lyeinyoureye

I'd stay away from betting if I were you. The common figures for a car's embodied energy use seem to be about 15% of it's total fuel use, and about 10% of it's total energy use, so in the C4C context, about 10% of the total energy use of the clunkers. Based on the mileage difference, we would need to adjust Carbon emissions the most, while pollution abatement of other sorts would probably be more effective due to different larger sources (better pollution controls) and locations outside of population centers.
One could say that the environmental argument isn't optimal, however I doubt they can say it's no good.

lyeinyoureye

You're equating the average car in terms of size to the above average car in terms of mileage. You could use the embodied energy figures for a full size SUV, then apply those to a sub-compact car, in order to get even higher mileage figures, but what you should probably do get a per lb figure for embodied energy consumption, then apply that to each car. Higher mileage cars tend to be smaller, so assuming they have the same embodied energy as a larger vehicle probably won't provide an accurate result.
It's not an absolute figure for all vehicles unless they happen to be at the average. The specific quote is...
And given the other info from the same poster...
It seems that about 90% of a car's embodied energy is associated w/ fuel and energy for that fuel, and about 10% is associated with manufacturing. You can't associate the embodied energy of much larger vehicles with smaller ones and get an accurate result.

In the case of a Prius, assuming a vehicle life of 120,000 miles as per the link, fuel consumption, including the fuel's embodied energy, is about 3000 GGE, and the embodied energy of the car is about a tenth of this, so about 300 GGE. Arguably more fuel efficient cars may need a greater percentage for embodied energy, but that's still not enough to outweight the reduction in fuel consumption, at least not yet AFAIK.

In the case of the clunkers, we're looking at a ~6000 GGE savings on average, so while the ~800 GGE needed for manufacturing does drop this, it doesn't eliminate it. This drop is partially offset because the clunkers getting recycled provide more scrap than if someone was trading in for a vehicle of the same size, but that's only a ~50-100 GGE savings due to more recycled metal. Anyway, we aren't at the point where we don't save enough from efficiency improvements to not reduce pollution/Carbon emissions yet, although we may get there in the future.

cbr2702

Thanks for doing more thorough research. Sounds like my numbers were too high.

ndbiker

I've always believed that if you wanted more of something subsidize it, if you want less tax it. The C4C program proved the first part of my statement true. Now given that we had no surplus cash to pay for the program we now must tax something to pay for it. What are we going to tax that we are willing to have less of income?, investment**********?

cbr2702

Carbon emissions?

ndbiker

Essentially a regressive income tax. Costs for energy and all things we buy that require energy will go up. That will come from peoples incomes. The rich will have the disposable income to reduce their footprint the poor won't. The government doesn't have the cash on hand to cover the costs for them so they will have to further tax income or investments and you will get less of each. Fewer jobs will result etc.

trekker pete

C4C is a mind numbingly bad idea.

First and formost, where the hell is my money? I'm still driving my 91 accord which gets as mileage as good as a new car. And by driving it along time and making it last, I am saving further resources.

As for it being a stimulus?

BS.

It will give 1 good month to car dealers. Where will they be next month? I'll tell you, they will be selling jack$hit, because anyone who was thinking of buying in the next year or so, just did.

And how about the car companies? They get rid of a glut of cars and maybe boost production for a few weeks, but, then they will have to idle factories thanks to the absolutely dreadful sales figures they will have for the next year or so.

How would you like to be a manager in charge of forecasting production schedules and arranging vendor contracts. This stuff is a tough enough job without some buffoon in DC causing huge swings in consumption.

I will agree with an earlier poster in saying that this is the dumbest thing Obama has done, but, unlike that poster, I didn't vote for him and sure as hell never will after this stunt.

trekker pete

One other thing, concerning the joke that this is good for the environment. In addition to the energy used to shred a still servicable car and build a new one, you have to also realize that many of the C4C benfactors will drive the wheels off those shiny new cars. If they had their old gas guzzling clunkers, many would drive substantially fewer miles.

lyeinyoureye

I disagree with the last part. During better economic times the unemployment rate isn't going to go below ~4-6%, so running a deficit to reduce job losses during a recession, then paying it off by taxation after the recession, probably won't reduce the unemployment rate after the recession since that tends to be pretty consistent regardless of how the recovery looks. If anything, blunting a recovery after a serious recession can help to prevent bubbles that will just result in another bad recession.

