As Japan's top automakers such as Toyota and Honda, battle it out for supremacy in the hybrid car market. Japan’s smaller car companies are taking a different eco-car road. Mitsubishi Motors and Nissan presented its zero-emissions Electric Vehicles (EV) solutions to the global market. Global production of the Nissan Leaf EV, which has a range of 160 km on a single charge, will go on sale early 2012.Nissan have made a strategic commitment to lead the global automobile industry in mass-marketing electric cars and firmly believe that the ultimate solution for sustainable mobility lies in electric cars.
With the above technology change it will be hard to predict the future of the automobile industry. This will certainly have an impact on the current automobile market and the decision on which vehicle to buy next. History showed that, on average, a new car loses 20 present of its value the moment you drive it off the dealer's lot. On average it will take more than 12 years to make business sense in buying a new vehicle compared to buying three used vehicle in four consecutive years.
Taking in consideration all the above factors the risk in investing in a new vehicle could be easily identified.So when times are unpredictable, tough and money is tight, it makes sense to shop the used-car market and be on the winning side of that depreciation curve. Some research has been done on more intangible factors of used cars such as sex appeal, comfort, style and safety. See below the list of the 10 Best Used cars to own:
10. Sports Cars: Porch 911
9. Trucks Large: Ford F-150
8. Trucks Midsize: Toyota Tocoma
7. Luxury Sedan: Cadillac DTS
6. Luxury Coupe: Infiniti G35
5. Midsize to large Sporty Utility vehicles: Toyota Highlander
4. Sporty Utility vehicles: Honda CR-V
3. Large Sedan: Mercury Montego
2. Midsize Sedan: Honda Accord
1. Sedan: Hyundia Elantra
According to Mannheim Research, 36,5 million used cars were sold in 2008 and according to TrueCars.com 35,5 million used cars were sold in 2009. Used cars sold in 2010 were around 36,7 million. They predicted a grow of 2,2% in 2011 to 37,5%