Unintended Consequences Bite Again: C4C won't save fuel?
As is all too often the case, unintended consequences appear likely to play a part in the aftermath of Cash for Clunkers. One of the points made in selling the whole idea was that it would save fuel by taking older fuel-guzzling vehicles off the road and replace them with new, more efficient vehicles. While this appears to have worked out – with the average mileage for the first quarter million trade-ins going from 16.3 mpg to 24.8 mpg – that figure is not the end of the story.
Just as drivers that have migrated to hybrids are now driving more miles on average, so too are C4C buyers intending to use their new rides more. In fact, research done by CNW indicates that C4C participants intend to drive almost twice as many annual miles, which will more than make up for any efficiency-based fuel savings.
The problem is that the old vehicles that weren't in good shape tended to sit around more. In fact, according to calculations by William Jeanes, the 700,000 total buyers could end up consuming 42 million gallons a year more than they do now. Once again, figures like these just go to show that there are no easy fixes for our problems.
[Source: AOL Autos]
Photo by dno1967. Licensed under Creative Commons license 2.0.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Nick 9:56PM (9/23/2009)
This analysis is simple-minded. Many folks traded in cars they weren't using for a new daily driver. You really need to compare the new daily driver with the old one--which is now sitting idle or sold off to someone else.
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Nixon 12:40AM (9/24/2009)
Nick, the analysis is even worse than simple-minded. The supposed "study" comes from a source that ABG has already had to debunk before. In the last issue, Sebastian described them this way"
"with marketing firms like CNW mucking the waters, common sense sometimes has a hard time finding the light."
http://green.autoblog.com/2007/08/28/prius-vs-hummer-lifecycle-energy-use-debate-returns-and-the/
This is from their last disconnect from reality, where they tried to claim a Hummer was better than a Prius. CNW's last claim was debunked by MIT, Aragon Labs, and a host of others.
So I wouldn't put too much weight on anything CNW publishes. Chances are high that it will just be debunked later (assuming anyone takes them seriously in the first place.)
Yanks49 9:45PM (9/24/2009)
I'm shocked!!! No, not really. As soon as I found out the vehicles would be destroyed after they were traded in, I was amazed that the far lefties thought this would be such a great idea. But then, Democratic politicians wanted this to happen, in part to satisfy their union supporters. As a moderate, I could see that these vehicles, or certain parts like new tires, could have been given to charities or local governments for their use. There are stories about charities that help the poor get used cars - why couldn't some of these vehicles like vans been saved? If less gas was going to be consumed, that would have been a good thing, but obviously that isn't going to be the case either. What I really want to know is how come you didn't hear any criticism from any ultra liberal group. But then, that doesn't totally surprise me either. After all, my side good, your side bad, doesn't matter what the issue these days.
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FitFan 7:21PM (9/23/2009)
If they had given the cars to a charity then the cars still would have been on the road. Seems pretty obvious to me.
They didn't prevent anyone from donating their car to a charity. Any time someone donates a car to a charity they are making a decision to do that instead of selling it. It was no different while the C4C program was running.
pax copia 7:47PM (9/23/2009)
Please elaborate on who exactly you believe is a "far lefty" or tell us where you think the center is after all those crazy Bush years.
john.tippett 9:00PM (9/23/2009)
Yanks49, here's an idea: Instead of labeling ideas as to which "side" of the political spectrum they appear to come from, how about let's debate them on their intrinsic merits (or lack thereof)? If we are going to get past the "my side good - your side bad" problem that you rightly identify, we need to start by leaving the stereotyping and name-calling behind...eg "far lefties, ultra liberals, THEM".
Ghen 8:32AM (9/24/2009)
Thank god there's other intelligent people reading, I don't think I would have come over nearly as coherent as these 3 rebuttals this early in the morning.
paulwesterberg 7:02PM (9/23/2009)
I think individual circumstances make calculations like this really hard to do accurately.
Last year I bought a new hybrid, and I do drive it more miles than the car it replaced, but we have two cars and now we tend to leave the oil burner at home when we go on long trips. Overall less gas used.
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Boyprodigy1 8:35PM (9/23/2009)
Even so, the unintended consequence of spiking car sales was worth it...
Matt234 6:31AM (9/24/2009)
C4C looks like it was designed to first of all for economic reasons, to get people out of the mindset that "it's a recession, let's just wait a little to buy that new car". Why else would the incentives have been so high that people were falling over themselves to take advantage? If the reasons had been reversed (1=mpg, 2=economy) then a lower incentive over a longer time could have been effective, or increased tax gas could have been even more effective.
FitFan 7:15PM (9/23/2009)
I call B.S.
