If you haven’t noticed, Americans have a bit of a weight problem.  Despite the fact that our overly large stomachs, and saddle bags are killing us at alarming rates it seems that we may be sitting on a gold mine…literally.  That fat the gets liposuctioned out of John Doe’s behind might just be the fuel of the future.  Apparently a kind of biodiesel fuel can be created from fat, something similar to grease cars one might guess.  There is actually one doctor who is putting his fat on on the road by using medical waste to run a car as reported by the Christian Science Monitor:

Dr. Craig Alan Bittner, owner of the Beverly Hills Liposculpture clinic, claims that he produced biodiesel from the excess lipids hoovered from his patients’ backsides, which he then put into the tanks of his Ford Explorer and his girlfriend’s Lincoln Navigator.

Forbes quotes from Dr. Bittner’s now-defunct website:

“The vast majority of my patients request that I use their fat for fuel – and I have more fat than I can use,” Bittner wrote on lipodiesel.com. “Not only do they get to lose their love handles or chubby belly but they get to take part in saving the Earth.”

If this does indeed work we may be on the forefront of a revolution in automotive technology.  Talk about killing two birds with one stone!  This could really be the answer to all (or at least two) of our biggest problems!

For more information about how to rent a car during the Christmas season, contact Triangle Rent a Car today!

Tags: Uncategorized by Christopher - No Comments »

It seems like poor Toyota is seeing a string of bad luck lately.  After posting their first loses (ever as I recall) Toyota is now having to deal with massive recalls.  Apparently the car giant is recalling more then 100,000 cars in China because of a problem that could cause steering loss. 

Reuters is reporting that there are several models effected by this recall:

“Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T) is recalling 121,930 cars in China to fix a problem that could result in loss of steering control.

The 54,657 Reiz and 62,517 Crown sedans were made by Toyota’s venture with FAW Group between February 2005 and October 2006, Toyota said in a statement seen on Friday.”

This is quite the shock coming from the highly praised Toyota.  It seems like the company has always had a very high standard of excellence and quality.  As stated earlier, Toyota has already suffered the bad news of losses totalling nearly two billion dollars, add to that the cost of recalling and fixing over one-hundred-thousand cars and things are starting to look a bit bleak for the car maker. 

On the bright side Toyota does indeed have a long lasting reputation for production a very high quality auto, so I suspect that this will be  a temporary set back, because as soon as people can buy cars, many will certainly buy Toyota’s for their high quality, great gas mileage, and excellent resale value.

For more information about how to rent a car during the Thanksgiving or Christmas seasons, contact Triangle Rent a Car today!

Tags: Uncategorized by Christopher - No Comments »

Imagine waking up to a fresh snow fall, breathing in that cool exhilarating winter air, looking around to take in the day…and realizing your car and 199 other are gone.  Well if you live in Albany New York, this may have actually happened to you.  The city was under a snow emergency that bans cars from parking on city streets.  While the city did make this clear to the citizens by posting the information on placards in high traffic areas, this was apparently not enough warning for some.  A case in point, as told by cbs6albany.com, is this driver who knew what was going to happen but apparently wanted to hear about it again…from other sources:

“I was hoping they would wait until daytime to take my car because that’s when everyone goes to work,” said one driver. “Everybody’s sleeping and everyone’s stealing our cars in the middle of the night. I know I was warned, but I feel like they should have given us a better warning.”

Is that what this country has come to?  You have the information, you know what is about to happen…but you need to hear it again, from another source if possible?  This should serve as a warning to anyone who lives in a part of the country prone to excessive snow.  If they tell you to move your car…move it, unless you want to be standing in the snow with 199 other people waiting to get your car back.  It’s easier just to move it!

For more information about how to rent a car during the Thanksgiving or Christmas seasons, contact Triangle Rent a Car today!

Tags: Uncategorized by Christopher - No Comments »

If you have been watching the news you must realize that a lot of car dealers are going the way of the Dodo.  This is due in large part to the state of the economy, but it is also so to decades of poor management and overpriced workers.  The effects of this economic disaster have trickled down to the auto dealers who are, often times, being forced to close their doors.  According to Boston.com there are several local dealerships that have gone out of business following the national trend:

“South Shore Buick is just one of more than 40 new-car dealerships in the state that have gone out of business this year, according to the Massachusetts State Automobile Dealers Association. There are now 462, down from 533 at the beginning of 2007. Across the country, the National Automobile Dealers Association estimates, there will be 900 fewer dealerships this year than last, and a net loss of 1,100 in 2009.”

