According to an article on MSNBC.com, plug-in electric vehicles will receive up a $7500 tax credit they purchase them.  GM and Toyota are expected to have plug-ins available in a year or so.   The tax credit is part of the $700 billion bailout by the government to try to make green vehicles were affordable.  The plug-in electric cars will be even more expensive than the hybrids that are currently available for sale.  The Chevrolet Volt is expected to cost between $30,000 and $40,000. The $7500 tax credit will be needed for people to be able to afford this vehicle.  It will be interesting to see if this vehicle can sell and be a good choice for a alternative fuel car.  It sounds good on paper, but may be difficult to use because many plug-ins cannot travel very far within recharging.  We’ll have to wait and see. 

An article on Yahoo.com by Sean Tucker of the U.S. News, talks about whether people these days should be buying new vehicles or leasing them instead.  He made several really good points that I’ll tell you about. 

1.  He explains that the new 2009 models have been in the design process since about 2005 or 2006, so they are not the fuel-efficient cars that everyone these days are looking for. The 2010 and 2011 models that are being designed currently are the cars to have. Therefore, with this said, you don’t want to buy a 2009 and then have to pay on it for at least 5 years (average new car loans are at least 62 months.)  That would mean that you would still have this model and be just finishing paying it in 2014.  By then, you could have had a much more fuel-efficient car for several years if you had leased. If you leased a car today, your lease would probably be up in about late 2011, just when the new fuel-efficient models will be available.

2.  Cars depreciate in value a lot, but if you lease a car you really don’t care about the depreciation, because that isn’t your problem, it’s the dealers headache instead.

3.  Leasing may not be available for much longer. Chrysler has already said goodbye to leasing and GM is thinking about it as well. Leasing isn’t making car companies any money, so they are doing away with it.  Depreciation is a big factor. Ford hasn’t stopped leasing to customers, but they upped the prices of leases so that it wouldn’t be a smart move financially for people to lease.  Foreign automakers are still seeing profits with leasing and are continuing to do so. 

One downfall of leasing is the miles.  You are restricted on mileage yearly, so if you drive a lot, leasing is not for you. Another problem is that you always have a car payment, and nothing to show for it. At least if you buy a car, when you finish paying for it, you own it. 

The article definitely leans towards leasing being the way to go currently.  I’ve done both, and personally I liked leasing, because you get a new car more often…..just a personal choice.

According to an article in the Orlando Sentinel by Steven Cole Smith, Suzuki is introducing a new vehicle at the end of November, and it’s a tough time to be doing it. They will begin selling their first ever pick-up truck.  It’s called the Equator.  Pickup trucks sales have been staggering for months, but Suzuki has very modest expectations for this vehicle.  The investment is minimal, so the Equator should do fine for Suzuki.  Suzuki decided to add the Equator to its line of vehicles, because they feel that their motorcycle, ATVs, and marine product customers would stay loyal and buy a Suzuki truck. 

The Equator will be similar to a Nissan Frontier.  The truck will get about 15 miles per gallon in the city and 20 mpg on the highway.  It has a 4.0-liter, 261 horsepower V-6 engine and a five-speed automatic transmission.  The price of the vehicle is not out yet, but they are thinking it will be about $23,000 for the base price of them.  The key selling point of these trucks will be the “100,000-mile, seven-year, fully- transferable, zero-deductible powertrain limited warranty.”  This should attract people to the Suzuki Equator.  We’ll have to wait a few months to see if it works and this truck sells.  Check it out when The Equator comes out in about a month.       

According to an article on MSNBC.com, the government is investigating more than 1 million Ford vehicles after getting reports that the tires leaking. I guess this is being caused by faulty valve stems made by a Chinese company.  There are 12 models of Ford vehicles from 2007 that are involved. Several complaints have been made about the tires, but no injuries or accidents.  The article says that many of the complaints were that the valves were severely cracked or cracked and leaking, and others said that the tires lost inflation and needed to be replaced.  In many cases, investigations can turn into recalls. So, if you have a Ford vehicle be cautious of the tires, specifically the stem valves. 

Ever since the gas prices have increased, people have been looking for smaller, more fuel efficient cars.  Well, the problem with these cars are that, in general, they cost more to insure.  More accidents are involved with smaller cars and there are bigger claims, especially injuries.  An article was written in the Wall Street Journal by M.P. McQueen explaining this problem. 

