The only way that I could even consider that this is a good idea is that if there was the requirement that the new vehicle be made in America, at least then there's a stimulus side to it...

Hmm. "Made in America". Is that a Dodge from Hamamatsu, a Ford from Ontario, or a Honda from Marysville, Ohio?

This is not new. The Chevette engine was from Toyo Kogyo, as was the entire Chevy LUV truck, famous for fragility and rusting away.

The American auto industry is not afflicted with quality problems anywhere near as much as with price problems: the quality level is perceived as lower because of costs added by the pension programs GM et al are locked into. The Aveo is actually a Kia, the Duramax diesel an Isuzu, the Pontiac Vibe a Toyota and so forth. Toyota lost a class-action lawsuit years ago because their Camry's V6 engine would fail if the owner didn't change the oil within twice the scheduled interval.

People are notoriously bad at identifying individual issues. There are no quality problems with the Ford F-150, a sales champ for 20 years or so, but it suffers because of gas prices. A lost sale because a 4500-pound truck making 320 HP can only get 19MPG because of physical laws isn't a quality issue at all, but that's all people seem to be able to talk about - without knowing how or where anything is made.

Smart cars are cute: A friend says the IQ will be torque-ier.

But who wants to go up against a 4500-pound truck in an accident?

Can it be retroactive? Can I have money for switching, from a Suburban to a PT Cruiser, done four years ago of my own volition? That's okay if I can't, because I've already gotten my rebate in the form of massive savings when gas hit $4.50 in these parts. The PT paid for itself within three years.

Crid, you're absolutely right.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2009-04-14-big-cars-safer_N.htm

What I drive now is a ten-speed. No incentive in the world could inspire me to buy a car in this neighborhood, what with alternate side of the street parking in effect EVERY DAY.

That said, if I did buy a car, it'd be a smart car. Safety concerns aside, I've seen those things park in spots not designed for cars.

This program is so bad it has me considering Diane Feinstein's version!

"Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) has proposed an alternative to the House measure. It would provide an incentive for the purchase of new or used vehicles and demand a significant improvement in fuel economy. Its vouchers would help pay for a car or truck carrying a fuel economy rating at least 25% better than the government target for the same class of vehicles. And the vehicle being turned in would have to have had a fuel economy rating of less than 15 miles per gallon when it was new."

* 25% better than government target
* only good on vehicles

Darned HTML!

* 25% better than government target
* only good on vehicles < 15mpg

So, I'm supposed to give up my paid-for car and go into debt to get $3,500 from the government? How about I keep the paid-for car and avoid more than $3,500 in interest charges?

And, when people go out and buy all these new cars, what happens to the old cars? How is that "good" for the environment?

As I understand it, you take your old car to a junkyard and they give you a certificate for that.

Now here's the one that I can see happening -- The junkyard takes your vehicle and you get the certificate. Then you have a straw buyer buy it back for a $100 from the junkyard. You then take it in and use as the trade-in plus the $3500 certificate.

Some dealers are still doing the "We'll give you a minimum $2/3/4000 trade no matter what its worth."

This is stupid from all angles. The government is going to take tens of thousands of dollars of my money and then give me $3500 of it back if I take out an additional loan to buy a car that might (or might not) be more efficient. Wow, the sad thing is that people will fall for it.

-Julie

>> This is stupid from all angles.

Perfectly summed up. I suspect Conan's observation about the environmental impact of replacing the vehicles being more damaging than simply using them until they die is spot on as well.

Obama's "big vision" seems to be unraveling into keeping everyone happy at any cost.

