Amongst all the service providers I checked, American Auto Transport had the best track record. They have been in business for over 20 years, and the number of satisfied customers has grown over the period. They are known for great customer service, and have branches all across the country. They transport in better time than other companies and have very competitive rates. And what is more, they are patriotic too! They offer great discounts for military transports. They offer open and enclosed car shipping, and many people swear by the prim and proper condition in which their vehicle is delivered. They offer vehicle tracking while being shipped. They move all kinds of vehicles all across the country including Hawaii, Alaska and Puerto Rico too.

My cousin in Texas also used their Texas Auto Transport, and highly recommends their service. He had earlier burnt his fingers with two other movers, who did not turn up to even pick up the car on the promised date. He was completely satisfied with the services offered by AAT. Now, for my neighbor to move her daughter’s car from Florida to California, I am going to recommend she uses their Auto Transport Florida service. American Auto Transport has created a name for itself in the industry and anyone in love with their car should put it in their safe hands.

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!

In my humble view it is good value for money that makes a car popular: a combination of good features, better than average looks and cost effectiveness are what makes a car popular. Increasingly now, fuel efficiency is becoming a factor too as oil prices keep fluctuating and people become more environment and resource conscious. Without further ado, here is the top ten list from Forbes:

1. Toyota Corolla – this one has been a best seller for years, and in the last year alone it sold close to a million units (over 900,000) worldwide! Even the big Toyota recall (sticky accelerator and pedal entrapment concerns) is not expected to affect sales
2. The Ford Focus – 10 models of the same engineering platform are being developed for markets around the world. It is expected that this will have rich dividends in terms of boosting scale and saving money. Last year saw the sale of 781,139 Ford Focus cars.
3. The Ford Fiesta – this one is positioned as a world car that is catching on even in the less prosperous parts of the world where reasons of economy make a virtue of the smaller cars. It is even making a comeback in the US, having sold 724,502 units last year.
4. The Volkswagen Golf – this is another classic hatchback in many parts of the world. This is a company bestseller and sold with 705,276 last year
5. Honda Civic – this car has built a reputation for reliability and is great value for money. 686,000 cars sold in 160 countries around the world last year.
6. Toyota Camry – An American best seller, half of the global sales of 679,117 cars was in the United States.
7. Honda Accord – Another car hugely popular in the US. World wide sales were 586,584, half of which were sold in the US.
8. Peugeot 207 – This is the European classic. Though it isn’t sold in the US, it sold 536,090 units worldwide last year.
9. Volkswagen Polo – 467,047 units sold worldwide last year in their different variants- sedan, hatchback, wagon and coupe.
10. Toyota Yaris (Vitz in Japan) – 466,267 units sold last year though this car is more popular in the middle east, Europe and South Africa.

• They don’t use any gas. They use electricity and rather than fill up at a pump, you recharge at home; much like your cell phone.
• You don’t notice any particular increase in your electricity bill even with regular recharging. So basically it feels as though you are running your vehicle free, without any payment made for fuel. These total up to substantial savings. I have owned an electric vehicle for a couple of years now so I know how nice it felt to sail right past the gas pump; particularly when the fuel prices were so prohibitively high just a while back.
• There are no moving parts, and therefore little or no maintenance required. There is less likelihood of having to take the vehicle to the shop for repairs.
• You get a tax credit when you buy an electric vehicle; which in many cases is 10% of the vehicle cost. So your retail cost for purchasing the vehicle comes down substantially after that tax credit. The sales tax is fully deductible as well.
• Many major car companies are doing a lot of research and development into electric vehicles, and are likely to come up with better, improved EVs in the near future according to recent reports. What this will do is improve and enhance the driving range (the main perceived drawback of an EV is the fact that you can have only a limited number of miles to drive before you need to charge it for several hours) and reduce the charging time and bulk of the battery pack. Check out the news about this green vehicle that can go 100 miles on a single charge.
• EVs are very silent so it costs you less in terms of driving fatigue.

As of now, I would say that if one needs a city car or one in which to do a lot of local running around, an electric vehicle really fits the bill.

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.

