China’s car sales up 24% in February
March 11, 2009 by Matt Brogan
With tax incentives luring Chinese buyers back into showrooms, China’s car sales for February have increased 24.2 per cent as compared to the same time last year.
Passenger car sales came to 607,300 last month, with total vehicle sales (including cars, buses and trucks) seeing the total figure rise to 827,600 units – a 24.72 per cent year-on-year increase.
Though the news may not mean much to us in Australia, it does start the ball rolling in terms of incentive ideas for buying a new car.
Scrappage schemes, tax incentives, fleet and business discounts all show that different countries are tackling the issue of slowing new car sales in different ways – which leads us to wonder:
What would get you in to a new car this year?
Print it: 
See this K Rudd,tax breaks are the way to go to stimulate our economy,not handing out money willy nilly.
If there was a scrappage incentive of say 5k, I think a lot of old student cars may be traded for a new fiesta/ mazda2/ yaris/ getz/ barina(yuk).
i’d say that a scrappage plan would work.however it would leave all the backpackers nothing to drive.the sources say that as new car sales are drying up,that the value of good used cars are now increasing…
oh,and by the way,does ANYBODY know about the rudd govt’s 30% tax write off for capital expenditure that expires june 30th??????
Scrappage would definitely increase new car sales. And driving a car would become safer for so many, not to mention the environmental benefits with emissions etc. But what about the independent used cars dealers? Their stock would become worthless as the market floods with trades we can not find homes for. Would the ends justify the means?
“Would the ends justify the means?”
Godo point. Although you;d have to weigh up costs and benefits. How many jobs will you save with new cars versus how many with second hand cars. You;d find there would be more jobs relating to new cars, especially if they are locally built.
“oh,and by the way,does ANYBODY know about the rudd govt’s 30% tax write off for capital expenditure that expires june 30th??????”
You’re referring to the Investment Allowance that was announced by Wayne Swan on 12 December 08. Yes. Detailed info on the ATO website. Essentially additional deduction on depreciable assets (incl cars) acquired before certain dates. Meant to encourage business to spend money.
@ Salesman: why would the market flood with trades? Scrappage means a trip to the crusher. I understand some people would go for a 15k new car instead of a 10k second hand car.. but it’s more of an incentive to get people who were not thinking about changing cars at all out of their dungers
Phil,
Imagine if the trade has just had LPG fitted (because of the recent rebate incentive) would the government crush a car they just paid $5K for that recently had a $2K LPG system fitted?. Or would it end up in a used car yard, somewhere the government can reduce the cost of the scrappage incentive?
Government fleet cars are also causing a similar problem. You can go to any auction house and find thousands of ex government Commodores, Falcons and Camrys (Aurions) for sale. If the government dropped these cars at no reserve it would destroy private trade in values and independent used car dealers.
The scrappage incentive would only apply to cars over 10 or 15 years old salesman. That woudln’t have any impact on 2 year old falcon resales. It’s low enough already as it is anyway. And I doubt anyone would put an LPG system into their 15 year old car either.
If understand it correctly, the point of scrapping would be to take the car off the road (for emmissions and safety reasons). So I would assume that it would be illegal to register the car after that, like a non-repairable write off.
Nothing, I refuse to buy new cars its such a waste of money. I always wait till they have about 20K on the clock. Its just as new usually and has lost that huge loss you get in the first year of a new car purchase. I don’t know why people buy new cars, but its good for me because there are always plenty of used cars for me to choose from.
I would like to see a GST rebate from the government on Aussie made cars, that coupled with fleet discounts to all buyers and the LPG rebate I’m sure that would stimulate sales & keeps jobs.