When you run git clone, it updates progress in place. For example, the percentage of the objects received changes in place.
git clone
user@athena:~/cloj/s
git/progress.c
... eol = done ? done : " \r"; ... fprintf(stderr, "...%s", ..., eol); fflush(stderr);
Git simply emits a carriage return and no line feed, which the terminal interprets as "move to first column".