According to Government Officials, the Cash for Clunkers program is set to end on Monday August 24th.
All pending Cash for Clunkers Applications must be submitted by dealers no later than 8 PM EST on Monday.
Congress and the Department of Transportation decided on the premature end date after analysis showed that the program was quickly approaching its budget. They project, however, that there should be enough money to process all transactions up until Monday.
With the announcement of the deadline to submit applications for the Cash for Clunkers Program, new car dealers are expected to aggressively push the program this weekend.
Thus far, over 450,000 new cars have been purchased as part of the program with almost $2 Billion in rebates paid by the government. The next three days is expected to allow the car dealers to finalize any pending sales and give consumers a chance to take part in the program.
The Cash for Clunkers Program, which provides rebates of up to $4,500 for trade-ins, gained a great deal of attention over the last few weeks, when it quickly expended its $1 Billion budget. The program is intended to offer an incentive for Americans to purchase a new more fuel efficient vehicle, with the engine of their older model being destroyed. This is intended to not only stimulate new car sales at a time when many auto manufactures are struggling, but also help create a more fuel efficient fleet of vehicles.
Congress and President Obama apparently did not expect the program to be so popular, nor to generate as many sales as it did, as the original budget was depleted within a month of the programs start. The program had originally been slated to run until November.
To help revive the program congress agreed to give the program an additional $2 Billion last week, but this was obviously not enough to curb the popularity of the Cash for Clunkers Program.
With many car manufactures reporting record sales, including GM who announced they would reinstate a number of union jobs, it remains to be seen whether these sales figures will remain steady after the Cash for Clunkers Program is over, or if sales will rapidly decline as the program ends.