Car Buying Online

I came across this post today at Wired Blog written by Chuck Squatriglia and I think it’s pretty neat stuff. If you’re into cars or should I say flying cars!!!

“The flying car has been a dream pursued by inventors since the dawn of aviation and a fantasy long held by commuters wishing they could soar above traffic like George Jetson.

Engineers and eccentrics have patented more than 70 designs since 1918, and even the U.S. government and Henry Ford tried to build flying cars. But success has been elusive, the challenge too great, and such machines have remained the stuff of science fiction.

Until now.

An aeronautical startup called Terrafugia has developed a small airplane called the Transition that it says can take to the sky as easily as the road. It is about the size of a large SUV and features innovative folding wings that collapse with the press of a button. Terrafugia calls it a “personal air vehicle.”

The team behind the Transition still has to design a drivetrain to propel the craft and a mechanism to transfer power from the propeller to the wheels, but it expects to begin flight tests late next year.

Production could begin as early as 2009, and Terrafugia says it’s already received more than 30 orders.

Not long after Henry Ford started building cars and the Wright brothers proved we could fly, an inventor and aviator named Glenn Curtiss built the first flying car in 1917. The Curtiss Autoplane wasn’t much to look at and it barely got off the ground, but it proved that it was possible to merge automobile and airplane into a single machine.

Still, the Autoplane and most of the “roadable” aircraft that followed had the same problem - combining the mechanics of an automobile with those of an airplane created something that didn’t work well as either. It also proved exceedingly difficult to design a machine light enough to fly but robust enough to drive without being blown off the road. There were some that worked - most notably the Airphibian and the original Aerocar, the only flying cars certified by the Federal Aviation Administration - but most were unstable cars and clumsy airplanes.

Advancements in composite materials and metal alloys have addressed many of those problems, and Terrafugia is in a race with several other companies to bring a flying car to market. They include Moller International, Aerocar and Urban Aeronautics.

The Transition isn’t so much a car you can fly but an airplane you can drive, and it is meant to be an alternative to driving for trips between 100 and 500 miles.

“This is not going to replace your Toyota Camry,” company founder Carl Dietrich told the Boston Globe. “You could take it to the store, but it doesn’t have the trunk space of your SUV.”

The preliminary specifications calls for an aircraft 19 feet long and 80 inches wide with the wings folded (the wingspan is 27 feet). It will have a 100-horsepower engine powered by unleaded fuel and a propeller at the rear. The airplane will cruise at 115 mph and have a range of about 460 miles, and it will have room for two people and 550 pounds of cargo. It will weigh 1,320 pounds.

The self-folding wings make the Transition unique, as past flying cars used wings that had to be removed or folded manually. The idea was to make the transition from airplane to automobile as quick and seamless as possible. The design team unveiled the folding wing design in July at the annual AirVenture aviation festival, where they opened and closed the wings more than 500 times without a problem. The wings feature several mechanical and electrical locks to ensure they don’t collapse in flight.

“Going into this, we knew our two biggest design challenges to make it practical would be the wings and the powertrain,” Anna Mracek, an engineer and chief operating officer at Terrafugia, told Technology Review. “By validating the durability of the wing’s construction and engineering, we’ve checked on major design challenge off the list, and now our focus is on the second.”

But the greatest challenge may be getting the Transition certified by the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Highway and Transportation Safety Administration. The aircraft will be classified as a light sport aircraft, and a sport pilot license will be required to fly it. Such licenses generally require less time to obtain than traditional licenses.

Mracek says the company has been working closely with the two agencies “to make working with them as painless as possible” and has made inroads toward certification. The FAA says “the concept of airplanes as personal transportation” is on its radar, so to speak.

Dietrich founded Terrafugia - Latin for “escape from land” - three years ago while still pursuing a doctoral degree in aeronoautical and aerospace engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He got his pilot’s license at 17, and even as a boy dreamed of building a flying car, and his design for the Transition was among a portfolio of ideas that earned him the prestigious Lemelson-MIT Student Prize last year.

He and the rest of the Terrafugia team believe the time is right for a flying car. They note that there are 5,296 public airports in the United States, and most people are within 20 miles of one. With many of those airports being underutilized and several studies, including the annual Urban Mobility Report, showing traffic congestion getting worse nationwide, Dietrich believes personal air vehicles may be the transportation of the future.”

