Another Obama program fail? Cash for Clunkers fails to stop increase in average age of America car

[c1ue]

http://www.northjersey.com/news/1375...0_8_years.html

The average age of a car or truck in the United States hit a record 10.8 years last year as job security and other economic worries kept many people from making big-ticket purchases such as a new car.

[IMG]http://media.northjersey.com/images/300*177/0118B_gridvehicles_30p_kk.jpg[/IMG]

That's up from the old record of 10.6 years in 2010, and it and continues a trend that dates to 1995, when the average age of a car was 8.4 years, according to a study of state vehicle registration data by the Polk automotive research firm.

However, Polk analyst Mark Seng says that a rebound in sales last year and expected growth for the next couple of years will likely lower the average age of cars as a whole in America. The aging of the American auto fleet has been a big boon for repair shops and companies that sell replacement auto parts.

In 2011, auto sales rebounded a bit to 12.8 million vehicles, especially in November and December, when sales were unusually strong. Last year {2010}, sales in the United States totaled 11.6 million. Many analysts expect this year to be better than 2011, anywhere from 13.5 million to more than 14 million vehicles. Even 14 million is still below what industry analysts consider a normal sales rate of close to 15 million per year, and far lower than the U.S. sales peak of 17 million sales that was reached in 2005.

[davidstvz]

Re: Another Obama program fail? Cash for Clunkers fails to stop increase in average age of America car

EJ's predictions continue to come true.

[lektrode]

Re: Another Obama program fail? Cash for Clunkers fails to stop increase in average age of America car

....
Cash for Clunkers fails...

....
The average age of a car or truck in the United States hit a record 10.8 years last year as job security and other economic worries kept many people from making big-ticket purchases such as a new car.

and this is a 'surprise' ??? (probably to krugman)
and THEN there's what it's done to the used car market: skyrocketing prices of them?
and just whom - precisely - has this boondoggle 'helped' ?
hint: it sure as hell aint the working class, not when the inventory of perfectly good used cars was simply trashed in the name of 'saving the auto industry' (read: buy auto union votes) thus driving up the minimum price of an older but still quite seviceable car from the 1 to 3k range up into the 3-5k range

and this is whats refered to as 'helping the little guy' ?

uh huh... about same as what they did to the housing market with the $8000 rebate, that was simply tacked onto the prices of the (temporary/fleeting) uptick in sales that year!!!!

boy i'll tell what - with 'help' like this, all we need now is more cuts to the FICA tax and then social security will be COMPLETELY BROKE in no time at all....

brilliant, just PHREAKIN BRILLIANT!!!!

and gee, by the time the lamestream media (and newt) gets done trashin the mittster, we'll get 4 more years of this yet....

[wayiwalk]

Re: Another Obama program fail? Cash for Clunkers fails to stop increase in average age of America car

I imagine the average age of a car on the road always increases during recessions, and I also suspect that this higher average also reflects the higher quality of today's cars.

That said, cash for clunkers was a #)$)(#$! of money.

[lektrode]

Re: Another Obama program fail? Cash for Clunkers fails to stop increase in average age of America car

yeah, huh - and it cost 'only' 24 THOUSAND per car sold?
quite a bargain, considering all the votes it bought, eh?
i mean just look at how much its going to cost to buy the lamestream media this time around: over a billion already?
makes 24k per car look like pocket change - hell, a trillion here and a trillion there and pretty soon, we're talkin real money...

[Thailandnotes]

Re: Another Obama program fail? Cash for Clunkers fails to stop increase in average age of America car

cost was 2,000 per car with fuel efficiency increase of 58 percent. could have been a lot better, doubt it bought any votes.

