No Cars Left for Cash for Clunkers

  • Dealers across the country are running out of new cars to sell that qualify for the program. (Photo source: IFCAR at Wikimedia Commons)

Two billion dollars is being added to
the very popular Cash for Clunkers
program. The original one billion dollars
is almost gone. But, Lester Graham
reports, there’s a shortage of new cars
that qualify for the program:

Transcript

Two billion dollars is being added to
the very popular Cash for Clunkers
program. The original one billion dollars
is almost gone. But, Lester Graham
reports, there’s a shortage of new cars
that qualify for the program:

The National Automobile Dealers Association says they’ve been hearing from dealers across the country who’ve been running out of new cars that qualify for the program.

Steve Demers is the General Manager of Cueter Chrysler Jeep Dodge in Ypsilanti, Michigan, a state where Cash for clunkers has been especially popular.

“There’s virtually no vehicles available, so there are other areas in the country that may not be as – the program has not been as popular – so we’re able to pluck some of that inventory out of their states, but it’s a nation-wide problem. I mean, we’re out many, many states away, thousands of miles before we can find a vehicle that can be brought in for one of our custormers.”

Factories are shipping more cars to the dealers but can’t keep up with demand.

185,000 gas-guzzling clunkers have been turned in to be scrapped in exchange for the government incentives.

Car buyers get up to 4,500 dollars toward buying a new fuel-efficient model.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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A Clunker’s Fate Once It’s Cashed In

  • Cars stacked up and waiting to be shredded at United Iron and Metal in Baltimore, MD. (Photo by Tamara Keith)

The federal Cash for Clunkers
program kicked off this weekend,
and dealerships were pushing it
hard to sell new cars. The program
was created by Congress last month
to give a boost to the struggling
auto industry while helping the
environment. The idea is to get
older polluting cars off the road
for good and replace them with
new more-efficient ones. Tamara Keith has this report
on what will happen to all the
clunkers:

Transcript

The federal Cash for Clunkers program kicked off this weekend, and dealerships
were pushing it hard to sell new cars. The program was created by Congress last
month to give a boost to the struggling auto industry while helping the environment.
The idea is to get older polluting cars off the road for good and replace them with
new more-efficient ones. Tamara Keith has this report on what will happen to all the
clunkers:

Car dealers suddenly have a whole bunch of cars on their lots they have absolutely
no use for. The clunkers cannot be re-sold. That would defeat the whole green goal
of the program.

So all those old trucks and sagging sedans, they’re headed to places like M and M
Auto Parts in Stafford, Virginia. Most of us would call it a junk yard. But don’t tell
that to owner Rick Morrow.

“Long before green was popular, this kind of operation, even though a lot of people
said, ‘Oh junk yard.’ But they were actually recycling cars. They were making use of
what the component was built for in the first place.”

His company’s logo prominently features a large green recycling symbol.

“This is the dismantling area where after the cars come are inventoried and then take
them apart.”

Morrow’s business is all about re-use. A fender, or a tail light, or maybe an alternator
from this car will live to see another day in a car that needs a replacement part.

You’d think Morrow would be totally excited about Cash for Clunkers. But he’s not.
Because the one component from the clunkers that absolutely cannot be re-sold is
the engine – pretty much the most valuable thing in the car.

“If we do a few dozen cars and it looks like it’s costing us more money than it’s worth,
we’ll say, ‘sorry.’”

From an environmental perspective, it absolutely makes sense to prevent those
engines from ever polluting again. But, from a business perspective it’s a real
problem for the nation’s auto recyclers.

“It will make it extremely hard to make money on a car.”

Scotty Davis is the vice president of All Foreign Auto Parts in Fredericksburg
Virginia. He says it costs him $1800 in labor to take apart a car.

“It’s going to cost me money to do this. It’s one of these things. I have to bring the
car in. I have to get rid of the tires. I have to get rid of all the fluids, the freon,
process it – just to crush the vehicle.”

Davis specializes in newer foreign vehicles. Parts from a clunker won’t help stock
his shelves. But he feels like he has to take the cars to stay in the good graces of
the auto dealers he sells parts to.

“And I’ll be very honest with you. A couple of them I do a lot of business with, I said,
‘I will take your cars.’ And they said, ‘what are you going to do with them?’ I’m going
to crush ‘em. I mean they’re not of any value.”

