Incentives for Fleet Renewal

As Ford brings hybrids, EcoBoost™ engines and electric vehicles to market, one challenge will be how to encourage consumers to replace their older, less-efficient vehicles with those offering new technologies. This is a particular problem in the current economic environment, in which vehicle sales have dropped dramatically. Some European countries have provided incentives to consumers to buy vehicles that are more fuel-efficient. This also helps cut pollution from tailpipe emissions, as newer vehicles generally have cleaner exhaust.

In Germany, for example, a government program provides discounts for new-car buyers of €2,500 (about $3,400 at current exchange rates), with the trade-in of a car at least nine years old that will be scrapped. The program helped boost car sales in March 2009 to a rate 40 percent higher than the previous year.1

Ford would like to see a similar approach enacted in the United States to spur sales, boost tax revenue and reduce CO2 and smog-forming emissions from vehicles.