This reminds me of Barack Obama’s line about how trickle down economics hasn’t worked and simply caused “pain to trickle up.”  There could be no clearer indication that trickle down economics is real then this very story and a million others just like it playing out all across the country.  We see money disappear from one area and then watch as it moves over others like a wave.  Will the bailout save the big three US auto makers?  Perhaps, but it already is too late for many car dealerships across the country. 

For more information about how to rent a car during the Thanksgiving or Christmas seasons, contact Triangle Rent a Car today!

Tags: Uncategorized by Christopher - 2 Comments »

There are hard times in Russia these days.  President Vladimir Putin is bringing back what amounts to an old communist regime that is destroying the Russian economy.  High on the list of Russia’s economic woes are automobiles.  It seems that Russian auto makers are having a hard time shipping cars out to dealers.  These dealers would rather sell imported cars from such countries as Japan.  This is no mistake because the Russian citizens pine for these imports.  Case in point: the Russian riots.  It seems that Russia is actually in the midst of riots at this very moment over a tariff on foreign cars. 

So far 200 people have been detained in the riots which are thousands strong.  The AFP is reporting the scene of the riots as peaceful and stating the the Russian police went overboard arresting and beating people:

“They cruelly beat, five to eight people against one. They threw people on the pavement and kicked them, including those who simply walked by and had nothing to do with the protest,” he said.

The protest in Vladivostok’s central square was peaceful, he said, adding: “People even danced around the New Year’s tree.”

This riot has everything to do with freedom, namely economic freedom.  Putin is attempting to “help” the sale of Russian cars buy making foreign ones more expensive.  Is this really a good answer?  The only people who suffer are Russian citizens, and why?  To help other Russian citizens who make cars?  This has always been a bad policy, and I hope it is one we do not emulate here in the US.

For more information about how to rent a car during the Thanksgiving or Christmas seasons, contact Triangle Rent a Car today!

Tags: Uncategorized by Christopher - 1 Comment »

File this one under: Gross.

This story could be the best argument for buying new or rental that you have ever heard.  I’ll let UPI.com sum the story up:

A car was towed to an impound lot with the body of the driver inside because an officer failed to check the inside the vehicle, Cleveland police said Tuesday.

A lawyer for Emil Azzam’s family told The Cleveland Plain-Dealer that an insurance adjuster found the body Sunday afternoon, two days after Azzam was killed in a one-car crash. John Lemieux said that the family is “outraged.”

It seems that Azzam was driving on a slick snow covered road when he lost control and crashed.  Azzam’s family was notified that he had been hurt in the crash but a search of local hospitals yielded no Emil.  In another odd twist to this story apparently the deceased driver signed an inventory form for the towing company.  Spooky.  All sarcasm aside, if I had to guess however, I would say that this signature is likely not the dead driver’s as he was, well, dead at the time. 

It is not noted how Mr.Azzam died specifically so I suppose that he could have been alive at the time and died later inside the car, but this seems pretty unlikely.  I suppose this should just serve as a lesson for drivers and cops that can be summed up as follows: Drive carefully in the snow, and check the cars you are having towed for corpses.  It’s just common sense people!

For more information about how to rent a car during the Thanksgiving or Christmas seasons, contact Triangle Rent a Car today!

Tags: Uncategorized by Christopher - No Comments »

I remember writing a while back about how Honda was looking very seriously at the Chinese auto market as the “next big thing.”  Thought they may not have come out and explicitly said so, it was pretty obvious from the tone that China was soon to be the hot spot for new cars.  One good example of the innovation and solid market of the Chinese auto makers comes in the form of a new hybrid put out by BYD motors.  According to Businessweek.com some big names are coming out in support of this new hybrid:

Early this year there was plenty of skepticism in auto circles about BYD’s ability to put together a car that would ever become truly roadworthy. The company unveiled its plug-in hybrid at the Detroit Auto Show in January, and few outsiders figured the Chinese upstart, which had only been in the auto business since 2003, had the know-how to produce a commercially viable plug-in.

One person who seems to believe in the car’s viability is Warren Buffett. In September, Des Moines-based MidAmerican Energy, which is controlled by Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA), paid $231 million for a 9.9% stake in BYD Auto’s parent company BYD with a view to helping BYD distribute its cars in the U.S. by 2011.

Hey didn’t Obama want to make Buffett Secratary of the Treasury?  Kind of ironic since spending $231 million on a Chinese car company goes against all that “keep the manufacturing jobs here” lip service during the campaign.  What, GM not 231 million dollars worthy Warren?    

