Cash For Clunkers Brings $2 Billion in Taxes

Cash for Clunkers was undoubtedly a very successful campaign, especially when considering that after the first money package approved for the scheme got entirely spent after approximately one week. Today, it emerged that the Car Allowance Rebate System (CARS) brought a total of $2 billion in state taxes, as approximately $18 billion worth of new vehicles were sold under the program.

According to the official website of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), approximately 700,000 have been traded-in in the US CARS. Toyota was the best selling brand, with 19 percent of the total sales going to the Japanese manufacturer. General Motors comes second with 17.6 percent, followed by Ford (14.4 percent), Honda (13 percent), Nissan (8.7 percent) and Hyundai (7.2 percent).

"Cars purchased under the program are, on average, 19% above the average fuel economy of all new cars currently available, and 59% above the average fuel economy of cars that were traded in. This means the program raised the average fuel economy of the fleet, while getting the dirtiest and most polluting vehicles off the road," the website read when the program was officially closed.

The official closure of the Cash for Clunkers campaign brought the first drop in US sales in September, with most dealerships record a slight decrease in showroom activity.

"We have started to get little rumblings that maybe the consumer isn't quite so flat on their back, that they have been responding to some of the incentive programs and the fact that leasing is coming back," said Rebecca Lindland, an automotive research director at IHS Global Insight in late September.