Thursday, June 11, 2009

Government buys $129 Million worth of Fuel Efficient Fords, and $158 Million on GMs & Chryslers?

New York Times article ( linked in title ) says that the General Services Administration spent a total of $287 million on new fuel efficient vehicles for Government agencies and that the lion's share went to Ford. Well, that makes sense, since Ford offers the Fusion and Escape Hybrids and the standard Focus gets 34 mpg. That $129 Million bought 7,924 Ford models and that averages out to $16,279.66 each car, I'm betting there are a bunch of Focus sedans with those G plates.

I recall reading that The Post Office was going to buy a coule hundred Electric Dodge Minivans, but what else are "We" buying from Chrysler? For our $53 Million, we're getting 2,993 Chrysler products at an average of $17,707.99 each. Calibers? Avengers? What qualifies as "Fuel Efficient" from Chrysler? At that breakdown, I'm assuming the Electric Postal vans are under a seperate deal. Maybe Obama missed his Hemi 300C?

GM's share is $105 Million for 6,348 vehicles, averaging out to $16,540.64 per vehicle. I can see the Cobalt, maybe the Malibu, some Equinox? GM at least has some "Fuel Efficient" vehicles.
Maybe that's where all the Pontiac Vibe and G6s are going?

The Times says that Uncle Sam didn't try and put any pressure on manufacturers or use their "owner's" discount, but paid contract prices.

I guess this will help ease speculation of favortism toward GM & Chrysler and bias towards Ford. It's really a drop in the bucket in the grand scheme of things. But I'd really love to see a breakdown of those 17,265 vehicles to see what our money is buying, I mean besides shares in worthless companies that we'll never see a dime from.

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