Cash For Clunkers Hangover

While the cash for clunkers program appears to have increased car sales in July and August, this will largely come at the expense of car sales later in the year as many would have bought the cars anyway. Early indications for September are for a plunge in car sales. Meanwhile, it also appears to have contributed to increasing the market share of foreign, particularly Japanese and Korean, cars as a higher percentage of their product portfolio lived up to the fuel efficiency standards required by the government in the program. The end result could be that despite the billions of dollars spent, it will not increase sales of domestic cars for the year as a whole.