Hybrid Car Review

The top three cars purchased through the CARS program so far were the Ford Focus, Honda Civic and Toyota Corolla. Next on the list was the Toyota Prius. The Civic, Escape, and Camry have hybrid versions, but I haven't seen if buyers were opting for the hybrid versions of the vehicles.

83% of the vehicles traded in to be scrapped were trucks and SUVS (not surprising given the maximum mpg values allowed for the trade in). 60% of the vehicles purchased were passenger cars (Source: Cash for Clunkers cars: Small wins big - CNN.com).

The Top 10 Picks for the CARS Program (Source: NYTimes):
1. Ford Focus
2. Honda Civic
3. Toyota Corolla
4. Toyota Prius
5. Ford Escape
6. Toyota Camry
7. Dodge Caliber
8. Hyundai Elantra
9. Honda Fit
10. Chevrolet Cobalt

Overall, the fuel economy increase from the old vehicles has been 61 percent, with the new vehicles getting 25.4 mpg.

The top 10 vehicles being traded in were domestic models (Source: LATimes):
Ford Explorer 2WD and 4WD, Ford F-150 2WD and 4WD, Jeep Cherokee and Jeep Grand Cherokee 4WD, Dodge Caravan, Chevy Blazer 4WD, Chevy Silverado 1500 2WD and Ford Windstar.

Senators are saying the $2 billion bill to extend the Cash for Clunkers program passed by the House is likely to pass the Senate this week.  The legislation would transfer the money from an Energy Department loan guarantee program in the economic stimulus package approved in February.

As of 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, 157,000 transactions had been completed across the country and $664 million in federal vouchers spent as part of the CARS program, said Eric Bolton, spokesman for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.