Cash For Clunkers

Commonly seen as "$ for clunkers' on TV or online it is essentially the Govt CARS program - Car Allowance Rebate System.
Working in the Automotive industry I should have caught up with the news and 'terms' well in advance I guess, but did not hear about the CARS until yesterday. In our regular weekly meeting in the office, one of my team members was sad that he missed the eligibility by few points or something and that he cannot take advantage of the program. Intrigued, I looked up the subject online.

There is tons of info already available online and the official website is http://www.cars.gov/
Few of the things the program says:
- Your vehicle must be less than 25 years old on the trade-in date
- Only purchase or lease of new vehicles qualify
- Generally, trade-in vehicles must get 18 or less MPG (some very large pick-up trucks and cargo vans have different requirements)

I thought it was a pretty neat idea of the Govt to get rid of old cars and encourage purchase of new ones. This:
- improves new car sales
- initiates flow of money
- one way forces fuel economy
- helps making the Earth green.

These were the immediate positive effects that I could think of, which are all really healthy both to economy and environment . I heard our Director comment that he had a friend who owns a dealership, who actually said that he ran out of new cars last weekend because he had a lot of customers come for the trader-in. Surely 3,500 or 4,500 dollars in not a small amount!