I haven’t done one of my top ten or bestselling posts in a while and so when I came across this Forbes list of the world’s most popular cars I wanted to do a post about it.
What makes a car popular? It is a question with no simple answers, because if there was a simple answer every car manufacturer would be on to it, and there would be no flop models!
Regular readers are probably aware that I like electric vehicles and that I have spoken about them before as viable alternative to gas guzzlers. And really apart from their benefit to the environment, there are several economic considerations that make electric vehicles a good choice if one is looking to buy a vehicle. The reasons that I think electric vehicles save money are:
If you are one of those that salivate at the thought of the Jaguar you saw the other day or, or have day dreams about a particular BMW or pause to stare unblinkingly when you see that Mercedes Roadster but are not among the other half that can afford these cars, do not despair.
There is still a way of owning these cars; just think in terms of second hand; ooops that is so not OK to say; the correct term being ‘pre owned’. So think in terms of pre owned, and you just may have yourself a really affordable deal, be able to afford precision German engineering at a fraction of the original cost.
I don’t know how many of you already know about hypermiling, but this is a term that I needed to find out more about. Hypermiling is a set of techniques to increase fuel efficiency and keep down fuel costs, so naturally I was interested in finding out more. It’s all about learning to adopt certain driving methods to get more miles per gallon of fuel. The technique has been around for some time now, but gas prices being very volatile recently have made is really popular in recent times. According to the hypermiling site, there are six main steps to follow:
Have recently checked the price of gas? It is just going thru the roof! There is a lot of buzz on the internet about steeply rising oil prices and this MSNBC article reports oil prices reaching an all time high of $106 a barrel, so I was prompted to find out some alternatives to our traditional gas guzzler vehicles.
They can be solar powered vehicles, electric vehicles, CNG vehicles or hybrid vehicles. When automobile giants such as Toyota promise hybrid vehicles in a few years as reported in this New York Times article then I suppose you can conclude that vehicles using alternatives to petrol are here to stay. And when there is the matter of fuel efficiency of up to 120 miles per gallon, I would sit up and take notice. Wouldn’t you? CNN’s article about hybrid vehicles talks about electric vehicle manufacturer ZAP and Hybrid Plus’s new offering, which will permit conversion to a plug-in variety. Of course this conversion is for a very steep $24,000 to $36,000 depending on the vehicle and size of battery pack. And in any case these are the hybrid or the dual power source vehicles.
I am more interested in electric vehicles, you know the kind you charge, rather like you would a cell-phone, and go. I like the fact that these have no carbon emissions and do not use any fossil fuel and so are eco friendly and are way cheaper to run. I am seriously considering buying an electric moped because it just makes so much sense when you have to travel short distances and have lots of little errands to run. And I saw and rode one of these recently; have you heard an electric scooter? Neither have I! Simply because the engine is so silent!
I found that ZAP, quoted by CNN as a pioneer in the field of electric cars, offers a range of electrical mopeds/scooters and bikes as well. ‘Zapino’ in the picture here has a list price of $2995. I thought it looked rather natty too!
The Zappy 3 EZ scooter is more modestly priced at $580 while an enhanced version, the Zappy 3 Pro Electric Scooter is priced at $900.
One more good idea I thought was the electric bicycle, which is like an add-on for your bike, so you can undertake longer cycling excursions and when you are fagged out with too much pedaling, you simply switch to the electric power mode! These electric bike options will cost you $349 or $449 depending upon your requirements.
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The World’s Cheapest car, ‘Nano’ was launched in
