Romania - 900

With a scrappage incentive of only €900, 11,543 clunkers were removed from circulation of all the 20,000 available. The second stage of the scheme was less successful than the first one, where only 9,649 orders were placed, half of the number allocated for the scheme.

For the third stage of the program, scheduled for September 1 – December 11, will offer 28,529 vehicles to be bought with the premium. The Environmental Fund has poured around 108.4 million lei into the program.

Car manufacturers and dealers sold only 2,882 cars under the program in September, in the first session of the third stage of the scheme, of all the 28,529 vehicles available.

In 2009, 190 mln lei have been allocated into the program aimed at removing 50,000 cars from circulation, and additional 38 mln lei for car fleet renewal program designed for companies.

France - 1,000

Coming close in second was France, who offers €1,000 reward to car drivers trading in an older vehicle.

France will keep the scrappage grant at the same level in 2010, and will reduce it to €700 as of January 1, and than to €500 as of July 1.

The scrappage incentive that is part of the French government economic recovery plan, should have been granted by the end of December. The scheme has revived new car sales.

Some 380,000 orders have been placed, which raises state’s spending to €380mln, as only €220mln were set forth in the 2009 budget plan.

French car industry increased by 0.6% in August compared to a year earlier, to 130,000 cars. However, new car registrations fell 3.4% to 1.672 mln cars.


Italy 1,500

The Italian Government offers a premium of €1,500 for those who trade in their old cars. The car scrappage scheme in Italy was put in place on February 11, month when orders for new cars increased by 4% to 220,000.

In Italy, the scrappage incentive can reach up to €5,000 if the car’s CO2 emissions level is below 120g/Km and is powered by liquid petroleum gas, electricity or hydrogen.

For any car on eco-friendly fuels that emitted above 120gCO2/km, the grant was €3,000.

In the Italian car industry, 2.16 new cars were registered, 13% fewer than 2.49 mln cars in 2007.

Austria 1,500

The Austrian version of the car srappage scheme kicked off in spring, with a budget of €45mln and a grant of €1,500. Shortly after the program was put in place, the country’s car market increased by 13% in April and by 5% in May.

After three months of running the program in Austria, the funds allocated exhausted.

Since the beginning of the program, 30,000 new eco-friendly cars were sold under the scheme. In 2008, the car market fell 1.5% to 294,000 cars.

Slovakia - 1,500

Slovakia offered €1,500 grant under the car scrappage scheme, for cars priced below €25,000.

The grant paid by the state was €1,000. If the car dealer accepted to make a €500 discount, the state would raise the contribution to €1,500.

The funds allocated for scrapping cars in circulation for more than ten years stood at €33mln in the first stage. For the second stage of the scheme, the Slovak state allocated €22mln. Overall, the state poured around €55mln into the program, for 44,200 new cars.

Slovaks drivers bought almost 41.300 new cars in the first half this year, 18.4% more than a year earlier. In June, 10.355 orders were placed.

Spain - 2,000

The Spanish government decided to start a similar car scrappage scheme in May, which slowed down the decline pace of car registrations.

In May, the reward under the incentive scheme aimed at increasing the car sales in Spain was raised to €2,000 from €1,500 after car dealers’ threatened to closed down car production facilities across the country.

After more than a year of subdued car sales, the Spanish market, stimulated by the scrappage incentives offered by the government, stabilized in August, when the market didn’t report YoY decline, first time since April 2008.

In the first eight months this year, the total number of car registrations dropped by nearly a third (32%) to 599,808.

UK - 2,200

The scrappage incentive in United Kingdom was set at £2,000 (around €2,200). The Government scrappage subsidy is matched by equal funding from manufacturers.

The scheme launched in May would end when the £300 mln funds, the equivalent of 300,000 premiums will be exhausted.

By early August over 150,000 orders were placed.

Car sales in UK increased by 6% in August the second successive month of growth, compared to the same period of last year, to 67,006.

Germany - 2,500

Germany had been running until August this year, a generous scrappage incentive program, with a subsidy of €2,500 for trading the old car.

One of the car manufacturers that participated in the program was the local producer Dacia, held by Renault. Sales of Logan cars increased by 83% in Germany in the first half of the year.

The €5bln funds allocated by Germany for the scrappage scheme that has been in place since the beginning of the year exhausted in September.

Some 2 million scrappage incentives were given so far, of €2,500 each.

USA - 3,100

The main stimulus that lifted car sales in the US car industry was the $4,500 (€3,100) reward, offered under cash for clunkers program.

The scheme had an enormous success in USA, as the funds exhausted at the end of August, after one month in place. The car sales in USA increased by 10.6% in July, the highest rate since October 2001.

Around 690,000 vouchers asking for $2.87 were submitted until August 24.