[lektrode]

Re: Another Obama program fail? Cash for Clunkers fails to stop increase in average age of America car

cost was 2,000 per car with fuel efficiency increase of 58 percent. could have been a lot better, doubt it bought any votes.

really? a 58% efficiency increase? (better tell that to the woman who's suing honda because her hybrid batteries are crappin out)

i might just accept/defer to you on this TN, but for The Facts (which really are inconvenient at times like this)

http://content.usatoday.com/communit...10/620000657/1

http://seekingalpha.com/article/1529...54-per-vehicle

http://www.autoobserver.com/2009/10/...ayer-cash.html

http://www.freakonomics.com/2009/11/...-for-clunkers/

and hey - why not throw in some 'alternative' POV's:

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2009/...ita-doan-cash/

but figgerd i'd save 'the best' for last ;)

http://www.glennbeck.com/content/art...cle/196/32528/

True Cost of Cash for Clunkers

Thursday, Oct 29, 2009 at 1:18 PM EST

Jeremy Anwyl, CEO of Edmunds.com

GLENN: 888 727 BECK, 888 727 BECK. The CEO of Edmunds.com which has been named the best car research site by Forbes, selected by consumers as the most useful website according to every J.D. Power and Associates auto shopper. Jeremy Anwyl is on the phone. Edmunds is not Jeremy, let me ask you this: You are not a partisan group. You have nothing to do with politics or anything else. You are just a car site.
ANWYL: Yeah, fundamentally a consumer car site, right.
GLENN: And you did research on the Cash For Clunkers thing.
ANWYL: Yeah. We do we actually are in a nice position because we look at a lot of the transactions that are occurring at car dealers across country, we look at what’s happening on the Internet and we’re able to, you know, do an analysis on a whole variety of areas. I think the analysis you are talking about is one we released yesterday which is sort of a look back at Cash For Clunkers and what really was the impact.
GLENN: Who was the impact?
ANWYL: Well, it was a couple of things that we saw. The big question anytime there’s any sort of incentive, you know, whether it’s an incentive from the manufacturers or in this case an incentive from the government is what would have happened if the incentive wasn’t in the marketplace. And it’s kind of a tricky thing to get at but our statisticians actually came up with a pretty novel idea and that was that we could if you look at Cash For Clunkers, it was a pretty complicated program. Not every vehicle qualified. And that by and this is a little complicated but by looking at the relationship between the vehicles that did qualify and the vehicles that didn’t, both before, during and after, you are actually able to mathematically create a picture that says, well, here’s what would have happened if we didn’t have Cash For Clunkers and here’s what, obviously what did happen. And then by comparing the two, you can do some simple math that says, well, you know what? As a result of this program, costs about $2.8 billion, we ended up selling in the neighborhood of 125,000 units that wouldn’t have been sold this year anyway.
GLENN: So then how much did you ready for this, America? Strap yourself in. How much did Cash For Clunkers cost America per vehicle that is a car that, you know, wasn’t going to be purchased?
ANWYL: He yeah, that’s the key thing. So in terms of cars that were not going to be sold anyway this year, somewhere in the neighborhood of $24,000. So it’s obviously a lot of money.
GLENN: Okay. We spent as taxpayers $24,000 per vehicle for cars that weren’t going to be sold?
ANWYL: Anyway, yeah. That’s pretty normal. When you look at the math on any kind of incentive program, the numbers get very scary. They are usually in the tens of thousands of dollars. So this in some ways is no different than most incentives.
