Opportunity Cars is a network of more than 150 nonprofit organizations dedicated to increasing private automobile ownership for low wage working families to support their ability to find and retain quality employment.

Working Wheels is a groundbreaking program that sells affordable used cars to eligible candidates who are experiencing employment-related transportation challenges.

"The key to their success... is in your old car."
Vehicles for Change is a community initiative helping to change the lives of low income families in Maryland, Virginia and Washington D.C. serving the community since October 1999.   Transportation is the main barrier to employment for low income families. Your donation provides the vehicles they need to get to work, daycare, doctors appointments, etc. Help get someone started. Donate a “Vehicle” For Change.

Pursuit of the Dream: Cars & Jobs in America

 

Low-income workers who are trying to reach self-sufficiency, stabilize their finances and move up the economic ladder must be able to connect to good jobs and meet family obligations. A car is often a necessity. However, common obstacles such as overpriced and unreliable cars, sub prime (high interest rate) loans, high down payments, hidden purchase costs, and the limitations caused by poor credit histories can prevent them from improving their lives through car ownership.

Pursuit of the Dream: Cars & Jobs in America, produced by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, explains the importance of affordable, reliable transportation for building the economic success of low-income families and their communities. The documentary features the stories of three real-life families who struggled with the pitfalls that low-wage workers often face when purchasing a car, and shows how they overcame them. Recommendations on how to avoid these pitfalls and tips for knowledgeable car purchase and ownership are provided in the documentary and in the printed discussion guide, included in each DVD case. The discussion guide also suggests ways to use the documentary with different audiences and includes resources for more information. The 22-minute documentary is provided in both English and Spanish versions.

The New Yorker
The Financial Page
Fuel for Thought
by James Surowiecki July 23, 2007

In the auto industry, there’s one thing you can always count on: if a new environmental or safety rule is proposed, executives will prophesy disaster. In the nineteen-twenties, Alfred Sloan, the president of General Motors, insisted that the company could not make windshields with safety glass because doing so would harm the bottom line. In the fifties, auto executives told Congress that making seat belts compulsory would slash industry profits. When air bags came along, Lee Iacocca told Richard Nixon that “safety has really killed all our business.” A few years later, when Congress was thinking about requiring fuel-economy standards, auto executives warned that instituting such standards would create “massive financial and unemployment problems.” And now, with Congress debating a bill to raise fuel-economy standards, for the first time in almost twenty years, the Chicken Littles are squawking again, forecasting doom for Detroit and asserting that making higher-mileage vehicles is technologically unfeasible and economically suicidal.

Of course, much of this is simply stonewalling by executives determined to keep meddlesome politicians out of their business. But sometimes the industry’s fears have been founded on real market research. In the case of safety glass, G.M. believed that consumers weren’t prepared to pay more for cars with safety glass, so Sloan worried that it would be hard to recoup the cost of installing it. Similarly, when, in the mid-nineteen-seventies, G.M. offered front-seat air bags as an option on Cadillacs, Buicks, and Oldsmobiles, they didn’t sell. Fuel-economy standards present the same difficulty: although there are plenty of affordable models that get good gas mileage, over the past two decades some of the most powerful and least fuel-efficient vehicles on the market—S.U.V.s and pickup trucks—have also been among the best-selling. Thirty years ago, so-called “light trucks” accounted for about a fifth of all auto sales. Today, even with a recent slowdown, they account for more than half.

 

December 10, 2006
World View Podcast
Summary: A transcript of Calvin Sims interviewing Times Hong Kong bureau chief Keith Bradsher about China's new love affair with cars.

Sims: Gives us some background, if you will, Keith. China is typically known as a country where you had just millions and millions of bicycle people. Probably that's the image they have when they see photos of Chinese, especially in big cities. What has been fueling this growth in car usage in the last couple of years?