benajah

Keep in mind an undriven vehicle is a perishable good. If they did not sell the cars, they would have dry-rotted on the lots with rubber seals and things breaking away.
The car situation was a bad situation with the only option of choosing the lesser of evils as a solution.
The alternative would be to let the cars rust out on the lots, then where would we be? Higher unemployment (dealerships shutting down), a bunch of useless inventory that would have disposal issues (the traded in clunkers do as well but would have been disposed of soon as well also)
Keep in mind even if you waited a year to buy the cars, as in waited until the economy begins to recover, you would not be getting a fantastic deal on a 2010 ford focus, you would be buying a 2011 vehicle cause all the 2009 and 2010 cars would have rotted out.

lyeinyoureye

Seals rot out over decades, not a couple years...

Roody

True, but it's fairly easy to make a carbon tax neutral or progressive by giving credits on other taxes to offset the carbon taxes that people will be paying. This is what many economists and environmentalists are proposing now. Research "revenue neutral carbon tax" for more info.

trekker pete

Somebody's drinking too much of the cool aid. Be careful, I hear it will rot out your seals.

As for what they do with all that inventory? Ohh, I dunno. Sell it perhaps? If it is sitting around long enough to dry rot tires (it isn't) they can try lowering the price. It's that whole supply and demand thingy that some folks seem to have a hard time grasping.

I predict that the next 3 months will be absolutely horrible for the car industry, unless of course uncle barry just buys everybody some more cars with money that doesn't belong to him.

Roody

The auto companies have already lowered prices up to $10,000 per unit with various incentives. Indications are that they will continue to do so.

When it comes to lowering prices to reduce inventory, be careful what you wish for. This is the root cause of deflation, which is the root cause of economic depressions. Deflation is even more damaging to peoples' lives than inflation, so the administration is wisely going whole hog to prevent it.

As more information comes out about the Cash for Clunkers program, it's beginning to look like this is one of the most successful stimulus programs since the New Deal. And environmentalists are starting to predict that the net effects on the environment will be beneficial also. The News Hour on PBS did a good segment on it last night.

cbr2702

Deflation needs not only lowering prices but an expectation that they will continue to fall. This makes people reluctant to do anything with their money but save it for when it will be worth more later. But reducing prices to get rid of a car glut caused by a production level that turned out to be optimistic won't set that sort of expectation and so shouldn't push us into a deflationary spiral.

ndbiker

But the idea in the earlier post was not to be revenue neutral, it was how do we pay for the C4C or any other program when we don't currently have to the cash to pay for. I asked what we were going to tax that we wanted less of, the poster suggested "carbon emissions". To make the tax on emissions revenue neutral and still pay for the unfunded program you must tax the income of someone. Thus you will ultimately have less of it (if my hypothesis is correct).

cbr2702

Right. When I suggested taxing carbon emissions to pay for cash for clunkers, by definition it cannot be revenue neutral unless C4C is free, which it's not.

There are definitely issues to be dealt with for a carbon tax, either revenue neutral or revenue positive, but it does fit the bill for something "to tax that we are willing to have less of".

trekker pete

the only thing that saw discounts that steep are the big gas guzzler SUVs and some luxury cars. This boondoggle raised sales mainly among compacts and midsize low end cars


I see, the very unbiased PBS says this is a success.

Someone please explain how a month long artificial boost in sales which will most certainly be followed by a longer lull in sales is good for anybody? As for it being as successful as the new deal, are you talking about the new deal that DIDN'T pull us out of the depression? WWII production pulled us out.

Platy

One great thing about Cash For Clunkers is that unlike many government programs it had a limited objective and started & ended fast. We'll soon be able to see the results clearly and decide whether it was a good program. If it turns out to have been a winner I think we'll see more stimulus programs like it.

gwd

I don't think we'll be able to see the results clearly with so many other confounding events taking place. I think whatever stimulative effect it would have would have been the same if they just bought people's clunkers and let them go car-free or pay down debt with the cash. What makes me suspicious of the whole program is that the popular name "cash for clunkers" was a lie, you didn't get cash for your old car you had to continue polluting. It should been called "rebate for clunkers" or "guaranteed trade in value for clunkers" so right from the beginning it was a fraud. People were being rewarded for bad behavior and encouraged to continue with driving. The message from the government is loud and clear "Only environmentally irresponsible people get a piece of the stimulus." Its an extension of the Bush program that gave tax breaks to people who bought SUVs, now they get to trade those SUVs in at above market value. The people who eschewed gas guzzlers got no tax break and get no cash for their clunkers. Since I've been car-free the whole time I"m looking at this from the sidelines and watching the gravy being dished out to the same folks by Obama and Bush. The environmentalists who applaud this program must be the same car dependent ones who advocate for useless bike paths. They view environmental issues through their windshields.

