THE BAY AREA AIR DISTRICT is now offering $2,000 to buy back gas-powered vehicles that are model year 2000 and older.  

That’s a bump from the $1,500 it already pays for vehicles that were manufactured before 1998. The updated payout took effect Tuesday.

The Vehicle Buy Back Program is a voluntary initiative designed to reduce air pollution by removing older, high-emission vehicles from Bay Area roads. The program is indicative of the state’s push to remove gas-powered vehicles from its roads.  

Since 2023, the federal Environmental Protection Agency has granted California a series of waivers that allowed it to set higher-than-national standards to increase the number of zero-emission vehicles in the state.  

By model year 2035, 80% of passenger cars sold in the state must be zero-emission, and 20% will be plug-in hybrids. Commercial trucks and vehicles face similar restrictions by 2040.   

But on June 12, President Donald Trump signed a law disallowing the state to set those standards. The move was immediately challenged in court by Governor Gavin Newsom’s administration.  

“Motor vehicle emissions contribute to the formation of smog, as well as fine particle pollution and unhealthy levels of air toxics, all of which are linked to premature death, respiratory illness, cardiovascular problems, and cancer, among other serious health impacts,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said at the time. “Transportation is also the leading source of greenhouse gas emissions in the country, and cars and trucks account for more than 80% of those transportation emissions.” 

To qualify for the buy back, your vehicle must be in working condition, currently registered as operable, and have been registered in the Bay Area for the past two years. If a Smog Check is due within 60 days, the vehicle must pass before being accepted into the program.  

Once approved, the cars will be scrapped for parts by an approved Air District dismantler, such as Environmental Engineering Studies or Pick-n-Pull.  

For those interested in classic cars or parts, the Air District publishes a Vehicle Inventory listing cars submitted for scrapping. That list can be found here. 

Ruth Dusseault is an investigative reporter and multimedia journalist focused on environment and energy. Her position is supported by the California local news fellowship, a statewide initiative spearheaded by UC Berkeley aimed at supporting local news platforms. While a student at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism (c’23), Ruth developed stories about the social and environmental circumstances of contaminated watersheds around the Great Lakes, Mississippi River and Florida’s Lake Okeechobee. Her thesis explored rights of nature laws in small rural communities. She is a former assistant professor and artist in residence at Georgia Tech’s School of Architecture, and uses photography, film and digital storytelling to report on the engineered systems that undergird modern life.