Understand that the moment a new car is purchased and driven off the lot for the first time, its sale price promptly plummets. So really the moment a new car is sold, it become a little bit more affordable as a chunk of its value is knocked off instantly. And obviously the older the car the cheaper it is likely to be.

A new Mercedes E350 has a starting price of about 50 grand, but if you look here, this 1996 model is listed on the site for less than $4000!

Think about the fact that a new BMW 7 series is an almost unthinkable $80,000, but when you think in terms of a used (sorry, pre owned) BMW it suddenly begins to make a lot more sense. This year 2000 BMW is listed for less than $8,000/-!

This car site as well, offers you a lot of options in used cars which you can browse by make, year of manufacture, price, color etc. and if you are hesitating because you already have a car and are wondering what to do with it, you can get yourself a quick quote for that as well, and have that listed on the same site for sale, while you browse other cars and decide what you want to get after this. Most cars have the photo on the sale page as well as the mileage, and other specifications of the car listed.

So do some research, as to how many miles that car has clocked, how good of a shape it is in, that it hasn’t suffered any major accidents etc and you could soon be driving around in that luxury car of your dreams!

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:

1. Always know your gas mileage after every visit to the gas pump. Obviously you can’t improve on something until you know how good or bad it is in the first place.

2. Don’t drive aggressively. Rapid accelerations and frequent braking are really bad for mileage. It would seem that most drivers use the brakes at least 10 to 25 % more than required. To reduce braking, leave a big enough buffer between you and the car in front and don’t accelerate if you see traffic lights coming up. You are also advised to concentrate on driving etiquette and focus on maximum carefulness while driving to see results.

3. Sitting still at intersections / red lights. As soon as you see the red light before you, take your foot off the pedal and remember that idling does not improve your MPG.

4. Avoid traffic congestion. In this very interesting article, William Beatty talks about traffic ‘Waves’ and how to avoid them so that you are not caught in traffic snarls that cause you to stop and go stop and go. It’s about not going with the flow.

5. Accelerate slowly. To get to a certain speed in 3 seconds, it takes more acceleration (fuel) than it would to reach that same speed in 4 seconds. So don’t waste that fuel to save a second, makes sense I think.

6. If you have cruise control, use it. See here, to read about how Cruise control can be used to your advantage.

To discuss tips and techniques with Hypermiling buffs (or just to pick up a few pointers) you could go visit the Hypermiling Forum.

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.

Looking for motorcycle paint? If you are keen on a DIY touch up of your old motorbike and are looking or an exact paint match, this is the site to visit. It stocks paints and other supplies for all leading motorcycle brands.

• Seats 4.
• Meets the International frontal and side impact crash tests.
• A little over 3 meters long and 1.5 meters wide (aptly named Nano I’d say).
• 623 cc twin-cylinder engine.
• Multi point fuel injection with 34 bhp on tap.
• Light weight to improve fuel efficiency.
• The base version (non-AC) will cost close to USD 2500. Higher air conditioned versions to cost more.
• The team has filed for 34 patents during the making of the car for the new technologies and ideas developed by it.

It all sounds good. But government officials have already begun contemplating the increase in traffic congestion in an already bursting on its seams Mumbai. With the low price tag bringing the car into the budgets of most middle and lower middle class families, the already crawling traffic could well come to a standstill. This should however not be an excuse to undermine the new car. It is up to the government to their job and improve the infrastructure of the financial capital of India and other metropolitan cities.

Another factor to be taken into consideration is the immense media hype around the launch. It is being touted as a hit even before it hits the roads. No one has driven it yet, no one knows how well it will perform on the roads, whether its suspension will be good enough to handle the pot-hole ridden roads, whether it will be comfortable enough to seat 4 etc etc. The frenzy reminds me of the excitement over an impending Harry Potter release, with people booking it long in advance or the way the iPhone was touted as the gadget of the century before it hit the markets. How the car actually performs on the road under harsh conditions is yet to be seen.

For the sake of the common man and the earnest effort put in by Ratan Tata and his team, I hope it does live up to its expectations and creates enough competition to force other car makers to slash prices. So while it is great news for Indians, I do hope the car makes its way into foreign markets as well.