Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F) is offering U.K. buyers between 2,000 pounds (~$2,500) and 7,000 pounds to trade in their used cars or vans as the manufacturer joins peers in efforts to get more-polluting vehicles off the road and boost sagging car sales.
The maker of both the U.K.’s best-selling car and van, the Fiesta and the Transit Custom, is differentiating its program by allowing buyers to trade in any brand of older vehicle — registered before the end of 2009, with a pre-Euro V standard engine — for at least £2,000.
Vauxhall and BMW launched trade-in programs earlier this year. Ford will not resell any of the vehicles it takes in, but will scrap them.
“Ford shares society’s concerns over air quality. 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,” Andy Barratt, chairman and managing director of Ford of Britain, said, according to The Guardian newspaper.
U.K. car sales have been falling in recent months, with a 9% decrease in July blamed on tighter lending and fears around Brexit.
“We don’t believe incentivising sales of new cars goes far enough and we will ensure that all trade-in vehicles are scrapped,” Barratt said.
F stock is down almost 13% this year while rival General Motors Company (NYSE:GM) has eked out a less-than-1% gain against an 8.5% gain in the S&P 500 Index. In May, Ford replaced CEO Mark Fields with Jim Hackett, then-head of Ford’s self-driving vehicles unit. Earlier, Ford said it would cut 10% of its global workforce, part of $3 billion in cost reductions for 2017, seeking to improve profitability in 2018 even as U.S. auto sales flatten.
