Cash for Clunkers.

[dnalexander]

I thought Tesla just finished a new plan down there in SJ.

It would be nice to have the prius here.

The San Jose deal is not completely a "done" deal, but I think probably the one more likely to happen. A deal with Toyata at NUMMI could change all that. Very speculative, but a possibility.

David

p.s. Anmar just as a point of clarification. I eat at the Sky Kitchen, the Tesla folks do too. We talk and wave to each other. Also, I overhear their conversations. Just wanted to emphasize "speculative".

[Teresa]

[greatguns]

Hell, I'd just like to have CASH for a clunker!!!!!!!

[Warph]

Sales attributed to the government's "Cash for Clunkers" program have topped 180,000 units.  Lawmakers agreed to add additional $2 billion funding to the program which should give buyers until labor day to trade in their older vehicles for new more fuel-efficient ones.
More than 80 percent of the vehicles traded in have been trucks, SUVs and vans, while 59 percent of the vehicles purchased have been passenger cars.  The Toyota Corolla recently overtook the Ford Focus as the best-selling vehicle in the program.  The Ford Focus holds the number two spot, while the Honda Civic comes in third.

According to Torque Report: The sales numbers for July are in for the top ten best-selling cars.  The Ford F-150 and Toyota Camry are at the top of the list and the Toyota Prius also makes an appearance at the number 10 spot.

* Ford F-Series: 36,327
* Toyota Camry: 33,974
* Honda Civic: 30,037
* Honda Accord: 29,774   
* Toyota Corolla: 29,593
* Chevy Silverado: 27,617
* Ford Focus: 21,830
* Ford Escape: 20,241
* Nissan Altima: 19,252
* Toyota Prius: 19,173

[Warph]

The Obama administration has been raving about the success of "Cash for Clunkers"  or "CARS" and this week Congress approved $2 billion more for the program.  Why the popping of champagne corks?  First, the demand for the program was so great that consumers burned through the $1 billion allotted for the rebates in a matter of days.  Second, with the amount of flak the administration has taken for its mismanagement of the economy and the health care debate, any perceived victory is welcome.  But this is simply not the victory that Obama wants us to believe it is.

Even in the handful of days that the program was active, CARS was plagued by administrative problems -- just like any other government program.  The government Web site that dealers were told to use to submit buyers' rebate applications crashed repeatedly due to the high volume of requests.

Dealers also had a difficult time registering for the program.  Fine-print stipulations about the types of cars and light trucks that could be turned in and which ones could be bought led to customer confusion.  Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA) said, "If this is how the government is going to handle billion-dollar programs affecting all Americans, I ask, whatever will we do if this administration takes control of our health care?"

Meanwhile, the positive impact on the automotive industry and the economy, and indirectly on energy consumption and the environment, is grossly, grossly, grossly overstated.  The upsurge in new vehicle sales that CARS is expected to bring will likely to be short lived -- all it did was condense several months of expected new vehicle sales and old vehicle trade-ins into a shorter period of time.  No new wealth is being created; it's just moving from one pocket to another.  And destroying thousands of older, cheaper automobiles negatively affects the economy.  I wonder, trading the old clunker in on a car that sells for $25,000-$30,000 plus, with payments for sixty months at $500 to $600 a month... I also wonder how many repo's the government going to wind up with.   

Oh yeah.... are you really having a hard time finding an inexpensive used vehicle for your newly driving son or daughter?  You can thank BO and his "CARS." program.

And then we have this:

Fox News' Glenn Beck reported that the federal government posted an ominous message at the Clunkers Web site stating that while logged into the Department of Transportation CARS system, users' computers would be considered property of the federal government and therefore all materials on the computers could be scanned, recorded, monitored, inspected and disclosed to any element of the government, including law enforcement.

After Beck's program aired, the government quickly "clarified" that "users who logged into the site had no explicit or implicit expectation of privacy," which sounds essentially like what Beck reported, just in better legalese.

This should be considered an outrage of epic proportions, but the response from watchdog groups has been muted.

The ACLU, which challenged every move the Bush administration made during his eight years in office, had this to say: "It is hard to believe that the Obama administration would do something like this."

Unfortunately it's not hard to believe that the ACLU's selective view of civil liberties would cause them to be asleep at the switch while Socialists run the White House

[dnalexander]

SuperWarph you know I am an avid fan of your posts. I am not in a reading mood so I am sorry if your post mentioned this concept.

Yes the program is popular. It is just compressing the time in which people already looking to buy a car over the next year do so. They are doing it today because of the program. Since everyone is buying now what happens in 6 months or later? Not to mention that this is being paid for by copier machine money and debt for your kids and your grandchildren. Just for clarification I have no kids or grandchildren, so if I only cared about myself I could say that it doesn't matter to me, but that is not true.

David