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>>24546910
But first, here is the full list of scrapped cars and trucks. We’ve embedded the PDF below, sorted in alphabetical order by manufacturer. We’ve also set up a public Google Sheet linked here in case there’s an issue with the PDF. Take it all in:
wanted to start by looking at what CFC destroyed the most. But because of how the report is formatted, that’s far from easy. Vehicles are split up by year, make, model, and drivetrain configuration, splitting single models into several entries. Even so, I was able to skim the cream off the top by processing only the top 150. That still gave me a pretty good idea of what cars CFC claimed the most of. And here they are:
1995-2003 Ford Explorer/Mercury Mountaineer: 46,676
1996-2000 Chrysler/Dodge/Plymouth minivans: 23,998
1993-1998 Jeep Grand Cherokee: 20,844
1992-1997 Ford F-150: 20,222
1984-2001 Jeep Cherokee: 18,329
1988-2002 GM C/K pickup: 17,202
1995-2005 Chevrolet Blazer: 15,668
1999-2003 Ford Windstar: 12,157
1991-1994 Ford Explorer: 11,612
1994-2001 Dodge Ram 1500: 8,103
While the list is a neat cross-section of the most popular cars in the U.S. at the time, popularity alone isn’t why these vehicles were the most crushed. They were destroyed because CFC was meant (at least ostensibly) to boost the poor fuel efficiency of U.S. drivers’ cars. Not a single vehicle above beat 18 mpg with an automatic transmission, and in aggregate they average barely 16 mpg.
That happens to be pretty much the average for all CFC turn-ins, which the Department of Transportation calculated to be 15.8 mpg. Because CFC worked on a rebate system, where dealers got cash for accepting discount vouchers, the federal government could track the margin of gas mileage improvement for every sale. In doing so, it found the average mpg of replacement vehicles under the CFC program was 24.9 mpg—an improvement of 58%.
But while 700,000 vehicles gaining over 9 mpg sounds like a lot, the U.S. Energy Information Administration noted no improvement to the nation’s motor vehicle fuel economy as a result of CFC. If anything, it recorded a marginal decline from 2009 to 2010. CFC’s effect on U.S. fleet fuel consumption was further diluted by subsequent years of record car sales: since 2010, over 185 million new cars have been sold in the U.S. according to Axelwise.
The program’s effect on our gas consumption was ultimately negligible, and that goes without acknowledging CFC’s other downsides. It cost the U.S. government $3 billion, some of which indirectly supplemented the bailouts issued to U.S. automakers, though much of it went abroad. Apocryphally, CFC was also blamed for a rise in used car prices. But that might be explainable as the outcome of more demand for cheap used cars during the recession.
Recession” is on economists’ tongues again, so are proposed CFC revivals, sometimes aimed at EV adoption—the latter has been proposed in D.C. according to speculative reports. If the U.S. indeed enters another recession, and a CFC-style program returns, then its proponents must take into account what happened the first time we tried cashing in clunkers, not to mention the differences in market conditions between 2009 and 2022. Then, demand was the problem; today it’s supply, and an EV CFC could quickly turn into a windfall for car dealers and few others.
We can speculate on whether CFC achieved what it set out to do, and we will. But not up for debate is what’s gone, and here’s on whether CFC achieved what it set out to do, and we will. But not up for debate is what’s gone, and here’s the final list.
https://www.thedrive.com/news/heres-the-full-list-of-all-677081-cars-killed-in-cash-for-clunkers.
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>>24546707
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