Programs to buy back beaters have been implemented in California and Texas, pulling thousands of polluting vehicles of the road each year. Canada's program to buy back old, polluting cars is set to roll out in January of next year. The Detroit News reports that the three-year Canadian program is targeting 50k buybacks, or about one percent of all cars on the road. While provincial governments have implemented similar programs, this will be North America's first nationwide buyback program. The $92m program will offer drivers $300 per running beater, or discounts on bicycle purchases or a public transit pass. Busting-out the old calculator, it becomes obvious that buying 50k cars at $300 a pop would set back the Canucks $15m. Some $77m of the program will be going… somewhere else. But don't expect opposition to the program. The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers spokesman Charles Territo says "we strongly support efforts to get older, less-efficient vehicles off the roads and help consumers." Because they'd rather you buy new than drive your clunker till it breaks, of course. Which means the only people who won't be thrilled by this program are people who care how their government spends money… and know how to use a calculator.
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I would assume the rest of the money would be used for advertising the program, storing the cars and ultimately transporting them to there final resting place. Although you can get much more than $300.00 for a car from a decent scrap yard.
The remaining $77m will likely be used to administer the program – gotta love gov’t efficiency!
I think the average car brings in more than $300 at the scrapyards at the moment, at least in Ohio.
Compared to the Texas and California vouchers or cash, $300 seems like peanuts.
Sorry, but in Georgia the average junk car yields about $500.
These folks would be better off offering a $1000 rebate on a new / near new car that would be subsidized by the auto dealers, manufacturers, and finance companies. Even in this day and age, it wouldn’t be too hard and the manufacturers would be particularly inclined to do this at this point.
If you are driving a car that you would consider selling for $300, you ain’t buying a new or near new car unless its the Tata Nano or something.
RayH, ya beat me to it. Around here, this offer wouldn’t be any better than scrap and, in some cases, worse. So, theoretically, that “remaining 77m” would be augmented by scrap value back to the original amount and more.
Sounds like another great government program. Where do I sign?
You guys beat me to it: $300 (US or Canadian) for a junker is a rip off. An aluminum engine and catalytic converters are probably worth more than that on the open market.
Government, auto dealers, advertising…this program stinks.
Hmm lets see I get $300 for my old running car and get to spend $20,000 on a new efficient car, that sounds like a lot of gas money to me. This has to be targetted to the really stupid because no one with half a brain would take this deal. Who thinks this stuff up?
The program was designed to fail. The current government just wants to appear to be doing something to shore up their environmental credentials. They are quite vulnerable in that area, out of step with a majority of Canadians.
The police do a reasonable job of getting many clunkers off the road by doing sweeps for them on holiday weekends and the like. Most poorly tuned clunkers have many more issues (think safety) that make it easy to confiscate them until they are brought up to a reasonable standard, plus there is the biannual smog check in populous parts of the province.
Well for one it is $45 million plain cash as it is a three year program. So the difference is only $47 million, but the site FAQ seems to indicate that the discount on bicycle, car sharing or transit passes is primary, and possibly costs more.
Also it seems that they had money already, but no real plan to spend it. so odd.
yasth:
Well for one it is $45 million plain cash as it is a three year program. Is this personal knwoledge from another source? The Detroit news article says 50,000 cars, not 50,000 cars per year.
The last junker that I sold back in 1997 was an RX-7 with a blown engine. I got $700 for it. I sold it to a guy at work who rebuilt the engine, but we arrived at that price because that was what the junk yard offered me. Now, the scrap steel value of most cars is over $300. I can’t imagine how anybody could be so stupid as to participate in this program. Another example of tax money well spent, eh.
Last time I checked, shredded auto scrap was over $500 per ton. Add to that a couple hundred dollars a car that your average pick’n’pull junkyard gets out of used parts, per car, and you’ll see who the lobbyists were. The government pays $300 for the car, ships it over to the junkyard, probably pays even more for shipping and recycling, AND the junkyard gets their $700 for nearly free.
Way to sponsor an industry that’s already living through their gold rush era.
Some scrap metal group prob gets paid by the gov’t to dispose of the cars and they pocket the scrap value thus double-dipping. The US gov’t did that in Italy when I was there with former private military personnel owned cars.