(sound of a shredder yard)

Once all the usable parts are removed, and the toxic chemicals cleaned out, most
cars will end up at a scrap yard like United Iron and Metal in Baltimore.

“Right now you can see the tail end of a car coming on the conveyor belt down into
the shredder.”

“A tremendous amount of friction is going on as these hammers are pulverizing that
car into small pieces.”

Bruce Savage is with the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries – a trade group. It
only takes 15 seconds, and when the shredder is done with a car, it isn’t even
recognizable.

“That big pile over there is the end result. It’s just a big pile of metal pieces.”

Savage says the metal is then sold. Whether scrap recyclers will cash in on Cash
for Clunkers all depends on the commodities prices for metal in the coming months.

“What was an old car can become a new car or can become a dishwasher or siding
for a home. It depends on the materials. But everything is being reused,
reprocessed and renewed.”

So maybe a 1989 suburban can be reborn as a 2010 Ford Focus Hybrid.

For The Environment Report, I’m Tamara Keith.

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Dealerships Prepare for Clunkers

  • ‘Cash for clunkers’ became popular before all the rules were final. For the past few weeks there’s been a growing backlog of orders at dealerships. (Photo by Samara Freemark)

Today is the first official day of the cash for clunkers program. The government program offers you up to $4500 to trade in your gas guzzling car for a more fuel efficient new car. Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

Today is the first official day of the cash for clunkers program. The government program offers you up to $4500 to trade in your gas guzzling car for a more fuel efficient new car. Lester Graham reports:

The goal is to clean up the environment and give sagging new car sales a boost.

‘Cash for clunkers’ became popular before all the rules were final. For the past few weeks there’s been a growing backlog of orders at dealerships.

At Varsity Ford in Ann Arbor, Michigan, people have been seeing if their clunkers qualify, and picking out a new car that they’ll finally be able to drive off the lot today.

Matt Stanford sells cars there. He says as far as he’s concerned, ‘cash for clunkers’ is already a success.

“We’re going to sell new cars. We’re going to get cars that don’t really need to be on the road off the road.”

The National Autobmobile Dealers Association says some dealerships have been holding off until they learned more about the rules of ‘cash for clunkers’ which were just cleared up last Friday.

The clunkers will be scrapped. The cash ends when the one-billion dollars in government money runs out.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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Phantom Traffic Jams

  • A phantom traffic jam is when everyone slows down or stops, but starts to go again inexplicably (Photo source: Crazytales at Wikimedia Commons)

According the the last report from
the Texas Transportation Institute,
traffic congestion in the US causes
more than four-billion lost hours stuck
in traffic and nearly three-billion
gallons of wasted fuel. Lester Graham
reports mathmeticians have found – on
paper – one type of traffic jam looks
something like a bomb going off:

Transcript

According the the last report from
the Texas Transportation Institute,
traffic congestion in the US causes
more than four-billion lost hours stuck
in traffic and nearly three-billion
gallons of wasted fuel. Lester Graham
reports mathmeticians have found – on
paper – one type of traffic jam looks
something like a bomb going off:

Phantom traffic jams are frustrating. You know the kind – traffic slows downs or completely stops, and when you finally get to the end, there’s no wreck, no closed lane – nothing.

Mathematicians at MIT say these phantom jams are a lot like detonation waves produced by explosions.

Morris Flynn is the lead author of the report published in the online edition of Physical Review E.

“You have a single person who taps on their brakes. The driver behind them will over-react, hit their brakes just a little bit harder than the person in front. And this disturbance is just cascaded all the way back so that eventually you get this very rapid deceleration.”

And, phantom traffic jam.

Solutions: more lanes on the highway, and automated signs that warn drivers about slowed traffic ahead.

Or, get more people on mass transit.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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House Gives Cash for Clunkers Green Light

  • It is hoped that the "Cash for Clunkers" bill will stimulate fledgling car sales (Photo by Samara Freemark)

The so-called “Cash for Clunkers” bill has passed the US House. Automakers say it could help boost sluggish sales if it passes the Senate and gets signed into law. But as Rebecca Williams reports some people think the bill isn’t very green:

Transcript

The so-called “Cash for Clunkers” bill has passed the US House. Automakers say it could help boost sluggish sales if it passes the Senate and gets signed into law. But as Rebecca Williams reports some people think the bill isn’t very green:

If you have a car or truck that gets 18 miles per gallon or less, under this bill, you’d get to trade it in for a more fuel efficient car or truck. The old car would get scrapped.

