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A total of 690,000 new vehicles were sold under the Cash for Clunkers program last summer, but only 125,000 of those were vehicles that would not have been sold anyway, according to an analysis released Wednesday by the automotive Web site Edmunds.com.
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there is a lot of heresay in that number. They are multiplying the average rebate by the total cars sold over the period, then dividing by the number which they predict would not have sold anyway, to get around $24000.
This program did more than get new cars sold. It has and is doing lots of good. Theres alot less oil use because of it too.
A lot less oil use? Explain this one. The consumption difference between a 'clunker' and the replacement cars was miniscule (IIRC to get the maximum rebate it only had to be 4mpg better). This program was about getting people to start buying on credit again, not about some touchy-feely green movement that the administration is trying to dazzle everyone with.
The huge problem is people don't look at the secondary costs. Sure, the new car is using -a little- less gas, but all those clunkers are now trash sitting in a yard somewhere, leeching oil into the ground. And they didn't get there by magic, they got there carried by some big diesel-belching semi truck, and they got crushed by some big smoking diesel-powered crusher. While a servicable car could have gone on a long time, consuming a minisculely higher amount of pertoleum compared to the new car, a huge amount of fossil fuels and energy was put into disableing, moving and destroying it, and then building and transporting its replacement. Destroying the cars removes potentially usable recycleable parts, which now have to be made new, at the cost of energy.
At best, the effect on fossil fuel usage broke even.
it was nothing to do with being green. it was part of the stimulus and a means of propping up domestic auto. there's a good article in the latest fortune by steve rattner who led the auto bailout.
Reporting for my first day of work on the auto task force, I lingered outside a guard shack on Pennsylvania Avenue. My clearance into the fortress-like Treasury building was adrift in a bureaucratic haze, a fitting example of the chaotic start of my government service.
'12 F30 328i Sport Line '91 SpecE30 #523
'00 Ford F-350 Dually Tow Vehicle
BMWCCA #360858 NASA #128290
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