I seriously doubt that the "average" driver in that group is going to change their driving habits to the point that they're driving 24,000 miles per year instead of 12,000.
I can see a situation where many of the clunkers were sitting idle while the owner was driving a newer car in a multi-car family, but even then you would have to compare the fuel efficiency of the new car against the fuel efficiency of the car they were driving instead of the clunker. Since that data was not collected, we can only speculate.
At the end of the day, there are some 700,000 very inefficient vehicles that will never be driven again. That's a good thing even if the gain wasn't as impressive or as immediate as some people had hoped.
It's too bad that resistance from some in congress caused them to water down the requirements of the bill. They should have made it available to cars that were getting 20 mpg and should have set the min requirement of the new car higher than 30mpg.
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Unknown 7:19PM (9/23/2009)
This is a dumb study.
Households have more than one car.
An example:
They have a newish car they drive around usually.
They have an old junker
C4C comes along and they trade in old junker
Now they drive the brand new car and park their car that is somewhat older
Net result the new car is driven more than the clunker, but the medium car is now driven as much as the clunker...that is to say not much at all. Just think a bit.
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Boxman 7:28PM (9/23/2009)
Typical right-wing FUD tactics. I'm not buying it for a second. As another poster alluded above, you may drive the new car more than the old one, but you're not going to drastically change your total annual miles driven (unless you suddenly decide to open a taxi business or something).
Think about it. Let's say you own an old P.O.S. Ford Explorer and a Honda Civic. You drive the Civic 90% of the time because it's more reliable and gets better mileage. Now C4C comes along and you decide to buy that Prius you've been coveting for years. So you trade in the old Ford Explorer, and now you own a Prius and a Honda Civic.
Now you do 90% of your driving in the Prius, while your Civic sits at home. Yes, you're driving the new car more than the clunker it replaced, but does this mean you're driving more miles overall, or using more fuel? Hell no!
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nrb 8:01PM (9/23/2009)
Right wing? Conspiracy theory maybe? Those damn Republicans!
/sarcasm
How about yet another BS survey that isn't able to actually validate their claims? That I believe.
They pulled this conclusion out of their rear end. ABG posted it as if it smelled like roses.
why not the LS2LS7? 7:32PM (9/23/2009)
I also call BS. Driving 12,000 miles a year is about 300 hours a year in the car. That's 6 hours a week. Now these people are going to spend 12 hours a week, a whole day sunrise to sunset, about 10% of their total waking hours in the car?
Bullcrap.
People spend more time driving to accomplish things than just driving for driving's sake. The amount of fuel they will use accomplishing these things will not change much, even if they drive to their easter destination instead of flying. Will they be willing to drive a little further to save $4 on a toaster oven? Yep, but in the end that won't really add up to much.
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misha037 8:06PM (9/23/2009)
Boxman, Unknown #6 and paulwesterberg are on the money.
It's a very well known fact that new cars are driven more miles per year than old cars. So, yes, new cars replacing clunkers will drive much more. And yes, the household annual mileage will not change much so others cars (likely 2005 and older, when average MPG was lower than today) will be driven less. The overall fuel savings stand.
Though I don't see this report from AOL as a political issue. This is just bad science and bad reporting.
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LaughingMan 8:16PM (9/23/2009)
Why is anyone taking seriously anything that comes out of CNW?
This is the same organization that did studies that "proved" that the Hummer consumes less energy in its lifetime than a Prius. This is the same organization that did studies that backhandedly suggested that Prius drivers only bought their car for form instead of function.
CNW has an agenda to slam alternatives and green initiatives in general. Period.
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Brian 11:28PM (9/23/2009)
Its called "Jevons Paradox" the cheaper it becomes to operate something, the more people use it.
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Dante Diablo 11:10PM (9/23/2009)
A new more efficient car will certainly not reduce the miles driven, and even if the number of miles drive is ultimately lower than that suggested by the study, it's hard to believe it won't be somewhat larger. Regardless, even if the number of miles is the same, C4C was an irresponsible, pork-barrel approach to trying to tackle oil-dependency. The environmental gain of taking a car off the road is much less than $4500 worth, especially when you take into account the impact of destroying the old car, building and then delivering a new one. Anything other than a high, direct tax on gasoline will simply not reduce consumption at a reasonable cost. Don't apologize for C4C just because of the right/left talk above. It's an example of the worst kind of giveaway, unthoughtful politics that give environmental activists a bad name.
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BlackbirdHighway 5:28AM (9/24/2009)
CNW sounds very familiar. Aren't those the same folks who claimed that the Prius is more polluting than the Hummer? That study was found to be completely wrong.
If that's the case, then the truth must be the opposite of whatever they say and that means C4C worked great!
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