You’d get a voucher for several thousand dollars. Old gas guzzlers would get taken off the road.

But Ann Mesnikoff points out: in the House bill you could trade in an old SUV that gets, say, 14 miles per gallon… for a new SUV that gets just two miles per gallon more.

She directs Sierra Club’s Green Transportation Campaign.

“The key things to change in the cash for clunkers program are to ensure that taxpayer dollars are going to buy vehicles that have at least better than average fuel economy. Not those that can’t even meet today’s fuel economy standards.”

Congress is also going to have to figure out how to pay for the bill. It’s expected to cost about 4 billion dollars.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Cities Share Cars to Save Cash

  • Cities have started to use car sharing programs in order to save money (Photo by Ed Edahl, courtesy of FEMA)

Car sharing has long been considered a green
alternative to owning a car. Both in terms of
expense and the environment. Companies like
Zipcar have made this concept mainstream in
a lot of urban areas. Now some cities are
trying out car sharing with their municipal
fleets. Tamara Keith has more:

Transcript

Car sharing has long been considered a green
alternative to owning a car. Both in terms of
expense and the environment. Companies like
Zipcar have made this concept mainstream in
a lot of urban areas. Now some cities are
trying out car sharing with their municipal
fleets. Tamara Keith has more:

Karyn LeBlanc works in the Washington DC department of transportation, so maybe it’s not surprising that she was one of the first to try out the city’s FleetShare program.

“It’s this one over here, right here, says 6067 is the license plate on it.”

A white Honda Civic powered by natural gas is waiting for her in a parking lot behind a city office.

She went online to reserve the car and it’s expecting her. At least the very smart computer transponder thingie in the front windshield is expecting her. LeBlanc presses something that looks like a credit card up to the device.

“So, we place this right here and you hear that little click and the car opens.”

The tank is full, the keys are inside, and LaBlanc is off and running.

(sound of driving)

“I would say I use fleetshare 2 or 3 times a week for any meeting that I need to go to or that I need to get to. So I go where I need to go. I park it. I go to my meeting. I get back in the car and I go back to the office.”

For people who use Zipcar this process will sound very familiar. The company has simply brought its car-sharing technology to Washington DC’s municipal fleet.

So far DC has about 60 new cars outfitted with Zipcar gear. But here’s the remarkable thing, those 60 cars are replacing 360. How? The new cars are getting a lot more use than the old ones.

“We’re getting up to 71% utilization on all these cars.”

When we spoke to him, Dan Tangerlini was DC’s Deputy Mayor.

We’re standing in the middle of a municipal parking lot. On one side there are empty spaces where the fleetshare cars park – on the other side there are just a bunch of white city cars.

“You see all this white iron around here. All these DC government vehicles that are kind of sitting static because these are assigned to individuals and those individuals don’t have a reason to be in that vehicle right now.”

Tangherlini says this system will save the city about 6 million dollars over the next five years – which is welcome at a time when budgets are tight.

Which might explain why Scott Griffith’s phone keeps ringing. He’s Zipcar’s CEO and says the company is now in talks with 25 cities.

“They all have the same challenges, not enough tax money, too many cars. They do need to move people around during the day and we’re trying to make that happen in the most efficient way.”

But this isn’t just about money. Griffith says when people share cars they end up driving more efficiently. When they have to book in advance rather than a bunch of individual trips they stack all their stops in one trip.

Car sharing isn’t new for cities like Chicago, San Francisco and Philadelphia. They’ve had programs in place for some time where city workers can use cars loaned out by private car sharing companies. They use the same one the public uses.

Eli Masser helped form the relationship in Philadelphia between the city and the non-profit Philly Car Share which he co-founded.

“One of the benefits of car sharing with municipalities or most businesses for that matter is residential demand is in the evenings and on weekends and most business demand and municipal demand is during the day.”

Which means those cars are busy well beyond the 40 hour work week. Critics say this model is far more efficient than what Zipcar is doing in DC. But Masser says there’s an even better model – a hybrid of DC and Philly.