PAT: Yeah, but this was a taxpayer incentive.
ANWYL: That’s the big thing, yeah.
PAT: If the car company, if the auto manufacturer wants to take the loss, fine, whatever. But that’s us.
ANWYL: Well, I think that’s one reason why the car companies, a lot of car companies liked the Cash For Clunkers.
GLENN: Of course. So $24,000, what was the average price of the cars that were sold?
ANWYL: About the same actually. Somewhere in the low 20s. You could be a, you know, real skeptic and say, hey, why don’t we just give cars away. Obviously you won’t know who the incremental buyers were. So that’s not possible. But it certainly makes a point.
GLENN: I don’t care who the buyer why not just give away the cars? I’m sorry to be real skeptical here. Why not just give away the cars? I mean, why wouldn’t we just I mean, this is crazy. Now let me follow up with this. What’s happening now that we have all ’09s coming out I mean the 2010s coming out.
ANWYL: 2010, yeah.
GLENN: We had the 2009s that were sold. Now we have all these new cars that have that was inventory. That was past inventory.
ANWYL: Right.
GLENN: Tell me what we have coming off line and how is the auto industry doing and how are the car dealerships doing now that Cash For Clunkers is over?
ANWYL: Well, there’s a couple of things happening. One is that right in the aftermath, the program ended the end of August, last week of August. The car sales really plummeted. So the month of August and September were pretty poor. From a consumer perspective it was not a great time to be buying because one of the things that happened through the program is inventories got really light and prices actually jumped up. So it hasn’t really been reported. But if you bought a car, say the beginning or middle of August, you paid on the average $500 to $1,000 more than you would have done otherwise. Just because inventories were tight and this is all about supply and demand. So if you bought if you had a clunker, that wasn’t so bad because you got an extra $2,000 or $3,000 more than your car was worth but if you did not have a clunker, you ended up paying that premium anyway. So from a consumer perspective that’s not great news. If you are a dealer, that’s great news because obviously, as they should, they want to make as much money as possible. So inventories got very tight. But it was bit unbalanced. So one of the things we’re seeing this month is that there’s still some remaining 2009s out there and the manufacturers I think that are going to be doing the best in October are the ones that still have those cars on sale. Big question’s going to be going forward, how are the 2010s received because the discounts won’t be as great and prices might be a little bit higher. And that’s really key to the economy.
GLENN: How about we change the meaning of clunkers to mean cars you purchased in the summer of ’09 and we do another Cash For Clunkers?
STU: $100,000 per vehicle this time.
GLENN: That would be great.
PAT: That’s a good idea.
STU: Four times as good.
PAT: You get a scar and a down payment on a house.
ANWYL: There you go.
GLENN: How about Maybachs for midrange vehicles? We give everybody a $450,000 Maybach for your midrange sedan.
PAT: Can I put that money instead toward a Veyron?
GLENN: No, no. You have to have a Maybach.
PAT: All right.
GLENN: What do you think?
ANWYL: Well, I think the point you are raising is an interesting one and that is that these things are slippery slopes. So when you start sort of stimulating one area of the economy, why not other ones. So why not, you know, a program for RV dealers or furniture companies or I mean, there’s a lot of people that were hurting.
GLENN: Believe it or not, we have cash for appliances coming.
ANWYL: Yeah, we do. That was baked into the stimulus package.
GLENN: Thank you so much. I appreciate it, Jeremy.
ANWYL: Sure, anytime.

