Officially kicking off this morning, the United States government’s Car Allowance Rebate System – or Cash for Clunkers – appears to be gaining traction. Heavily marketed by dealerships in the days leading up to the official kick-off, the $1 billion program has seen 1.5 million unique visits to its cars.gov Web site and more than 45,000 calls to the government hotline.
The government says the program, which expires November 1, will fund 250,000 new car purchases and could be renewed.
“We need to see if it the program is successful. We think it will be,” Transportation Secretary LaHood said. “We’re going to monitor it every week. We’re going to know pretty quickly if we are going to run through the billion dollars or not.”
The program is not designed to favor one automaker over the others, though interest so far seems to be in Japanese vehicles. As of this morning, 69 people had already purchased cars using the $3,500 and $4,500 vouchers. According to the Detroit News, 18 were Honda s, 17 were Toyota s and 9 were Ford s.
No data was released on Japan’s number three automaker, Nissan , which is modifying some of its existing products to better comply with the rules.