Maybe Henry Ford was right after all when he said in 1940, “Mark my word - a combination airplane and motor car is coming. You may smile, but it will come.”

Everyone starting to understand that the hybrid vehicles are the way to go if you want to save money on gas, but what most people don’t know is that they also require much less maintenance. Below are the 3 main reasons why hybrid vehicles need less maintenance as outlined by Active Hybrid.

Hybrid cars are excellent choices for helping the environment by using less fuel and more efficiency, but hybrids also require less maintenance. Hybrid vehicles are designed to require less service and are made to last longer and run better made than a conventional car.

When deciding between a hybrid and a traditional car, all factors should be considered. Hybrid vehicles are lower on emissions, use less fuel and because they have fewer parts, tend to last longer. The following are three reasons by hybrids go in for less maintenance.

The generator of a hybrid can take on multiple tasks.

The generator on a hybrid is an important aspect of the car. A hybrid uses a separate gas engine that powers the generator. The engine on most hybrids are very small, usually a ten to twenty horsepower. It is designed to run at one speed to get maximum efficiency. The generator of a hybrid is able help to take on the tasks of several other parts of the car. This reduces wear and tear on parts that often need replacement on a conventional car. Because the generator takes on several tasks, the hybrid car is able to recapture energy when coasting or breaking to recharge the battery. This reduces battery usage and the battery in a hybrid will need to be replaced less often. Because the generator handles 80 percent of the braking, the brake life is extended, as well. Also, with a hybrid, there is the reduced chance of having warped rotors due to less heat to the generator doing more of the break work.

Another advantage of having less wear on the break system from the generator is that the brake fluid life is extended because there is minimal contamination of fluid due to less heat build up. Break pads on a hybrid tend to last longer, as well.

A hybrid vehicle has less car parts to wear out than a traditional car.

Because of the way hybrids are built, they use less auto parts. Less auto parts means less vehicle wear and replacement. This type of technology also does away with a regular starter. Not having a starter makes one less component that will need to be replaced over time. With no starter, there is no way to accidentally grind the flywheel.

The battery and motor of a hybrid do not require any maintenance over the life of the car. The engine is also designed to last longer and does not require any more maintenance than a traditional car.

The air conditioning system used in a hybrid car works by electricity and non-hybrid cars use a traditional pulley driven off a gas motor. Because the car is not running the gas motor to cool the car, there is no air conditioning belt to wear out. In addition, there is no belt required for the steering. Because the steering is electric and not hydraulic, is has minimal kickback when driving over rough or uneven roads.

There is usually no valve adjustments needed in a hybrid either. Because the motor is not constantly running, it does not wear the valve system out, if present in the car. Also, injectors in a hybrid may never need to be cleaned. There is less deposit over time on the injectors, requiring less maintenance.

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Hybrid cars usually come with longer warranties.

Many makers of hybrid cars such as Honda and Toyota offer longer warranties on hybrids than on traditional cars. The Honda Insight offers an eight year or 80,000 mile warranty on hybrids. This includes the batteries and the power train. The Toyota Prius offers buyers with an eight-year or 100,000 mile warranty on the battery and the hybrid system. Longer warranties on these cars make an attractive feature for buyers looking for a more efficient way of driving.

When choosing between a conventional car and a hybrid look at all of the long-term possibilities. Hybrid cars can offer drivers a longer lasting car because they are built to last longer. Hybrids are also worth considering because they require less maintenance than a regular car. They offer better fuel overall efficiency, have less parts that wear out over time and many makers of hybrids offer longer warranties.

If you’ve been considering buying a hybrid vehicle and always wandered about this very popular question, Do Savings Offset the Higher Price? Then you can rest assured that you are not alone. This is the number one question concerning the interest in hybrid vehicles and below is an article from Tara Baukus Mello who does a great job explaining every aspect of buying a hybrid.

As the number and type of hybrid cars grow, consumer interest in these vehicles increases as well. What initially appealed to a select group of environmentalists is now being bought and considered by more mainstream buyers.

But let’s face it: The sticker price of a hybrid vehicle is significantly higher than its gasoline-powered counterpart. Does the improved fuel economy offset the extra cost? What happens if the hybrid drivetrain breaks?

We looked at a variety of issues and talked with hybrid owners and manufacturers to learn the real costs of owning one of these high-tech cars.