[Thailandnotes]

Re: Another Obama program fail? Cash for Clunkers fails to stop increase in average age of America car

2,000 per car sold vs 24,000 per car that wouldn't have been bought without the program.

[photon555]

Re: Another Obama program fail? Cash for Clunkers fails to stop increase in average age of America car

Hey, the only real problem is that the program wasn't managed properly by the "right" people. Also, it wasn't big enough. We need to do it over, only this time with no dollar limits on the total amount allocated for the program. Also, we need to run the program for a full year guaranteed so that people can plan ahead instead of being rushed into making a decision. The only thing wrong with Obama's programs is that they aren't big enough and/or don't last long enough. We have to stop worrying about deficits if we're going to get the economy moving again. Even if it costs a million dollars a job, that's only a trillion dollars for a million jobs. So ten trillion should produce full employment, or close enough. What could go wrong with the Fed on our side? We have all the money we can spend, or give away. The only thing we have to fear is not spending enough money. Come on, it's fun. Full employment through full capital utilization.

[flintlock]

Re: Another Obama program fail? Cash for Clunkers fails to stop increase in average age of America car

[/B]

and this is a 'surprise' ??? (probably to krugman)
and THEN there's what it's done to the used car market: skyrocketing prices of them?
and just whom - precisely - has this boondoggle 'helped' ?
hint: it sure as hell aint the working class, not when the inventory of perfectly good used cars was simply trashed in the name of 'saving the auto industry' (read: buy auto union votes) thus driving up the minimum price of an older but still quite seviceable car from the 1 to 3k range up into the 3-5k range

and this is whats refered to as 'helping the little guy' ?

uh huh... about same as what they did to the housing market with the $8000 rebate, that was simply tacked onto the prices of the (temporary/fleeting) uptick in sales that year!!!!

boy i'll tell what - with 'help' like this, all we need now is more cuts to the FICA tax and then social security will be COMPLETELY BROKE in no time at all....

brilliant, just PHREAKIN BRILLIANT!!!!

and gee, by the time the lamestream media (and newt) gets done trashin the mittster, we'll get 4 more years of this yet....

I can vouch for the higher price of used cars. I bought a car last spring and the salesman asked me what I wanted for my trade. Normally I'd tell him to just make an offer but instead just threw out a high number I thought they'd never go for. He came back in a few minutes and offered me $100 MORE than I asked for. And I got a great price on the new car so it wasn't that either. They really wanted my used vehicle and I had told him I usually don't trade but sell my cars myself. I'm sure they knew they could sell it to some "poor" person for more. So yes, this probably only hurt the poor.

[flintlock]

Re: Another Obama program fail? Cash for Clunkers fails to stop increase in average age of America car

Not sure if the above post is tongue in cheek or not but it could be. Yeah, after reading more carefully, it is.

I went from a 12 mpg city vehicle to a 24. So thats what, 100% improvement? I'[m sure a lot of others did similar trades. You have to remember, this was the time of $4 gallon gas. Which we will be seeing again soon I'm afraid. Still, does not justify the program in my opinion.

[flintlock]

Re: Another Obama program fail? Cash for Clunkers fails to stop increase in average age of America car

Not sure if the above post is tongue in cheek or not but it could be. Yeah, after reading more carefully, it is.

I went from a 12 mpg city vehicle to a 24. So thats what, 100% improvement? I'[m sure a lot of others did similar trades. You have to remember, this was the time of $4 gallon gas. Which we will be seeing again soon I'm afraid. Still, does not justify the program in my opinion.

Side note: The Hyundai Sonata is a great car btw. I got 37 MPG on a trip to Florida recently. This in an EPA rated LARGE car. Wife gets 25 mpg city too. Now if my pickup could just get that.

[gwynedd1]

Re: Another Obama program fail? Cash for Clunkers fails to stop increase in average age of America car

During stagflation or depressions, only luxury is cheap.

[BK]

Re: Another Obama program fail? Cash for Clunkers fails to stop increase in average age of America car

Another unintended consequence - a used car shortage - perhaps an exaggeration. But, Government bureaucrats and Politicians never consider the regular folks when they make decisions. Lots of Americans can't buy a Hybrid or electric car because they can access credit and/or the are poor. crushing perfectly good used cars to increase fuel efficiency has got to go down as one of the most idiotic environmental programs ever.

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stor...-shortage.html

[charliebrown]

Re: Another Obama program fail? Cash for Clunkers fails to stop increase in average age of America car

anyone have any ideas on how much energy is spent on making a new car? From raw materials out of the ground to the show room floor? If the fuel savings is only moderate (say 20% more fuel efficient), might we be net negative energy?

http://www.cleanmpg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18240

Argonne National Labs and other researchers (specifically at MIT) have evaluated this issue.

The Prius specifically was evaluated. Here is the two-bit description of the research results. Typical cars used 20 % of their total life cycle energy for production, and consumed nearly all the remaining 80 % as fuel energy. The Prius requires about 1.5 times as much energy to make as a standard car of the same passenger capacity (4 adults). But, it uses about 1/2 the energy to operate. So, using percentages of a standard car, that is 30 % to produce, and 40 % to operate, for a total only 70 % of lifetime energy consumption of a standard car the same size. Another way to look at it is the balance point, how much lifetime of the cars is when they have consumed equal energy.

If this web site is correct a 20% increase in fuel efficency is a wash.