NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Motor Trend magazine named the Ford Fusion mid-sized sedan as its 2010 Car of the Year on Tuesday. The award includes both the gas-only and hybrid versions of the Fusion.

This year’s Car of the Year was selected from among a field of 22 different cars all of which were newly introduced or, like the Fusion, substantially redesigned for the 2010 model year.

The Fusion was first introduced in 2006 but has been substantially upgraded and redesigned for the 2010 model year. “It’s a credit to the [Ford] team to deliver a car in the hottest selling segment in the market and to make it absolutely competitive with the benchmarks,” said Motor Trend editor-in-chief Angus McKenzie at an award presentation ceremony.

The benchmark cars in the mid-sized segment are generally considered to be the Toyota Camry and Honda Accord, which have been the two top-selling cars in America for years.

McKenzie praised the Fusion for the excellence of all versions of the car including the 4-cylinder, V6 and hybrid models.

“Another thing that impressed us was the attention to detail,” McKenzie said.

While the 2010 Fusion shares much of its engineering with the previous version, the car looked and felt like a completely new car, McKenzie said. 

Motor Trend, one of the most influential automotive enthusiast magazines in the United States, also gives out SUV of the Year and Truck of the Year awards. The SUV of the Year was announced earlier with the award going to the 2010 Subaru Outback. The Truck of the Year will be announced in December. Vehicles were judged on six different criteria: design, engineering, efficiency, safety, value and how well the vehicle fulfills its intended function.

The cars were put through track tests by Motor Trends editors. Then cars that were not eliminated in the track testing process were put through additional road tests. Derrick Kuzak, Ford Motor Co. group vice president for product development credited the Fusion with “getting Ford back into the car market” in 2006 after the carmaker had become competitive only in large trucks and SUVs.

This posting source is: http://money.cnn.com/

There was a time when people used to think that they would soon travel around the world on jet packs and hover cars but that hasn’t happened as yet. However, what certainly did happen was the introduction of Green cars in the market. Green cars were launched as a part of the green initiative program in order to make earth a better place to live in. Green cars have proven to be very effective in cutting down the amount of air pollution that is caused by exhaust fumes of cars. Other names for Green cars are electric cars and hybrid cars. These cars run on an electric rechargeable energy storage system (RESS) or an internal combustion engine. However, cars are not the only vehicle that are using hybrid power, trains, busses and even trolleys have switched to hybrid power. This is being done to preserve natural resources as well as to reduce air pollution.

Hybrid cars are certainly the future cars of 21st century and it also the next big thing in the automobile industry. Hybrid cars are very popular these days and are known as smart cars in the market. These smart cars have become so popular in the market that people have to wait for over a year long to buy one. The hybrid car is called the “Smart fortwo” in the market; it can seat only two persons. The Smart fortwo is an extraordinarily small and compact car, looks something like a box.

The Smart fortwo is available in both manual and automatic modes with a 5 speed transmission. Other optional things include air conditioner, power windows and alloy wheels. It is important here to understand the concept of smart car; it is not associated with the outlook of the car only, rather it is a car the keeps the environment healthy and accommodates the drivers get to and from their destinations. Its compact size also makes it look smart; it occupies very little space and can be easily parked.

Besides the “Smart fortwo”, smart cars have other models as well; these include the forfour, the formore, the crossblade, the crosstown, the smart ev and the roadster. The smart ev is available for only a trial period right now and is being planned on a launch in the United Kingdom sometime in the fourth quarter of 2008.

Smart cars employed in United States only, Canada, Mexico, Taiwan and Japan are other countries that are employing these cars. It certainly seems that in a short period of time smart cars will be seen on the roads more often than today.

While advertising through news papers and auto trader magazines has caused sellers many problems, they are now turning to the internet. With the emergence of internet as the world’s cheapest and most efficient means of communication, millions of businesses have come online. Sale and purchase of new and used cars is another business that is available online. More and more sellers in Pakistan are leaving the magazine and switching to internet instead. They find it much easier, cheaper and productive. In this part of the essay, we will discuss the top 7 advantages of advertising your car on the internet that distinguish it from the traditional method of advertising through magazines:

1. Advertising your car on internet is much cheaper than advertising in a magazine. The cost of disk space and bandwidth much less than that of ink, papers and distribution of magazine. So, you save a lot by advertising your car on internet. These savings mean a lot to the sellers.
2. In online advertising you have so much space to put all the information about your car, a lot more than the magazines normally give. At Apnigari.com, you can describe your car in more than 2000 words and this description is going to be absolutely free. Magazines give you some thing around 200 characters to describe your car.
3. On the internet you can upload multiple pictures of your car. Apnigari.com allows you three pictures to upload and this is the normal limit every where.
4. Another advantage of advertising your car on the internet is that you can update, modify or change your advert any time, even when the advert is running live. Again, this facility is not available in magazines and news papers.
5. An advertisement on the internet is not limited to your city or country; the whole world can see it. Any one with an internet connection any where in the world can view your advert and make the purchase online. You will have all the information about your car, its images and your contact details available online to everybody in the world. This means that those who are interested to buy your car will compete for it and you will ultimately sell it to the one who offers you the highest price.
6. Once you complete everything required to place an advert online, your advert will go live immediately. The time it takes between submitting your advert and activating it is a lot shorter than what the magazines take.
7. There are many car websites that do not remove you advert until your car is sold, unlike the auto trader magazines. So, you are not pressurized to accept a low price in order to avoid more time.

These benefits definitely make online advertising easily the best way to sell your car. So what are you waiting for, logon to Apnigari.com and sell your car quick and free.

Are you planning to sell your car? You will definitely be asking yourselves these questions; will I be able to get a good price? How long will it take to find a good buyer? Then you will contact an auto trader who will advertise your car in a news paper or auto magazine which is an old traditional way. Advertising in print media is quiet an old method with many limitations:

1. When advertising in a news paper or a magazine you are allowed to describe your car with only a limited number of words. The limit that has been set makes it absolutely impossible for you to describe everything about your car. After all, it’s your car and you have the right to sell it for the best price offered. This certainly requires complete information of the car, images from every angle and other necessary elements of selling or up selling. Due to these factors news papers and auto trader magazines have come under serious criticism of the sellers.
2. Another drawback of advertising through news papers and auto trader magazines is that they allow you to post only one picture of your car. The size of that picture is so small that even you, as a buyer, would not buy that car. Apart from that only one picture is not enough to impress or satisfy the buyer. After all, you are selling it for millions of Rupees and no buyer would just buy it after looking at one small picture.
3. News papers and magazines run your add for just a few weeks say 2 – 3 weeks. Since you are need of money or what ever, you may be pressurized to accept a lower price in order to avoid any more time. This is a great disadvantage of advertising through news papers and auto trade magazines because they get you so much less than what your car was worth of.

•In the next part, we will unveil the most productive, easy and cheapest way of advertising your car.