I was telling my husband that 6 months down the road, the repo man is going to be verrry busy. Some people who are allowed to get these car loans are skating on thin ice already and will be hurting when the dominoes fall this winter.
That's the other piece of it. There's probably some assumption that people will save enough gas to help with the payments....as I posted before, the savings isn't all that great in city/suburb driving.
A TV commentator (sometimes they go out of character and say something intelligent and relevant) poimted out that a lot of carowners used this program in the midwest, where winter can be fierce. Can't you just see these drivers in their fuel efficient cars in snowstorms, instead of their huge SUVs?