It seems so ironic that China is moving towards capitalism (and now owns more American interests then you can shake a stick at) as America becomes more communistic.  I think the results of both moves are pretty obvious. 

For more information about how to rent a car during the Thanksgiving or Christmas seasons, contact Triangle Rent a Car today!

Tags: Uncategorized by Christopher - 1 Comment »

More fringe effects of the economic down turn have become evident.  This time it is NASCAR that is suffering.  It seems that the big three US auto manufacturers are huge NASCAR sponsors.  As we all know what is happening to the now “shrinking three,” they have in turn decided to cut sponsorship funding to NASCAR.  The New York times writes that there will be a major down turn next year:

“Chevrolet has said it is cutting back on advertising and sponsorship deals with 12 tracks. Ford is trimming Nascar spending by 20 percent, and Chrysler by 30 percent.“

Further big three sponsorships that are going the way of the Dodo are also summed up by the New York times as follows:

General Motors said in September that it wouldn’t buy any advertising time for the Super Bowl in February; earlier this year, it withdrew Cadillac’s sponsorship of the Masters golf tournament. It has also terminated its $7 million-a-year endorsement deal with Tiger Woods.

This really is trickle down economics at it’s finest.  No one can deny that money from the top now isn’t making it’s way down the chain.  I suppose GM, Ford, and Chrysler may well be cutting these sponsorships due to their apparent frivolous nature.  I don’t think it would look good if the American tax payer were giving Tiger Woods a cool 7 million a year.  Not that he isn’t a great golfer, but I just don’t state supported athletes are the way of the future.

For more information about how to rent a car during the Thanksgiving or Christmas seasons, contact Triangle Rent a Car today!

Tags: Uncategorized by Christopher - No Comments »

Somewhere, right now, in the city of Detroit there is a girl named “Candy” sitting alone in a dressing room, a single tear roles down her cheek.  Why is Candy so sad?  Well it appears that declining US car sales aren’t hurting only the big three auto companies, they are hurting the little people too, namely-strippers.  In an obvious case of trickle down economics that would make non-believer Barack Obama blush, ’ strip clubs have suffered a serious down turn in business of late. 

 This is how trickle down works: We don’t buy American cars, GM execs are making less money, are they going to take it out of their own pockets?  Of course not, so they fire a few employees.  Those employees, in turn, can’t spend money like they used to on things like food, clothes, and clubs like Hot Tamales or the Hard Body Cafe.  Less patrons means less money for Candy, the girl at the beginning of all this.  Sadly, the trickle doesn’t stop there.  Candy now won’t be able to buy the things she wants, like that “college education” *wink, wink, nod.  More likely Detroit’s clear high heel distributors will be out of work.  It is a sad state of affairs, truly.  

The Chicago Tribune is reporting that:

The topless club in the suburb of Warren — where General Motors and Chrysler employ upwards of 20,000 people — cut the cost of a table dance in half, from $20 to $10, in mid-November. The dancer gets all the money plus any tips, while food and drinks generate the club’s income, general manager Kelly Sander said Tuesday.    

Don’t worry, our tax (bailout) dollars will have these strip clubs booming again in no time!

For more information about how to rent a car during the Thanksgiving or Christmas seasons, contact Triangle Rent a Car today!

Tags: Uncategorized by Christopher - No Comments »

Another sticky situation has risen like a Phoenix from the ashes of the American auto industry.  It seems that hybrid sales are way down.  In fact sales dropped 50% in November alone.  According to Keith Johnson, writing for the Wall Street Journal:

U.S. hybrid sales in November fell to 16,571 units, notes Green Car Congress.The slump affected everybody from Toyota and its market-leading Prius to smaller hybrid players like Ford and General Motors. That puts U.S. hybrid sales back where they were in November, 2005.

That also raises questions about the wisdom of Congressional insistence that Detroit retool its product line to build more hybrid and electric cars and fewer trucks and SUVs. As we noted earlier, Ford’s most resilient product in November was its F-150 pickup truck.

This raises obvious questions about the congressional bailout of the auto industry.  If Nancy Pelosi wants her “car czar” to report on the progress of retooling GM to an eco-friendly hybrid company via our tax dollars, then should hybrids be the sure fire future of autos?  Well not if gas prices stay low.  It seems that no one wants a hybrid as long as it doesn’t cost them an arm and a leg to fill their tanks.  So what now?  Do we bail out the big three and tell them to retool?  Retool to what?

For more information about how to rent a car during the Thanksgiving or Christmas seasons, contact Triangle Rent a Car today!

Tags: Uncategorized by Christopher - No Comments »