Here’s a big surprise: The ostensible reason for the Cash for Clunkers program—to get gas guzzlers off the road and replace them with better-mileage vehicles—is achieving exactly the opposite of what it set out to achieve. And the government, as usual, is being dishonest with figures that prove that.
The government’s results showed small cars as the top choice for shoppers looking for Cash for Clunker deals. But an independent analysis by Edmunds.com disputed those results, and showed that two full-size trucks and a small crossover SUV were actually among the top-ten buys.
The discrepancy is a result of the methods used. Edmunds.com uses traditional sales measurements, tallying sales by make and model. The government uses a more arcane measurement method that subdivides models according to engine and transmission types, counting them as separate models.
The Ford F-150 is the number five vehicle being purchased. The government is fudging the numbers so that its top ten list is far greener.
Sales of truck models would tend to be heavily diluted using the government’s method because practically each version counts as a different vehicle. The difference in tallying methods would not affect the overall totals of trucks, as opposed to cars purchased under the program, only the sales rankings of individual models.
Sales of GM’s Silverado truck, under the government’s counting method, were divided among five different versions. So were the Ford F-150s. If the different versions of these trucks were considered the same vehicle, as auto sales are normally reported, sales of these trucks would look much heftier.
I know I’m just an average citizen who really doesn’t understand the arcane reasoning behind this program, but why didn’t the government authorize the program only for vehicles getting, say, a minimum of 25mpg?
I know, I know. Stop making sense.
Guess where they got the $2 billion to keep the clunkers funded.
Out of the stimulus funds for Alternative Energy