Ford is offering as much as $5,200 for old vehicle in Great Britain as part of a scrappage scheme.
Automakers are paying British motorists to take their old cars – primarily diesels – off the road before the end of the year.
Ford Motor Co. said this week it will offer to pay drivers as much as $5,200 for cars and even more for older if they replace their older vehicles. The program is applicable to any pre-Euro 5 vehicle registered by Dec. 31, 2009.
The scheme will enable eligible consumers to benefit from a scrappage incentive of between £2,000 and £7,0001 on a variety of Ford models, including the new high-tech Fiesta and Transit Custom, Britain’s most popular car and van respectively, Ford noted in its announcement.
“Ford shares society’s concerns over air quality,” said Andy Barratt, chairman and managing director of Ford of Britain. “Removing generations of the most polluting vehicles will have the most immediate positive effect on air quality, and this Ford scrappage scheme aims to do just that.
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“We don’t believe incentivizing sales of new cars goes far enough and we will ensure that all trade-in vehicles are scrapped. Acting together we can take hundreds of thousands of the dirtiest cars off our roads and out of our cities,” he added.
BMW, Vauxhall, Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen already have major efforts underway to entice buyers into scrapping older vehicles.
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Ford and other carmakers are already giving German drivers financial incentives to replace the dirtiest cars.
The U.K. has the largest fleet of diesel vehicles in Europe after drivers were encouraged to switch from gasoline, which emits more carbon dioxide for each mile driven. London Mayor Sadiq Khan said a diesel scrappage program in the capital could more than $600 million dollars.
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The Conservative government of Theresa May, the British prime minister, joined France in saying it would seek to end the sale of new diesel and gasoline fueled cars by 2040 as part of a wider plan to tackle the country’s toxic air pollution levels that have exceeded legal limits for the last seven years, according to The Daily Mail.