Tuesday, October 06, 2009

Cash For Clunkers

(bumped to the top)

Here's a list of some of the vehicles turn in under the Cash For Clunkers program. Were these FFV's and CNG vehicles "clunkers" or "polluting"?

Why did you and I pay for people to unload these vehicles?

Breakdown by model:

Chevrolet Silverado 2500 HD 4WD CNG - 5
Chevrolet Silverado 15 Hybrid 2WD - 1
Chevrolet Silverado 2500 2WD (Bifuel) - 1
Ram Van 2500 2WD CNG - 1
Ram Wagon 2500 2WD CNG - 2
Ford Crown Victoria CNG - 2
Ford Crown Victoria FFV - 1
Ford E250 CNG - 7
Ford E250 Econoline 2WD CNG - 82
Ford Explorer 2WD FFV - 74
Ford Explorer 4WD FFV - 114
Ford Explorer Sport FFV 2WD - 10
Ford Explorer Sport FFV 4WD - 24
Ford Explorer Sport Trac FFV 2WD - 4
Ford Explorer Sport Trac FFV 4WD - 4
Ford F150 CNG - 27
Ford F150 Dual-fuel 2WD (CNG) - 14
Ford F150 Dual-fuel 2WD (LPG) - 8
Ford F150 Dual-fuel 4WD (CNG) - 5
Ford F150 Dual-fuel 4WD (LPG) - 16
Ford F150 Pickup 2WD CNG - 27
Ford F150 Pickup FFV 2WD - 1
Ford F250 Pickup 2WD CNG - 59
Ford Ranger FFV 2WD - 1026
Ford Ranger FFV 4WD - 383
GM Sierra 2500 HD 4WD CNG - 1
GMC Sonoma 2WD (FFV) - 2
Mazda B3000 (FFV) Ethanol 2WD - 13
Mazda B3000 2WD FFV - 1
Mazda B3000 FFV 2WD - 2
Mazda B3000 FFV 4WD - 51
Mercury Grand Marquis FFV - 10
Mercury Mountaineer 2WD FFV - 18
Mercury Mountaineer 4WD FFV - 40


Update, 10/6/09: The Wall Street Journal reports that the program was a flop in other ways as well:

Some 700,000 cars were sold in the summer under the program as buyers received up to $4,500 to buy a new car they would probably have purchased anyway, so all the program seems to have done is steal those sales from the future. Exactly as critics predicted...

Burton Abrams and George Parsons of the University of Delaware added up the total benefits from reduced gas consumption, environmental improvements and the benefit to car buyers and companies, minus the overall cost of cash for clunkers, and found a net cost of roughly $2,000 per vehicle. Rather than stimulating the economy, the program made the nation as a whole $1.4 billion poorer.

2 comments:

Cars4Charities said...

In many of these cases, the vehicle owners could have received a tax deduction worth more than the c4c voucher if they had donated their car to charity. The car would not have been destroyed. The car donation charity would have either sold it or given it to a needy famil.

Darren said...

Ah, but in a society in which government takes care of everything, there's no need for charity.