Cash for Clunkers

[TJ_98370]

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I don't agree with Michele Singletary very often, but I think she's got this one mostly right.
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If you have a clunker that's also a gas guzzler, the federal government wants you to trade in the car so it can be scrapped, while you get a cash credit toward the purchase of a new, more fuel-efficient vehicle.
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The Consumer Assistance to Recycle and Save Act of 2009, or CARS, was pushed through Congress and signed by President Obama, purportedly to cut down on harmful vehicle emissions.
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But in truth, this is welfare for the limping auto industry.
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The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has been given $1 billion to fund the program. However, the law doesn't apply to used cars, encourages people to take on more debt, and doesn't require the new cars to get substantially more in gas mileage............
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[softwarengineer]

TAX CREDITS

I'm sorry, this is not the time for tax credits with a $1.2Trillion federal deficit since the government FY began [Oct 08].

We don't need tax increases and we don't need tax credits right now; and assuming the cash for clunkers causes a shift to mend the recent 71% drop in Japanese cars to America too....aren't we giving out American debt to sustain Japan instead of just our own country?

Wake up and smell the coffee, the Japanese would tell us...LOL

[WestSideBilly]

[TJ_98370]

WestSideBilly,

Good analysis and I am pretty much in agreement.

Manual crank windows do malfunction. I had a '69 Karman Ghia where the mechanism jammed up because the window became misaligned and I actually partially stripped the splines on the shaft for the crank. Even simple systems can fail.

[TJ_98370]

[WestSideBilly]

IMO this was more of a handout to dealers than any one car company. Nearly all companies (domestic and import) have large surpluses of 2008 and 2009 models that they are unable to sell, even with generous interest rates and other programs.

[rose-colored-coolaid]

[deejayoh]

Did anyone else see this on Paul Kedrosky's blog - Honda Accord, then and now?


I am just eyeballing this, but it looks like over 30 years of the marquee it has gotten 50% heavier, but 2x as powerful with over 2x the torque and 10% better mileage. I had a 1982 Honda Accord. It was as gutless as they came. And that was the car that built Honda's reputation

[TJ_98370]

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The average thickness of the pavement in the American freeway system is 11 inches. According to various sources, the German autobahn is constructed with a thickness of 27 inches. It is a lot more expensive to lay a roadway twice as thick as necessary. Why the difference? The autobahn has basically an unlimited speed limit. Road surface imperfections would be catastrophic when traveling at 160 mph. Not so much when you are traveling at 65 mph on a U.S. freeway. The autobahn is not "overengineered".
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Last time I checked, U.S. elevators were built with a safety factor of 11. In other words, elevator systems in the U.S. are designed to withstand 11 times the load they are certified to withstand. It is a lot more expensive to build a system 11 times more strong than it needs to be. Why the huge safety factor? Failure of an elevator system would be catastrophic. People would die. U.S. elevators are not "overengineered".
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Except for the high end consumer market, overengineering is pretty much kept in check by cost of production. If the feature has no market value, it is dropped. Public safety considerations can overide this constraint, if significant. .
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[rose-colored-coolaid]

[TJ_98370]

I think I read someplace that the Boeing 747 has 4 or 5 redundant hydraulic systems, routed differently thruout the airplane. The hydraulic systems are critical for control of the aircraft and the consequences of failure of control could be catastrophic (obviously).
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The cost of designing and building redundant systems is not the overiding consideration in this case. If you should ever have the ultimate misfortune of being aboard a damaged 747, I'll bet you will forever be thankful for redundant (overengineered?) systems.
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[The Tim]

[Racket]

[TJ_98370]

[rose-colored-coolaid]