Auto Trends

The Da Vinci Institute has a very interesting article on the future of transportation. They suggest the possibility of self automated flying transportation to begin taking over our current ground transportation systems as early as 2015. While this will certainly take some time to get the consumer used to these changes, this could mean the end of the feel of the open road within the next couple decades.

To many enthusiasts this should be a scary thought indeed. But what is even scarier is things have already gradually begun to change, and have done so without many people even noticing. Many vehicles have GPS systems which could theoretically tell anyone where we are at a given time. Some car dealers are placing devices that can shut off our cars when payments haven’t been received. Today we have cars that self-adjust to compensate for our driving habits, park themselves, and tell you when you’re driving poorly.

It is not many more steps that we will become idle passengers sitting in our own vehicles and allowing it to chauffeur us. While some may think of this as a nice convenience, others would see it as a violation of our freedom. The key to this successful transition will depend on the governments ability to convince the consumer that they have the same freedoms and possibly even more.

Their strategy would probably fall along the lines of children and elderly who are not currently able to travel in vehicles alone without a license, would now be able to. And accidents caused by human error would now be eliminated.

By the year 2050, these vehicles would become perfected with speed and efficiency and eventually the other side of the world would become like walking across the street to visit a neighbor. At this point they speculate the need for a unified government since people will no longer be tied to one nation.

On the other side of this speculation is a whole other group of thought that claims personal flying machines are a futuristic dream that will be too complex to systematize safely for decades and maybe even a century to come. There is the complexity of the vehicles themselves, the training necessary to run them, noise pollution, traffic laws, and the ability to takeoff and land vertically.

These people see the year 2050 as having found more efficient frictionless hybrid vehicle, glowing roadways, and navigation convenience packages that continue to give the consumer freedom to maneuver their own vehicle to some degree.

The “real” truth probably resides somewhere in between these two sets of thoughts!

Everybody is always interested in hearing about the world’s greatest supercars… but what about the little guy. It would seem to us that featuring these hot cars just makes the average driver rather sad in comparison to these technological, bulging, muscular beasts that would give most of our cars an atomic wedgie if it could.

Well, today we are going to make you all feel like you are driving Bugatti Veyron’s… err, something like that. The cheapest “New” Car in the United States right now is without a doubt the Chevrolet Aveo.

For the cost of a 10 year supply of Starbuck’s coffee at $4 a pop ($10,300), one could slide into a stripped down, 100 horsepower 1.6 liter powerhouse that can punch out 0-60 in just under 10 seconds, and that’s without a push start! Anti-lock brakes would not be a part of this package, so you would have to do the old fashioned foot pump action when sliding in the snow, ice, or rain..

15” alloy wheels are actually an “option”, compared to the go cart styled 14” wheels. Maximum air conditioning would be driving with your head out the window, and the upgraded interior refers to “fake” leather, (a.k.a. Leatherette).

Keep in mind that this is the cheapest America has to offer. If you are really on a budget, the Tata Nano has been making waves in India as the absolute cheapest car in the world. For the cost of new brakes on the Veyron ($2,500), you could have an entire car.

33 horsepower, 2 cylinders, 4-speed, no airbags, no air, no radio, enough room in the trunk for a duffel bag, and only a very light sheet of steel that would be just enough to package you up in like a scrunched up newspaper upon impact.

With the introduction of the Tato Nano almost anyone in the world can now own a car. In consideration of the pollution levels around the globe, the lack of oil supply, and the cost of fuel, all we can say is, “Thanks a lot… Ratan Tata, chairman of Tata Motors!”

But you won’t see these things in the United States anytime soon. Their emission standards are not quite up to par unless they offer a “green” version, which just may be in the pipes… God help us all!

Who would have thought 10 years ago that we would have fallen so far as to have gas as the reason we would buy a car. We have Chrysler and their $2.99 a gallon for three years and Suzuki and their Free gas for the Summer Sales Event.

As their advertisement says:

“FREE GAS FOR SUMMER with 0% financing. It doesn’t get much better than this.”

Well, I don’t know if we’d say that. If they were really were giving away all the gas you could use for the summer that would be pretty cool… but their not!

What they forgot to include is the very fine print. Everybody is giving rebates this time of the year and Suzuki is trying to disguise theirs in the form of a prepaid card that you can buy gas with.

Unlimited card for three months?

No, sorry… try more like $320 for a SX4 Sedan, $355 for a Reno, SX4 Crossover, and Forenza ($370 for the wagon). Onwards to the BIG savings… $450 for the XL7, and finally $470 for the Grand Vitara.

Let’s see, if we calculate a summer of upwards of $4.00/gallon… you might have a months worth of gas at best… and that’s not counting any trips to Suzuki to complain about your card not working at certain gas stations.

Now we’re not saying that THESE particular cards won’t work… but from experience with such prepaid cards, they are usually a pain in the rump to deal with and half the stores you try to use them at, you end up in front of the line of 10 other customers behind you while the attendant is calling for the manager to figure out why their machine is not accepting the number.

Giving Suzuki credit however… the 0% financing is a nice touch, as long as you are not currently under a $350,000 mortgage, have 6 maxed out credit cards, and a Hummer sitting in your garage for $1,000 a month you can barely afford. In that case you will probably be getting the regular financing.

But you can’t blame car manufacturers who are trying to get creative in order to boost their dwindling sales. This one gets a B+ for effort and a C- for execution. Some folks will probably see past the gimmick and then go over to the Chrysler dealer, who is at least offering a few thousand dollars in rebate over the next 3 year period (assuming they don’t go bankrupt).

You have until June 3oth to get in on this deal, which should give you plenty of time to decide for yourself which manufacturer is offering the better deal for your circumstances.

You’re getting warm Suzuki… lukewarm!