Used cars are still a better buy over new, but with all the incentives on the table, the value gap is closing.

(Source: CNN via Yahoo)

The sharp car buyer’s advice has long been that a well-cared-for, late-model used car is always a better value than a brand new one.

Used cars are a smart buy because of depreciation, which is greatest in the first year or two, which means someone else gets stuck with the biggest value-drop. And you aren’t giving up very much in return – these days, cars last a lot longer, so a car with 20,000 or 30,000 miles can still have plenty of life.

But weak sales have led to heavy incentives on new cars. While a used car is still cheaper than a new one, in some cases the price difference will be surprisingly small, according to researchers at the automotive Web site Edmunds.com.

“Certified pre-owned” cars are another option. CPOs are selected low-mileage used cars that have been inspected, refurbished as needed and certified as being in top-notch condition, according to criteria laid out by the car’s original manufacturer. Most importantly, they have added warranty coverage. CPOs cost more than non-certified used cars, but the quality can make the extra cost more than worth it.

 Click here to read the entire anlysis.

 (Source: TreeHugger)

Click here to read the entire article.

(Source: Reuters) 

 This is ugly.For a picture of how rapid and steep the decline in U.S. manufacturing and retail sales has been in this recession, there are few better sectors to look at than transport.

Freight volumes — everything from raw materials to durable goods — have plummeted virtually across the board, making forecasting demand near impossible.

“We’ve downgraded our forecasts several times already this year — and it’s only March,” said John Levine, president of Pinsly Railroad Co, which owns short-line railroads in Florida, Massachusetts and Arkansas. “Business has fallen off in a way that none of us have seen.”

To weather the slump, Pinsly has cut back hours for workers so all of its 150 employees are still working, he added.

According to data from the Association of American Railroads (AAR), rail carload traffic for the first two months of 2009 was down 15.8 percent.

Historical data shows the drop in U.S. manufacturing activity eclipses the recessions of the 1980s and 1970s and in terms of speed and scale it is comparable with — but not as bad as — the Great Depression before World War Two.

(Source: KERA – Publicbroadcasting.net)

Texas boosters of a cross-state high-speed rail project are looking at the Federal Stimulus package. There’s money available that could put the Texas T-Bone on the right track. Texas Public Radio’s David Martin Davies has the story.

The Texas T-Bone is a high speed rail plan that would stretch from San Antonio to Dallas parallel to I-35. But midway – in Temple – the rail would branch off to the east to College Station and over to Houston.

Fickes: We’re talking 180 to 220 mph high speed rail.

Gary Fickes is a Tarrant County Commissioner and the secretary of the Texas High Speed Rail and Transportation Corporation.

Fickes: There’s no engineering been done, There’s no environmental been done. Nothing is shovel ready. We’d like to start doing our feasibility studies. Identify right of way. I think primarily that’s what you’re going to see the stimulus dollars on high speed rail go towards.

Texas agricultural interests are viewing the project with suspicion. They see it as gobbling up precious Texas Farmland.

Click here to read the entire article.

(Source: NYTimes.com)

Plummeting tax and fare revenues that have been depressed further by the ailing economy could increase the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s budget deficit this year by $650 million, according to a new estimate made public on Monday. If the doomsday forecast is borne out, the authority’s deficit this year could grow to nearly $2 billion.

Subway ridership fell 2 percent in January compared with last year.

The authority has already proposed a steep increase in fares and deep service cuts if it does not get a state bailout. But if its finances worsen significantly, it could be forced to take even more drastic measures.

“This is obviously breathtaking,” Gary Dellaverson, the authority’s chief financial officer, said as he presented the projections to a meeting of the authority board’s finance committee.

Click here to read the full article.

(Source:  Google.org)

RechargeIT is a Google.org initiative that aims to reduce CO2 emissions, cut oil use, and stabilize the electrical grid by accelerating the adoption of plug-in electric vehicles. We have a demonstration fleet of plug-ins at our headquarters in Mountain View, and we’re collecting and posting data on plug-in performance, investing in innovative technologies, and advocating for the passage of important legislation. Our vision is that one day thousands of cars will be plugging into a greener grid.

We’ve had our RechargeIT plug-ins on the road for about a year now, collecting data when driven by Google employees in our free car-share program. But we wanted to see how they would perform in a controlled test. The results of our seven-week driving experiment are in – and the plug-ins did great, getting as much as 93 MPG average across all trips, and 115 MPG for city trips! See the full results to explore detailed data from the experiment. (And check back often as we’ll be posting even more comprehensive data from our test over the next few weeks.)

RechargeIT Driving Experiment

Electricity usage for plug-in vehicles: 
Ford Escape Plug-In 133.2 Wh/mi, Toyota Prius Plug-in 139.6 Wh/mi

Click here to explore this on-going Google Initiative.

(Source:  NYT via Jalopnik.com)

Saab, GM’s meatball-of-a-badge, officially filed for bankruptcy protection today in Sweden. Remaining to be seen is what role, if any, GM will have with the born-from-jets brand.  

Here’s what the NYT has to say:

Unmoored from its parent, Saab went to a Swedish court for protection from its creditors, and said the company would – with assistance from the Swedish government – reorganize to pave the way for private investors to buy all or part of the company.

“We explored and will continue to explore all available options for funding and/or selling Saab, and it was determined a formal reorganization would be the best way to create a truly independent entity that is ready for investment,” the managing director of Saab, Jan-Ake Jonsson, said in a statement.

Source: Seattle Times

Boeing delivered the first freighter version of its 777 jet Thursday to Air France Cargo, and the airline said it is deferring deliveries of two of the five such freighters it has on order as it copes with the global economic downturn.

Air France Cargo picked up the keys Thursday for the first of a new breed of big, modern twin-engine cargo jets: the 777 freighter.

As French airline officials, Boeing executives and guests sipped Champagne and milled around the airplane at Paine Field, the second 777 freighter in the same colors took off on a test flight. It will be delivered next week.

But the celebratory air in Everett was marred by the widening global economic downturn. In an interview, Pierre Vellay, Air France executive vice president for fleet development, said the air-transport business is “in very bad shape.”

To read the entire article, click here.