Higher Purchase Price
Hybrid cars cost an average of $2,500 to $3,000 more than comparably equipped gasoline vehicles. However, buyers can offset that premium with a federal tax credit, part of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. The tax credit provides a dollar-for-dollar reduction in the tax bill, and ranges from $250 for the Chevrolet Silverado/GMC Sierra two-wheel-drive hybrid pickups to $3,150 for the Toyota Prius.

The hitch? Once a manufacturer sells 60,000 vehicles, the credit gradually decreases over a period of 15 months until it is phased out entirely. While the act keeps the tax credit in effect until 2010, Toyota has already reached its cap, and credit for Toyota and Lexus vehicles has been phased out. Honda’s credit is still in effect but will only be good through 2008. (More details on hybrid tax credits are explained here.)

Making the deal even sweeter, several states offer tax deductions for hybrid purchases. Lee Boughey of Highlands Ranch, Colorado, received a $3,600 state tax credit as well as a $2,000 federal deduction when he purchased his Honda Civic Hybrid. “[The state and federal tax deductions] made me much more comfortable with purchasing the new technology because I was able to offset the cost,” says Boughey.

A list of available hybrid incentives (federal, state and private) is available at Hybrid Center.

Lower Insurance
Preliminary research by insurance companies indicates that drivers of hybrid vehicles have a lower risk of being involved in an accident than drivers of non-hybrid vehicles. As a result, Farmers Insurance currently offers a 5 or 10 percent discount to hybrid vehicle owners depending on their state, while Travelers Insurance offers a 10 percent discount to hybrid owners nationwide.

For comparison purposes, we looked at the estimated five-year insurance cost for a 2008 Toyota Camry Hybrid versus a 2008 Toyota Camry XLE (the closest gas-powered counterpart) using Edmunds’ True Cost to OwnSM calculations. The upshot? Over a five-year period, the average U.S. consumer will spend an estimated $770 less to insure the hybrid than either the four- or six-cylinder gas-powered cars.

Repairs — No Worries
Hybrid critics warn of potentially expensive repairs associated with the hybrid-specific parts, such as battery packs. “I was a little concerned initially,” said Lydia Segal of Alexandria, Virginia, who owns a Lexus RX 400h, “but Toyota’s had its hybrid technology out for quite a while now. Plus, I did a lot of research on the Internet and couldn’t find anyone who had a problem with the hybrid system.”

And there doesn’t seem much reason to worry. All the hybrid-specific components in every hybrid vehicle currently on the market are covered under warranty for eight years/100,000 miles or 10 years/150,000 miles, depending on the state, but these components have been shown to have a much longer lifespan in testing. Toyota, for example, reports that its battery packs have lasted for more than 180,000 miles in testing. Every hybrid manufacturer reports that it has conducted testing of hybrid components in extreme temperatures and with repeated charge/discharge cycles with no ill effects on the hybrid system.

Regular Maintenance — a Draw
Most hybrid cars do not require any additional regular maintenance on the hybrid-specific components. An exception is the air filter on the battery system of the Ford Escape Hybrid, which needs to be replaced every 40,000 miles.

The gasoline engine in a hybrid vehicle requires the same maintenance that it would if it were the only power source driving the vehicle. That means oil changes every 5,000-10,000 miles depending on the vehicle and the driving conditions.

In ordinary vehicles the brake pads need to be changed regularly. But the hybrids’ regenerative braking systems and their reduced heat means their brake pads typically last much longer. “We’ve seen customers go 85,000 miles before they needed to replace their brakes on their Prius vehicles,” says Toyota’s Smith.

Fuel Economy — Hybrid’s Strength
Until the EPA changed its methods for calculating fuel economy for 2008 model-year vehicles, there had been a large discrepancy between the EPA fuel economy ratings listed on the window sticker and the “real-world” results most drivers experience. While all vehicles are affected by this discrepancy, hybrid vehicles appear to be more affected by it because their EPA estimates start off higher. “For example,” explains Robert Bienenfield, product planning manager at American Honda, “a vehicle that has a fuel economy rating of 20 mpg may only get 18 mpg, while a vehicle that is rated at 50 mpg may only get 45 mpg. This seems like a bigger issue for the more fuel-efficient vehicle, but in reality both vehicles are off by 10 percent.”

The EPA’s new methods have brought fuel economy ratings more closely in line with real-world driving. For example, the 2007 Toyota Camry Hybrid had EPA-estimated fuel economy of 40 city/38 highway. For 2008, those numbers have been revised to 33 city/34 highway. But the new EPA’s fuel economy ratings still can’t show how widely numbers can vary based on an individual’s typical driving route.