After billions of $$ in taxpayer's money have been handed out, Obama has GM & Chrysler by the balls. So what does he do with all that power? He imposes a 35.5 MPG fuel economy standard (and new ultra-strict emissions standards, to boot). Never mind that their best-selling, most profitable cars get nowhere near that. Or that they've invested lots of money & time into promising new models that now may never come to market, since they would drag down their average mileage. At a time when thousands of dealerships have been shut down & car companies are desperate for every sale, Obama has forced them to design & market cars that make the federal government & environmentalists happy, rather than profitable cars that people will actually want to buy. And to spend billions doing it. The costs will be passed on to consumers, who can avoid paying Obama's new car tax by keeping their clunkers and not buying new cars. Where does that leave GM & Chrysler?

If Obama's plans for the rest of the country are the same as his plans for the auto industry, then 4 years from now the whole country will look like Detroit.

> If Obama's plans for the rest of the
> country are the same as his plans
> for the auto industry, then 4 years
> from now the whole country will
> look like Detroit.

Martin, are you in the United States? It's not that anything in your comment isn't true, I just think a tone so chummy and intimate deserves to be identified as that of an outsider, if that's what you are.

I spent my middle forties listening to Loveline, a radio show for teenagers who had questions about sex and drugs, hosted by a comedian and an addiction medicine specialist. Callers were usually between 12 and 30, but it varied.

Most radio call-in programs start the calls by saying "Here's Mike in the Rockies", or "Let's talk with Shannon in Cincinnati" or "Let's welcome Martin from Santa Monica". But for the problems discussed on Loveline, the most important context was what stage of life the caller was in. A surprise pregnancy is pretty much the same in Tucson and Portland, but there's a lot of difference between facing one at 15 and facing one at 28. So the calls would start with "Here's Amy, who's 19. What can we do for you, Amy?"

I think the most powerful tool for judging Martin's concern with our car companies and our presidential politics is to know how much skin he has in the game.

Where you at, Martin?

Cird -

It's important to note that Obama and his followers are claiming that the reason that GM and Chrysler are in the dire straits they are is due to the fact that they are not making the cars that Americans want to buy.

Of course, the real meaning of that sentence is GM and Chrysler are not making the cars that greens want Americans to want to buy.

There's a bit of hidden newthink in there. We'll get the Americans to buy the hyper-efficient cars we want them in by offering them nothing else, so they think they want them.

A Zen master asked his students, "How do you get a cat to eat a hot pepper?"

The first student answered, "You hold the cat's mouth open, and push it into his mouth."

The master replied, "But this is force. The cat did not eat the pepper willingly."

The second student answered, "You could wrap it in a piece of cheese, and the cat would eat it."

The master replied, "This is deception. The cat did not know he was eating the pepper."

The third student answered, "You put the pepper in the cat's rectum. He will gladly eat it."

And that's what we're getting. Since you may not have what you want, you will want what you may have.

This again!

Canadian (and Ontario) taxpayers, myself included, have forked over several billion dollars to keep the Canadian portion of the North American car industry afloat. The reason I didn't mention anything about Canadian auto industry politics in my post is because the Canadian government is not doing anything to deliberately sabotage the entire North American car industry. Only Obama & his administration are doing that.

I though you were the British one. (Same diff.) You should call yourself Canadian Martin. That way, there will never be any doubt about what you're about. You wouldn't want there to be any over what you're about, would you? Of course not!

Sorry for typos, I was distracted by video from Monaco...

Germany has tried a similar program. The Abwrackprämie, or "wreck rebate," began in January at a cost of 1.5 billion euros -- about $2 billion.

The Abwrackprämie was probably the most stupid waste of taxpayer money in recent German history. (Which says a lot with all the stupid wastes we're going through right now.) So sorry to hear that you have a similar thing going on in the U.S., Amy.

By the way: In government speak, the Abwrackprämie is called "Umweltprämie" (=environmental premium). Sounds much more politically correct than wrecking cars, I guess.

I expect plummeting car sales and mass unemployment after the end of the program. But this is going to happen conveniently after the coming election of the Bundestag, of course...

This measure is simply another example of bipartisanship in the age of Obama : an attempt to make Republicans look like fiscal conservatives by comparison.