Hyundai has a new incentive to make you buy. Car dealers have had "push, pull or drag it in" promotions to encourage you to trade in old vehicles --but Hyundai is the first manufacturer to offer clean air cash in Canada.
Hyundai is offering $500 to $1,000 in savings for your clunker if you buy a new Hyundai. The company is trying to increase its exposure here after its sales jumped 38 per cent in July over last year. The president of Hyundai Canada, Steve Kelleher, says the company expects to sell another four thousand cars this year thanks to the new program.
"The clean air cash incentive is meant to help expedite the removal of the older more polluting vehicles from the roads in Canada," he said.
To qualify for the Hyundai savings - your car must be a 1995 or older, that is in running condition and has been registered and insured for the past six months.
The incentives are starting to add up. Here in BC we have the Scrap It program. Under it you can get up to $2,000 if you turn in a vehicle built before1995.
There's a national program too. Canada's Retire Your Ride program pays you $300 to scrap a car that is a 1995 or older, The national program has been criticized as not offering enough of an incentive to get old cars off the road. In BC, it's run under our Scrap It program which is more generous.
A generous program in the U.S. has been a victim of its own success. It provides up to $4,500 if you trade in an old car for a more fuel efficient one. It's proved so popular the first billion dollars was used up within two weeks. Another two billion dollars has been added to keep it running.
With a report from CTV British Columbia's Chris Olsen