Robert Foster

Yes thank goodness a consistent car free person. I was about to lose interest. To come to a car free forum and see so many “car free” advocates praise a program that will increase cars being driven was disappointing to say the least. Like a car free person I have been trying to economize not only by the vehicle choice I make but by how much I would drive it. I will have more miles on my bike this year than my car by a large margin. To see people getting $4500.00 to go back into debt, no one would be making payments on a clunker, so that they will be able to get more cars on the road was depressing. But the side effect would be people will be driving more. Think about it if they are buying a new car it isn’t likely they will leave it at home and ride, walk or take a bus to work.

So just what was being asked here in the C4C program? Those that were willing to try and limit their driving and learn to live debt free were being asked to finance those that wanted to continue the very consumerist lifestyle car free people have been preaching against ever since I came to visit this site the first time. Yes the ones that got the new cars will be paying for it in payments, sales tax and in the long run their kids will pay additional taxes to pay back the stimulus package. Whatever happened to the mantra of going car lite and working towards car free?

There is a reality we miss in this whole process. In my state the average family has more than one car. The cars being traded in on the C4C program more than likely were not being driven anyway. But once they get a new car any one of us can guess they will be driving it. So no matter how much fuel savings we think people will get by trading in a car now if they drive it five of the seven days a week it will cause more pollution than a vehicle that isn’t driven except maybe once a month to go to Home Depot.

So we give the Auto Industry 38 to 50 Billion to make cars and then we add 3 billion to help them sell the cars and the company we have the biggest interest in isn’t the Major benefactor in the program? Four of the top five companies are foreign and Ford is the major competitor to the company the tax payers own? Does the term shot in the foot fit here? Wouldn’t it have been better to just give people $4500.00 to spend on things like food, house payments and paying off credit cards? And when it comes time to pay the piper car free people will still be honked at by the people they helped buy a new car. Because car free people and car light people will be paying the taxes to cover this program just like everyone else. Wasn’t one of the main ideas so often expressed here that we over consumed? Is it a good idea to help people over consume even more? Those of us that tried to live within our means are now being told we have to help those that didn’t so they can get a new car. Makes me want to get a new Slade and cruise with my bike on a rack to show how green I am. Don’t they make Slade Hybrids? Would it qualify? I think it does.

Roody

+1. It's great to keep an open mind. I think we need to try a lot of innovative ideas to work our way out of this crisis.

What will end the recession? Ultimately, the innovation, entrepeneurship, and hard work of the American people. That and nothing else. We must stick together and be willing to try new ideas. We must rediscover the ideals of our founders--government is not the enemy. Government is the tool that a democratic people has to pull together and win when times are tough. The same spirit that got us through the Great Depression and World War II is what we need to rediscover now.

Roody

Flat wrong. That bailout money was not given to the auto companies. It was loaned to them. They will repay it. How do you think the American economy will survive if the biggest portion of it is allowed to suddenly collapse?

If you really believe that people are going to suddenly stop buying and driving cars, you must be smoking ILTB's pixie dust. Environmentally, the best we can do is get people on more efficient ICE cars until the next generation of plug-in hybrids is available in 1 to 10 years.

trekker pete

Our founding fathers, or even FDR, for that matter would be shocked at the percentage of GDP the government consumes today.

Full blown socialism has been tried and it has failed miserably. Just ask the eastern europeans who are headed in the opposite direction today.

You are correct that hard work and innovation will solve problems as they always have, but, there needs to be a reward for it and it can't be directed by a political ***** in DC.

TuckertonRR

Thomas Paine would vehemently disagree, along with many other of the founders of the USA. Ever read "Common Sense"?

quote from wikipedia: "Society is produced by our wants, and government by wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher. Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil."