Cash For Clunkers Program To Be Extended

It appears that Senate Democrats have enough votes to win passage of the additional $2 billion dollars for the Cash For Clunkers program. The additional funds should take the program thru September.

The program appears to have motivated auto buyers into new car dealer showrooms. The Obama administration indicated that the program would end on August 7th without additional funding. The program appears to be a major success with increased sales and taken gas guzzlers off the road.

Here are the top ten cars purchased with the Cash for Clunkers program. The Ford Focus is shown above. The top ten cars sold are basically economy cars.

• 1. Ford Focus
• 2. Honda Civic
• 3. Toyota Corolla
• 4. Toyota Prius
• 5. Ford Escape
• 6. Toyota Camry
• 7. Dodge Caliber
• 8. Hyundai Elantra
• 9. Honda Fit
• 10. Chevrolet Cobalt

Listed below are the Cash For Clunkers trade-ins. The list is comprized of mainly SUV's and minivans.

• 1. 1998 Ford Explorer
• 2. 1997 Ford Explorer
• 3. 1996 Ford Explorer
• 4. 1999 Ford Explorer
• 5. Jeep Grand Cherokee
• 6. Jeep Cherokee
• 7. 1995 Ford Explorer
• 8. 1994 Ford Explorer
• 9. 1997 Ford Winstar
• 10. 1999 Dodge Caravan

SUMMARY:

This is definitely a good deal for consumers! Most of the cars listed above are economy cars, so if a consumer buys a vehicle that costs $15000. Then take the $3500 or $4500 a federal rebate....in addition to the discount on the vehicle plus any incentives from the manufacturer.

July Auto Sales

U.S. auto sales appear to be improving substantially in July. Overall auto sales for July were down only 12% percent, with June down 28% and May down 39%. So, it appears that the sales trend is improving substantially.

It appears that the U.S. based automakers and some foreign manufacturers are having a rebound in sales....helped by the Cash For Clunkers program. Meanwhile sales of luxury cars are still in the dumps. ales were the best they have been since the summer of 2008....with a annual run rate of over 10 million cars.

Ford is the sales winner with a 2% increase in sales over last year. GM sales were down 19%, meanwhile Chrysler sales were down only 9.4%. An interesting fact is that GM and Chrysler sales were not impacted by the bankruptcies as much as anticipated.

• Saab down 72%

• Porsche down 51%

• Mitsubishi down 50%

• Jaguar down 45%

• BMW down 32%

• Nissan down 25%
  

• Mercedes down 22%
  

• Mazda down 15%

• General Motors down 19%

• Honda down 17%

• Toyota down 11%

• Chrysler down 9%
  

• Volkswagen down 3%

• Ford up 2%

• Kia up 5%

• Hyundai up 12%
  

• Volvo up 26%

• Subaru up 34%

Ford seems to be the beneficiary of increased sales lately. It appears that the GM and Chrysler bankruptcies have sent a number of customers over to Ford. The following Ford models had material increases in sales Focus up 44%, Escape up 94%, and the Fusion was up 66%.

Other notable increases were posted by the Toyota Prius up 30%, Toyota RAV4 up 33%, Hyundai Elantra up 30% and the Volkswagon Jetta up 31%.

July sales were up at a fairly decent run rate of 11 million cars annually. So, it appears that consumers had more faith in the future to spend money on high ticket items.

SUMMARY:

This month the Cash For Clunkers program had a substantial impact on auto showroom traffic and sales. Unfortunately, the government implemented a half way program. Increasing sales for the automobile manufacturers would do more than all the government loans available.

An interesting anomaly is that sales of U.S. built cars both by domestic and foreign manufacturers appears to be increasing. Meanwhile imported luxury cars continue with the steep declines over last year.

2010 Chevrolet Equinox

Today's post is on the new 2010 Chevrolet Equinox, which is a front wheel drive or all wheel drive five passenger crossover. I am not necessarily an SUV or crossover fan...but I do need to bring up that the crossover segment is going thru some major changes.

Crossovers are continuing to evolve and develop....the new Equinox is a prime example. The 2010 Equinox is a much better vehicle than the model it replaces. It shows GM's resolve to finally get back to building good cars.

The feature to the Equinox that I thought was interesting was the application of GM's Active Noise Cancellation technology. Basically, the there are microphones to monitor the noise level and the speakers generates the opposite sounds to cancel low frequency noises.

This technology has been in development for a number of years....automobile manufacturers are now beginning to deploy the technology. The benefits are that the 2010 Equinox is exceptionally quiet with noise and vibration to a minimum. There was an additional benefit to the deployment of the technology is that the engineers were able to drop the idle speed and gain an additional .1 mpg.


The standard 2.4 liter Ecotec direct injection motor is rated at 182 h.p. with a 0-60 time of 9.6 seconds. An optional 3.0 liter direct injection motor is available with 264 hp and a 0-60 time of 7.8 seconds. The only available transmission is a six-speed automatic. This is not a sports car but GM is working on meeting the new higher CAFE fuel economy regulations.

Fuel economy for the 2.4 liter is an exceptional 21/30 city/highway, meanwhile the 3.0 liter is rated at 18/25 city/highway. All wheel drive is available which should reduce the mileage by 1-2 mpg.

Note that Chevrolet has continued with the two tone interior which is similar to the Chevrolet Malibu. Personally, I find the new interior on the Equinox to be exceptional in the class. The main competitors are the Ford Escape, Jeep Liberty, Honda CR-V, Hyundai Santa Fe, and the Toyota RAV4. This is a substantial change from the prior model.



SUMMARY:

The new 2010 Chevrolet Equinox is another example that GM has decided to build good products. It has exceptional fuel economy without the necessity of a hybrid or diesel technology. It is an attractive crossover that is extremely competitive in it's class. These are the kind of cars that will bring GM back from the brink!