A lot of people thought the Cash for Clunkers program was going to flop.  And there are a lot of good reasons to think so, but the reality seems to point in the opposite direction.  The Prius is flying off of dealer lots along with many other fuel efficient vehicles.

The program is so successful that dealers are running out of compact and midsize cars (you need a car that gets pretty good mileage to qualify for the entire rebate).  A problem that dealers haven’t had in a while.

“We are very low on inventory. I think everybody in the city is,” said Don Stokey, a salesman at Tommie Vaughn Ford.

The program was originally alloted $1 billion, but customers went through that in about a week, so congress has given another $2 billion to the program.  The Department of Energy, who is running the program, has allowed dealers to start using vehicles in production (as long as they have a VIN) as one of the new vehicles instead of requiring that it be on the lot already.  This means that a customer can trade in their clunker for something that’s still coming down the assembly line, allowing more new cars to be sold under the program.

My question is, with all of these new fuel efficient vehicles hitting the road this year, will that effect the sales off all of the EVs that are coming out next year?  The Volt, the Leaf, the Circuit, all of these and more are coming out next year.  People don’t buy a new car every year, and if they already bought a fuel efficient car they won’t want to trade it in right away for a different car that will net them minimal gain.