Ideally cities would have a relatively small city-owned fleet of shared cars and even heavy machinery. But most city workers would car-share with the public.

For The Environment Report, I’m Tamara Keith.

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Investing in Cars of the Future

  • Both studies agree that we need more efficient cars (Photo by Karen Kelly)

Recently two reports on the future of automobiles came out. They looked at cars and trucks from very different perspectives, but came to some similar conclusions. Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

Recently two reports on the future of automobiles came out. They looked at cars and trucks from very different perspectives, but came to some similar conclusions. Lester Graham reports:

The first report was published in the journal, Environmental Science and Technology. It looked at what it would take to get U.S. automobiles to reduce the greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, enough to lower it to 1990 levels.

Why cars? Because cars and trucks produce a third of U.S. CO2 emissions.

Greg Keoleian is one of the authors at the University of Michigan. He says there are three things that need work.

We need to drive less, burn cleaner fuels, and, within about 40 years, increase the average fuel mileage way beyond the 20-miles per gallon we’re getting now.

“That would need to increase to 136 miles per gallon to meet the carbon targets. Alternatively, if we just focused on fuels, basically we’d need about 80% cellulosic ethanol by 2050. And the third scenario is a reduction in driving. It would mean we’d have to cut our driving in half by 2050.”

It’s unlikely we can accomplish any one of them, and the study’s authors suggest it’ll probably be a combination of more efficient cars, better fuels, and driving less if we’re to reduce greenhouse gases enough to make a difference.

The second report entitled ‘Envisioning an Uncertain Future’ comes from the Boston Consulting Group. It looks at the future of the automobile from a business perspective.

One of the authors, Xavier Mosquet, says the study assumes rising oil prices will force some changes.

“And that the pressure from the consumer on the governments will be so high that the governments will have to take energy actions to develop green products and green cars.”

But the report notes green cars will cost more – as much as 15,000 dollars more for hybrids or plug-in hybrids compared to standard cars.

“The consumer will look at these cars and say, ‘well, these are more expensive than I can pay.’ And therefore they’re not going to buy them. So, what I think the government has to do if they want to go that way is to look at the cost of putting those technologies on the market and either subsidizing the car’s manufacturers and suppliers or helping the consumer with much more tax incentives. Otherwise it will not happen.”

So, from a business perspective, the Boston Consulting Group report suggests without government help, manufacturers won’t build more efficient cars at a price we can afford. But we’ll need them because of high fuel prices.

The University of Michigan report on cars and climate change agrees the government will have a major role.

Author Greg Keoleian says if we take climate change seriously and are committed to doing something about it, we’ll have to change driving habits, encourage innovative manufacturers and invest government money.

“We are capable of doing this and the cost of climate change to society is tremendous. And each sector needs to play a major role in addressing the needs to reduce.”

The studies look at the future of the automobile from very different perspectives, but both agree we need more efficient cars and that won’t happen without the government pushing a little and helping a lot.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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Business Booming at Repair Shops

  • Despite the decline in new car sales, Sales Manager Joe Marken expects more business on the repair and maintenance side of of the dealership. (Photo by Julie Grant)

Not too many people are buying new cars these days. But that’s not all bad news for auto dealers. Julie Grant reports that more car owners are starting to spend money on repair and maintenance:

Transcript

Not too many people are buying new cars these days. But that’s not all bad news for auto dealers. Julie Grant reports that more car owners are starting to spend money on repair and maintenance:

(sound of construction)

Now there’s a sound you don’t hear every day anymore. Especially at a car dealership. It’s construction.

This Toyota Dealer in Kent, Ohio is in the midst of a 12-million dollar expansion.

Sales manager Joe Marken says they’re renovating the repair and maintenance garage. That’s where he’s starting to see the most growth.

“People are looking at, ‘do I want to encumber myself with a 60 month payment of some sort, or do I want to spend X and know that I can get a year or two more years out of whatever I’m doing?'”

Marken says lots of people don’t know if they’ll have a job in the next year or two.

The National Automobile Dealers Association expects more people to spend money on parts and service nationwide this year.

They say there’s an upside – maintenance improves gas mileage and resale value of the vehicle.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

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An End to Gas Guzzling?

