Detroit Captures Market Share of Dumped Clunkers
Washington’s hugely popular cash for clunkers program has boosted all auto sales 16 percent from June to July as desperate and grateful Americans unloaded the gas guzzling behemoths they had been lured into buying with huge SUV tax credits by the Bush administration. (Small business owners like doctors, lawyers, and real estate agents had been able to use fossil friendly incentives to deduct more than $100,000 of the cost of an SUV from their taxes.) Now that they have the chance, Americans are unloading those gas guzzlers.
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Ford sales under Cash for Clunkers have been especially good:
Ford sales rose from 160,990 vehicles in July 2008 to 164,795 last month — an increase of 2.4 percent. as its share of the market jumped from 14.2 percent to 16.5 percent. Ford posted the first monthly sales increase of any full-line manufacturer this year as customers traded in old Fords for new ones.
But Ford trucks and SUVs also top the most dumped clunkers list.
Ford customers dumped their hunky clunker Ford Explorers averaging real-world 17 mpg in favor of the tiny fuel efficient Focus with a real-world average of 34 mpg - effectively doubling their gas mileage.
Ford’s most popular trade-ins represent a 17 mpg increase.
To qualify for the $4,500, you must increase your fuel efficiency by a minimum of 10 mpg. Fuelly.com; where users track actual mileage, gives buyers a good idea of real world fuel efficiency.
“According to the Department of Transportation, 83% of the trade-ins are trucks and SUVs, with the Ford Explorer capturing six of the ten most traded in spots. It is likely that consumers are trading in vehicles where they purchased them originally.
“The government’s program is doing what it is designed to do - spur consumers to trade in older gas guzzlers for new, fuel-efficient vehicles,” said a Chrysler spokesman.
People just aren’t into the gas guzzling trucks anymore.
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the introduction to this piece seems to take a random shot at doctors, lawyers, and real estate agents. does the author have an axe to grind with these particular professionals? are these three professions more likely than others to drive wasteful, polluting SUV’s? Just curious, because i’m one of the more green people i know. i admittedly drive a 1998 Ford Windstar (didn’t qualify as a clunker under CARS, it gets 19 mpg), but these days i’ve been leaving it in the driveway and commuting to the office by bicycle.
Richard Harding M.D.
I still love trucks!
And go Ford; I bleed Blue Oval.
It looks like the posters who said they wouldn’t buy from “Government Motors” meant it.
I need a truck. No car can legally tow my “ultra-Lite” travel trailer. It has to do with the car makers saving law suits by underrating the actual capability of the cars.
I really miss the mileage capability of my old 5.0 Mustang. It was at least 50% better.
Owning a truck because you need one and owning it because you want to drive the biggest thing you can find are two different things.
@ Technology Slice
As long as the latter is true, we still live in America.
Sorry Dr. Richard,
I was quoting a piece that cited those 3 professions as examples of business owners who could qualify for that SUV tax credit to write off giant SUVs as business expenses - yet did not need them the way an electrician or a plumber or a handyman might genuinely need them for their business.
Reading the title “Detroit Captures Market Share of Dumped Clunkers” led me to think this is good news and I assumed that would be discussed. Yet the first sentence makes this a hit piece on the prior administration. Only later is Ford sales touched on but no hard information is provided for all three of the Detroit manufacturers. Why even write this? Perhaps the title should have read “President Obama’s Cash for Clunkers program rights the wrongs of Bush’s 2003 policy”.