marijuana, the industry has grown exponentially thanks in part to Michigan’s industry-friendly taxes, the fourth-lowest in the nation,” the governor’s office said in a statement. “The industry, which recorded billions in sales in 2024, uses Michigan roads to transport marijuana multiple times throughout the process, including to grow operations, testing labs, distribution hubs, and finally retail stores.”

Dykema Gossett PLLC, a Detroit firm that supported the Michigan Medical Marihuana Act, disputed the governor's claim that there is a loophole exempting cannabis from a wholesale tax on smoking products.

“What the Mi Road Ahead Plan references is Michigan’s Tobacco Products Tax Act (‘TPTA’), which was enacted in 1993 — 25 years before marijuana was ever legalized,” wrote Dykema attorneys Lance Boldrey and John Fraser in a Feb. 11 post. “The TPTA does not contain a ‘loophole’ for marijuana products; it addresses an entirely different product and industry.”

The marijuana industry already pays a 10% excise tax and a 6% sales tax, but the governor has implied that marijuana should be taxed a third time, via the Tobacco Products Tax Act.

“Quite simply, the Mi Roads Plan proposes levying a new 32% wholesale tax on the marijuana industry,” the Dykema attorneys wrote.

House Speaker Matt Hall, R-Richland Township, said Michigan should find the funding for roads in its $83.5 billion budget instead of raising taxes. Over two years, Michigan lawmakers squandered a $9 billion surplus, Hall said. Projected state spending has increased by 47% since 2018.

“Michigan families expect results,” Hall said in a Feb. 10 press release. “That’s why our plan focuses on real solutions, including prioritizing funding roads over funding corporate earmarks, making the most out of our current budget instead of raising new taxes, and fixing local roads first. Roads and infrastructure are essential, and we must get this right.”