Driver profile does not even matter in the insurance prices either.  An example was given that a 40-year-old male driver would pay an average of $1704 to insure a 2009 Mini Cooper that gets 37 miles per gallon on the highway.  This is according to Insure.com, which is an online insurance broker.  That same driver would pay about !266 to insure a Toyota Sienna minivan, which gets 23 mpg.

Smaller cars often cost less for property-damage liability, and then tend to have higher theft rates as well.  Smaller cars are also often used in street racing. All of these factors contribute to cause the higher insurance rates.

So, when you are looking to buy a new car, make sure that you check on the insurance as well.  You might find that smaller cars are not all around cheaper. 

According to Motor Trend magazine, the 2009 Subaru Forester has been picked as the best SUV of the year.  There were 13 finalists that were mostly crossover vehicles, with only three traditional “body-on-frame truck-based SUVS.”  The Forester won the contest because of its value, roominess, versatile powertrains and fuel efficiency.  Last year’s winner was the 2008 Mazda CX-9.   

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“If Darth Vader were a car, he would be this Mitsubishi” according to Michael Taylor of the San Francisco Chronicle.  He is talking about the new Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution MR.  This car is for those that are looking for a car that people will turn their heads to look at, and it’s like a hot rod.  It’s an expensive hot rod though. The base price is $38,290.  According to Taylor, the Lancer doesn’t have a great deal of comfort when driving it either. He says that the car feels like “it’s riding on rails, on flat tires.”  He also says that the bucket racing seats in the front cannot be raised, so you are driving quite low to the ground.  I guess if you like those things, this may be the Mitsubishi Lancer for you, but for some others, you may want to pass on this one. It has a two-liter turbocharged 291-horsepower engine and a lot of speed, and lots of people want their car to have speed.  I’ll be anxious to hear how the sales will be on this car, because from Taylor’s article, he definitely was not enthralled with the Mitsubishi Lancer at all.   

For those of you that are looking for a more vibrant colored car, but do not want to stand out too much, you are in luck!  According to an article by Dan Strumpf of the Associated Press entitled “Paint maker PPG sees BLUE as the car color of tomorrow, ” silver, white, and black may need to take a step down from the top.  PPG Industries says that blue and particularly more vibrant, richer, complex blues will be taking to the roads very soon. 

Twenty percent of new cars purchased so far in 2008 were silver according to PPG, white was number 2 with 18 percent, followed by black at 17 percent and red at 13 percent.  In Europe, 35 percent of new cars are silver, and in the Asia-Pacific region, 37 percent are silver. The reason its so popular is because it’s a neutral color that works on any style car/truck.  PPG is sure that blue is up and coming, so you need to get out there buy a new car in blue and start the trend!   

There’s a new truck in town and it’s the 2009 Dodge Ram. An article in the San Antonio Express-News by G. Chambers Williams III talks about how this Ram is “built for a loytal lucrative truck market.” Even though sales of pickup trucks is way down, there is still a market for them and Dodge is hoping that this new Ram is the answer for this market. This vehicle has the crew cab, which has full-size rear doors and a back seat that can comfortably seat three adults. Three engines are available, but the gas mileage is still pretty rough. The best is the V-6 which gets 15 miles per gallon in the city and 20 miles on the highway. There are a lot of features with this new Ram that will hopefully intise customers to buy this redesigned model pickup truck. Dodge is going to market to the certain groups that still consistently buy trucks and are very hopeful that the truck sales will continue to increase.

An article on Yahoo.com talks about how hard it can be for owners of all-electric vehicles to recharge.  All-electric vehicles do not go too far without recharging, some as little as 25 miles, so therefore owners need to know where there are public charging stations.  In cities in California, charging stations are quite common, but in other cities such as Seattle, there are not as many.  One person who lives outside of Seattle says that he has had to actually ask people if he can plug-in. Once he did this at a farm stand, and then ending up buying $50 in produce!  Another time, he had to a Little League game that was not within the 25 miles roundtrip, so he called restaurants to find out who would let him plug-in. Crazy!  I love the fact that someone would do that to help the environment, but wow that’s a lot of dedication as far as I’m concerned.