Its not just about bad mileage, its also about stimulating the economy via new car purchases. Getting the worst cars off the street helps a whole hell of a lot with emissions and the air we breathe. I guess some people cant get over the “fine but when do I get mine” mindset.
I’m not convinced that producing X number of new cars doesn’t create more pollution than leaving shitty old cars on the road does.
IIRC, one of the states (Illinois?) released a report a few years back on how the worst 20% of cars on the road are responsible for something like 60 or 70% or all toxic emissions. State governments have their own clunker programs just to get these terrible cars off the road. A beater with a falling apart catalytic converter (if it even has one) getting 10 mpg is really worth getting off the road via subsidies to get a new car. Even if the new car only get 15mpg, its still a huge step up, emissions-wise.
First, by not paying $4,500 for a car that is worth a lot less. Asuming that gas guzzlers are fungible, why not buy as many as you can from used car dealers at the lowest price possible? I bet I can buy 10 gas guzzlers for $450 each. That’s 10 cars permanently off the market with no replacement, rather than 1 off the market that has been replaced with a new model. Even if 8 out of those 10 cars were going to be crushed anyway with 2 of them sold and operated by the public, I’m way ahead in getting rid of guzzlers.
Second, by claiming the salvage value of the vehicles to further fund the program, rather than allowing the dealers to take this additional money. Reading the law, I believe that the dealer really only has to send the engine block to the crusher. They can make money by parting out everything else. Each of those $450 cars I bought might have $50 to $100 salvage or scrap value. Why give it away like the cash for clunkers program does?
First of all, how many $450 gas guzzlers are out there? I can’t imagine that there are very many. And as soon as you start doing that, you inflate the value of gas guzzlers both on the used car lots and sitting on people’s lawns.
I’m pretty sure there are quite a few, but you are not going to find them on a new car dealers used lot. You need to go to the used car dealers that buy and sell the cheaper cars.
As for inflation, I’d say that $4,500 right off the bat is the extreme case of that. Even if the value of old used cars does go up, I’d still get more clunkers off the market.
Not exactly. Yuppies are very forthcoming in shelling out too much money on food products (whether it’s vegetarian or just French). It’s a very clear pattern and the sellers are very accomodating about it. (If all of you ganged up and started comparison shopping, you wouldn’t be in this mess.)
That’s a really good idea. Of course, the modern government can’t make use of such good ideas. How the hell are they going to go around car dealerships finding these cars? It’d be $10000 in administration costs for each one of those $450 clunkers. That’s why the government doesn’t want the scrap metal either.
I would also like to point out the other obvious improvement: Use something better than a step function. Why is there no incentive to buy a car with more than 10mpg improvement? Why is the line so sharply drawn at 18mpg? The government never realizes that using smooth, continuous functions in its laws would align incentives much much better…
On dealer forecourts, none. In fact, there isn’t a single Chevrolet Suburban listed on Auto Trader nationwide for $500 or less (and only half a dozen at under $1000).
However, you’ll find tons of them at auction. Under the current setup of the American used vehicle market that’s where 90% of sub-$2k vehicles go.
Ok, I may be wrong about where exactly to get them, but I’ll stand by my idea to buy the cheapest ones to maximize the numbers removed from the market.
How about some sort of reverse auction? First you’d need to carefully define the eligible cars (e.g., those getting less than 18 MPG, of a certain model year or older, etc). Then you offer to buy any such cars, on a first-come first-serve basis, starting with those cars at the lowest offered price, until the budgeted amount is spent.
Like Dag Otto’s plan, it might result in more polluting cars removed from the road, but at the cost of increased complexity. The advantage of the current plan, on the other hand, is its relative simplicity.
We’re forgetting there are 3 utterly incompatible goals here. The result looks like fudge because it has to fulfill all 3 goals enough to get passed:
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Cause Americans to buy a lot of new 2009 American cars. That means the models GM, Ford & Chrysler have availabe to sell today, not the models we might wish they had available.
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Improve the “CAFE” of the actual US vehicle fleet without inducing people to buy non-American cars.
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Ensure most of the subsidy goes to the middle class, not poor people.
Minor goal 4: Minimize the opportunity for people to game the system, and also minimize unforeseen consequences.
There’s nothing in the plan that restricts it to new vehicles from the big three, or even vehicles manufactured in North America. Earlier versions of the bill did but it was removed. New Priuses shipped over on a boat from Japan are as eligable as any domestic. (that also meets the mileage requirements)