Autonews reports, citing a cars.gov release, that some 534,598 claims ($2.3 billion) have been paid for as of September 18. There are only 76,775 already approved, yet to be paid submissions left, amounting to $322.3 million.
"There's no question that DoT is pushing the 'pay' button significantly more as of late," Bailey Wood, a spokesman for the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) spokesman was quoted as saying by the source. "They're likely to come very close to meeting the Sept. 30 deadline."
Last week, at NADA's annual conference in Washington, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood was praised by the association for his involvement in the program. Of course, the conference was also the perfect opportunity to draw the line, add up the numbers and acknowledge what CARS meant for the industry.
"There's no question that this program was a boon to consumers, to automobile dealers and to the workers who build cars and trucks," NADA Chairman John McEleney said. "The clunkers program also clearly accomplished its goal of jump-starting new car and truck sales and removed nearly 700,000 older vehicles from the roads."
Hopefully, the jump-start will keep up. American manufacturers will soon post their September sales figures and everybody expects them to be high, given the fact that the CARS inventory void needed to be filled.
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