  • President Obama's recent announcement is a clear sign that tougher fuel efficiency standards will come sooner rather than later (Photo by Ben VonWaggoner)

The Bush Administration stopped California from setting stricter fuel efficiency standards. Now, President Obama says his administration might allow the standards to go forward. Mark Brush reports it’s a sign that big changes are ahead for car makers:

Transcript

The Bush Administration stopped California from setting stricter fuel efficiency standards. Now, President Obama says his administration might allow the standards to go forward. Mark Brush reports it’s a sign that big changes are ahead for car makers:

President Obama’s recent announcement is a clear sign that tougher fuel efficiency standards will come sooner rather than later.

Mark Gillies is the executive editor of Car and Driver Magazine. He says, if stricter standards are passed, automakers will have to make big changes to their entire fleets of cars and trucks.

“It’s like a super tanker. Trying to turn the super tanker around is not easy. Trying to get cars to the point where they’re 25% more fuel efficient in 6 years is not the work of the moment. You’re going to see some car makers manage to do it and some car makers won’t be able to do it.”

Gillies says if these new standards pass, you’ll see automakers scrambling to make more electric and hybrid cars. He says it could also curb development of sportier cars.

That’s because car companies might have to spend their resources developing the greener cars of the future.

For The Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

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Choking on Construction Dust

  • Scientists say that inhaling those fine particles often found at construction sites is bad for the lungs and the heart (Photo courtesy of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction)

For most of us, the dust kicked
up by a construction site seems like a
minor nuisance. But it can be a health
hazard. As Karen Kelly reports, construction
dust is one source of air pollution that’s
largely been ignored:

Transcript

For most of us, the dust kicked
up by a construction site seems like a
minor nuisance. But it can be a health
hazard. As Karen Kelly reports, construction
dust is one source of air pollution that’s
largely been ignored:

If you’ve ever had the good fortune of living near a construction site, you
probably know a bit about dust.


Here in Ottawa, Canada, Mahad Adam can tell you all about it.

(construction sound)

For the past year, he’s lived across the street from a construction site that fills
an entire city block.

And he says the air quality can be terrible.

“Sneezing a lot, yes. Since the dust comes in during the whole day that they’ve
been working, it was constant dust inside the room so it was like having an
allergy.”

Trucks and bulldozers drive in and out of the site all day. They’re tracking mud
on the streets and the air is filled with dust.

Once that dirt is on the pavement, it’s kicked back up by every car that passes
by.

The construction site’s supervisor, Brad Smith, says he’s received lots of
complaints about the dust from nearby residents, especially seniors.

“I’m used to the dust and the dirt, whereas some of the people with breathing
problems and stuff that live in the community will be affected negatively more
than we are.”

In fact, too much dust can even be dangerous for people with respiratory
illnesses such as asthma.

To keep it under control, he says his company flushes the dirt off the streets
twice a week and then vacuums the rest up with a special truck.

He says the amount of cleaning they do depends on who they’re working for.

“My client is the city of Ottawa and they wrote that into the contract during
tender time. Whereas other projects I’ve been on, it can get into a bit of an
argument because it costs us and we push back a little bit.”

Smith says his company could get a fine if they leave debris on the roads.

But it’s hard to find a specific law – whether here in Canada or in the U.S. –
either at the national level, the state level, or even the local level that deals
directly with the dust coming off of construction sites.

The officials I talked to said that’s because it’s a temporary nuisance.

But what got me thinking about it was the research from Professor Brian
McCarry at McMaster University in Ontario.

He drove around his city measuring air pollution at different sites and he found
the cloud of dust kicked up when you pass a construction site is not something
you want to be breathing.

“In some cases you’re kicking up so much dust that the fine particles –
the things that cause health effects – are at levels that are there for concern.”

Scientists say that inhaling those fine particles is bad for the lungs and the
heart.

But McCarry says keeping the air clean around a construction site is actually
not that hard.

“It’s just housekeeping, it’s nothing more complex than that, and if you tell
them the housekeeping is higher in this area than elsewhere, they’ll do it.”

That can mean spraying down dusty roads with water or a sticky pine
substance.

Or using the vacuum truck more frequently in areas where there’s construction.

When companies started doing that, McCarry says there was a big drop in the
air pollution at those sites.

Now, local laws require that cleanup.

McCarry argues those laws should be everywhere.

For The Environment Report, I’m Karen Kelly.

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