Last summer there were a lot of questions about the effectiveness of the Cash for Clunkers program in which the federal government offered financial incentive for people to turn in their old cars for new, more fuel efficient models.  NPR's Mara Liasson even referred to the program as a "mini-Katrina" for the Obama Administration (she later apologized).  Apart from criticisms about how the program was run, there was the concern that the program would simply push people who were going to buy new cars eventually to do so sooner--so that there would not be much long term gain for auto-manufacturers.  Now, Maritz Research has released a new report that gives credit to the program for increasing sales beyond expectations.  According to CNNMoney's Peter Valdes-Dapena, Maritz's analysis shows that 765,000 vehicles were sold because of the program:

That's more than double the Department of Transportation's estimate of 346,000 sales that wouldn't otherwise have been made.

Maritz' estimate of additional new car sales resulting from the program is actually even larger than the total number of vehicles sold under Cash for Clunkers.

Government records indicate that a total of 677,000 new vehicles were purchased under the program.

According to Maritz, 542,000 of those sales were made to people who didn't plan to buy a car otherwise. Additionally, another 223,000 people were lured into dealerships by the program, learned they didn't qualify for the benefit, but purchased a car anyway.

Read Cash for Clunkers: Better than we though here.