Happy Fourth of July to our readers.  July is the official starting month for the provisions outlined in Cash for Clunkers bill. Regardless of what the government is calling the program, consumers are calling it the Cash for Clunkers program.  That is validated by the Google keyword search traffic on the phrase “Cash for Clunkers ” vs “Car Allowance Rebate System” .

 The official name however is the Car Allowance Rebate System (CARS) and their logo is shown below in green.

NHTSA CARS Logo on cars.gov

The NHTSA is burning the midnight oil to get their Car Allowance Rebate System (CARS) in place.  According to recent estimates, the staff at the NHTSA has 19 days to implement a system for car dealers to register for the program. 

The bigger tasks is to get the dealers to register properly.  It is hard for us to believe that the NHTSA can register and verify all new car dealers in the United States in three weeks.

As recent as today, dealers are emailing and asking questions about the program.  We defer dealer questions to the NHTSA.  We also remind dealers that the official rules which will be out soon’ the NHTSA has a big task to accomplish by July 24th. 

Car dealers are being bombarded with questions from consumers and there is a growing list of unanswered questions. Dealers are reluctant to answer questions until the final guidelines from the NHTSA are published.  We do not envy the staff at the NHTSA whom have an impossible task to accomplish in such a short time.

Cash for Clunkers Math

We were on a conference call this past week with automotive marketing executives and someone suggested a simple formula for dividing 250,000 car sales across 25,000 dealers which came up with 10  qualifying sales per dealer. 

The math is flawed. The majority of the sales will be going to only 30% of the brands on the market.  From our research, Toyota, Honda, Ford, Chevrolet, Nissan and Hyundai dealers will get the lion-share of the CARS trade-ins. 

Infiniti dealers, for example, may not have one car that qualifies with a combined mpg of 22 miles per gallon.

The fact that the CARS sales will be tilted in favor of 10 manufacturers begs the question: 

“How will less popular brands create marketing plans and incentives to attract new car buyers?”

We think the bigger opportunity will be to convert CARS “interested” consumers into new car sales when they don’t qualify.

It is our opinion, that the CARS program will be generating calls and walk-ins that would never have occurred so dealers should make the best of the opportunity.

July Car Sales Impacted by CARS

Since all manufacturers EXCEPT for Hyundai seem to be waiting for July 24th to start selling vehicles under the CARS program,  the July automotive sales figures will not be greatly impacted by the CARS program. 

We expect that the big jump will be in August and depending on consumer demand, some experts are predicting that the $1 billion dollars in funding will be exhausted before November 1st.

Cash For Clunkers Funding Questions

• Funding may not last until 11/2009 so how will dealers know when to stop accepting trades? 
• What is the process for our elected officials to request additional monies for the CARS program?
• Will the additional funding come with relaxed mpg requirements?

Consumers have been expressing their questions, concerns and opinions on the Cash for Clunkers “SPEAK UP” forum. Many are hoping that if the program receives additional funding, that legislators will also address the complaints of consumers who have cars that are “operating” at 18 mpg or less but the Federal website disqualifies their cars because it shows that they get > 18 mpg.

Consumers who want to share their opinion are invited to SPEAK UP at: http://www.cashforclunkersfacts.com/bill/consumer-feedback-on-cars-program

Tags: cars july sales, cash for clunkers july sales, clunkers july sales, hyundai july sales, nhtsa cars july sales