According to new data from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), by the end of March this year, 372,401 new cars had been registered through the UK scrappage incentive scheme (SIS).
The scheme accounted for 12.2 per cent of all new car registrations and 3.2 per cent of the total van market in March, with 6,577 new LCVs registered through the scheme since it began in May 2009.
New car registrations in March via SIS were down around eight per cent on the average monthly level, due to the scheme coming to an end that month.
Since May 2009, the scheme has accounted for 18.7 per cent of total new car sales. For LCVs the figures are 3.2 per cent and 3.7 per cent, respectively.
The organisation said that average CO2 emissions of a car bought through the scheme were 132.9g/km, 27.1 per cent below a scrapped car’s figure and 9.6 per cent below the overall new car market average. The average CO2 emissions of an old car scrapped through the scheme is estimated to be 182.2g/km.
Supermini models accounted for 58.5 per cent of all cars registered through scrappage during May 2009 to March 2010, with private buyers registering 98.4 per cent of all the cars through the scheme over that period. Petrol cars accounted for 83 per cent of cars bought through the scheme.
Cradle to grave its ecologically better to keep an old car going rather than buy a new one, in times of recession and record levels of personal debt people are being encouraged to stretch their finances further, a number of good condition classics have been sent to the crusher and there are now only a handful of specialist manufacturers which are British owned. Could anyone tell me why the scrappage scheme was so good for Britain please?
Thank goodness it has finished. With most cars being imported now encouraging people to have new cars is lunacy. Ecologically all manufactured things should have their life extended as much as possible, and providing jobs for foreign car workers is daft. Keep the older cars going and let the locals have the jobs of maintaining them.
I was momentarily tempted by the scrappage scheme, my 1993 Astra has now done 201 thousand miles, it still returns between 47 and 55 MPG, I woiuld struggle to find a simmilar size car with the same economy. Drove it to John o Groats in March, old cars – more fun and cheep to run.