France extends "cash for clunkers" scheme for two additional years
The French minister of Economic Affairs, Christine Lagarde, has announced that the country's current cash-for-clunkers scheme, called prime à la casse, will be extended for two additional years. The initial plan was to end the program by the end of this year, but the government believes that the car market would likely crash if the stimulus Euros were withdrawn now. In order to apply for the €1,000 grant from the Government, French car buyers need to replace an old car with one that has CO2 emissions under 160 g/km. Lagarde also said that the program has, thus far, helped mostly French manufacturers and has removed about 330,000 clunkers from the road.
[Source: Le Blog Auto]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Mark Kiernan 8:10AM (9/02/2009)
CFC is a good idea if it is done right. If strict controls are made on the types of cars purchased, there needs to be rules about CO2 emissions and MPGe ratings.
The problem with CFC is that it is done for political reason and to keep people in employment. This may sound good but it means that once you take it away people stop buying and unemployment is not longer held at bay.
Perhaps we would be better to have a quick hard economic recession and then return to real growth instead of a slow protracted one.
CFC should be really held for EVs or PHEVs or REEVs as these are a paradigm shift and merit bigger support spending as they will greatly reduce our consumption of oil thus reducing the flow of money out of the country.
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Ghen 9:08AM (9/02/2009)
CFC could continue if the dollar amount was reduced and older cars were allowed. Getting the worst cars off the roads should be the priority. Not only for the environment but also for driver safety and highway congestion reasons. (my theory being slower accelerating cars cause more traffic in that sense).
Reducing it to $1000 for ANY car for a car that gets 10-20MPG more will get a lot of really crappy cars off the roads and will last 4x as long as the $4,500 program.
Thing is, charities rely on people giving up their crappy cars so the charity can resell it for a huge monetary windfall. What politician is going to say no to charity vs. the environment?
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wincros 11:09AM (9/02/2009)
I tend to agree with you. However, I would save the $4500 prize for buying any car in the top 5 cars in DOT fuel economy. It would really show what the goal is to the potential car buyer. It would reward manufacturers who have made a serious attempt to deal with fuel economy. Even putting the reward on a sliding scale so that the person making the biggest change in fuel economy in their purchase would get the most money. That would have the advantage of luring in the people who like to optimize their return. A lot of people when deciding which car to buy to replace their clunker would opt for the smaller, more economical car if they got a bigger chunk of cash for their clunker.