“Short trips are the harshest on fuel economy, so anyone who drives just a few miles in his typical trip will see lower mpg numbers than someone who drives, say, 15 miles to work,” says Bienenfield. And no matter which car you buy, a “lead foot” will always cost more in gas than a light touch on the accelerator.

Nonetheless, driving a hybrid will always save money over its gas-fueled counterpart. The difference is more significant for some models than others, so look at the 2008 EPA ratings carefully when comparing.

Costs Vs. Benefits
On the surface, it appears that the added costs of purchasing a hybrid are offset by federal and state tax benefits, reduced fuel costs and (potentially) lower insurance rates. Thus far, maintenance and repair costs for hybrid cars seem to be a wash. Of course, much depends on the vehicle you choose, where you live, your insurer and your driving habits.

Shop and Compare top selling Hybrid cars

There are plenty of other reasons to buy a hybrid, including reduced emissions for the environment and a long list of perks, both financial and otherwise. But for the hybrid car owners we spoke with, any additional up-front costs were outweighed by their love for their cars. Linda Sutherland, of Hermosa Beach, California, says her Toyota Highlander Hybrid was the right choice for her family because it can carry plenty of passengers and cargo to their mountain cabin — without being a gas guzzler on her 150-mile daily commute.

Now that she’s owned the vehicle for a couple of years, she expects hybrid vehicles are in her family for good. “When we get ready to buy our next vehicle, we’ll look for a hybrid convertible. Hopefully one will be available by then,” she says.

Over the past many years Buick has delivered a reliable family car that our parents drove and loved. Well today is no different, other than the sleek line of new Buicks, the top-notch quality, dependability and safety deliver peace of mind for us and our families.

Peace of mind is one of those things that are hard to put a price tag on, but it’s something that can influence a prospective auto purchaser more so than any option package or powerful engine that might be available. Chances are, your vehicle is one of the most expensive things you own- and after investing thousands of hard-earned dollars on purchasing one, flawless performance is something you would understandably expect and Buick promises to deliver.

Ensuring that their vehicles deliver just that, Buick has taken quality and reliability very, very seriously. Most recently, they’ve been the first brand in some 12 years to tie Lexus in the area of used vehicle dependability. The results, represented in the JD Power and Associates Used Vehicle Dependability study, are based on a survey of owners who drive models which are a few years old.

“Consumers don’t necessarily need to pay premium prices to obtain high quality and dependability”, said Neal Oddes, director of product research and analysis for J.D. Power and Associates. “Automakers may reap numerous benefits from producing dependable vehicles—not only in higher residual values, decreased warranty costs and opportunities for remarketing their vehicles, but also in higher customer satisfaction and increased likelihood of customers recommending or purchasing newer dependable models,” he adds.

A vehicle which ranks higher in this study will also be more likely to retain a higher residual value as well. For instance, the study indicates that vehicles with strong dependability will retain up to 15% more of their value after 3 years. This in turn can increase the purchase price when that same vehicle is sold as a used car. These more dependable machines also become an asset to dealers, who may be able to sell a machine several times over its life cycle.

Of course, top-notch production and assembly facilities serve to help a carmaker build with confidence. Buick shoppers can rest assured that they’re getting the full advantage of cutting edge production engineering and assembly facilities - a fact that is substantiated by the fact that Buick has won a dozen facility quality awards since 2002. Obviously this just stands to emphasize the craftsmanship and meticulous attention to detail Buick puts into all aspects of its business.

Each and every Buick (as well as every other GM model) also carries a comprehensive powertrain warranty that covers over 900 components related to engine, transmission, transfer case and final drive assemblies, as applicable including any internally lubricated transmission component, torque converters, transfer case components, axles, constant velocity joints and hub bearings.

This comprehensive powertrain coverage applies for 5 years or 160,000 kilometres- one of the best in the Canadian market.

Arturo Elias, GM Canada’s President, cites a successful ten year focus on achieving industry-leading quality and durability for the warranty, which reflects the confidence of GM Brands in their current product lineups. “This coverage is a reflection of the hard work of our employees, unions, dealers and suppliers, to achieve high quality standards in GM vehicles, including engines and transmissions manufactured in Canada. This recognition for quality brings our customers a new level of confidence in GM” Elias adds.

GM Connection