Stop making sense

Congress actually makes sense? C'mon; but this actually appears to be a plan with legs, er, wheels, and it makes sense at two levels; one, it would get the economy going in some sense, and might help lift the auto industry out of its deep minimum; two, it gets the real polluting cars (not just inefficient in terms of CO2, but the ones that spew those clouds of bluish exhaust that you hate driving through. Not to quote anything, but there have been studies of urban pollution from cars, i.e. soot, particulates, ozone-making stuff -- and 10% of the cars make 90% of that mess. Which is why some places have advocated cops carrying exhaust camera/detectors to nab the offensive clunkers.

But anyway; Congress has a plan to get clunkers off the road and get new, efficient, and less polluting cars on the road. Next step after this: ancient refrigerators:


US to push plan to swap 'clunkers' for fuel efficient cars

"One issue that has been resolved, it's called: cash for clunkers. It will allow people to take their old cars and trade them in for money that can be used for a more fuel efficient and newer car," Waxman said."

To make this work, though, the clunkers have to be traded in for SERIOUS money. You can't expect someone to take $1000 for his clunker and expect them to go out and buy a new hybrid, which at the bottom end probably start around $18,000 or so. (The 2010 Insight will start at $19,800, I found). According to another recent article, Toyota is going to try and come in a couple thousand less than that for a Yaris hybrid. The Ford Fusion hits about that range too, which could be very good for Ford.


So if someone trades in a clunker, they'd better get at least $10K for it toward a hybrid, or this plan will be DOA.