Report Says U.S. Automobile Sector Contributed $135 Billion in Taxes in 2010

It’s no secret that the motor vehicle sector is the largest manufacturing industry in the United States, but how big is it in terms of state and federal tax revenues?

This is a question the Center for Automotive Research (CAR), a nonprofit research organization based in Michigan, set to find out on behalf of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, which funded the study.

The report concluded that in 2010, the production, sales and service, and use of the automobile in the United States was responsible for generating at least $91.5 billion in state government tax revenue (13 percent of the total) and at least $43 billion to federal government tax revenues.

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Study Finds that Average Fuel Economy for New Cars Rises to 23.4MPG

A report from TrueCar found that average fuel economy for new cars sold in the States continues to rise. Before we look into the details, we should note that the automotive analyst employs EPA's average fuel economy rating using 45 percent highway and 55 percent city driving behavior, which it names "TrueMPG".

For the month of March, the TrueMPG of all new vehicles sold in March 2012 increased to 23.4mpg US (10.5lt/100km or 28.1mpg UK), compared to 23.2 mpg in February of 2012, 22.0 mpg in March 2011 and. 20.3 mpg (11.6lt/100km or 24.4mpg UK) in March of 2008.

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New Study Finds that Only a Third of Hybrid Owners Buy Hybrids Again

As it seems, the majority of hybrid car owners in the States don't go for seconds, or at least that's what a new study released today by auto research firm Polk reveals.

According to the report, while the number of hybrid models in the U.S. has more than doubled since 2007, only 35 percent or a little over a third of hybrid vehicle owners choose to purchase a hybrid again when returning to market in 2011.

To make matters worse, Polk says that if you exclude the high volume audience of Toyota Prius owners from the equation, hybrid loyalty drops to under 25 percent!

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Car Prices Hit Record Highs in the U.S., Average Transaction up 7% from Last Year

The U.S. auto market is gaining momentum after the recession which led to the bankruptcy of the General Motors and Chrysler groups, but so are median car prices.

According to TrueCar.com, the average transaction price for new light vehicles in the States reached $30,748 in March 2012, an increase of $1,977 or 6.9 percent from March 2011 and $143 or 0.5 percent from February 2012.

Most analysts seem to agree that one of the reasons why average prices are on a rise is that automakers are constantly reducing big cash-back offers and other incentives.

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Use Facebook While Studying, Get Lower Grades

Students should think twice before logging into Facebook or sending text messages during study time, suggests a study to be published in the journal Computers & Education.
The study — which controlled for demographics, high school GPA, internet skills and amount of study time — asked 1,624 students at a four-year university about their multitasking habits.
The study included questions about how often students IM, email, search and talk during study time, but only Facebook and texting ultimately correlated with a lower GPA. There was no relationship between grades and using other technologies while studying.
Scientists already know that the brain isn’t capable of successful multitasking. “Human information processing is insufficient for attending to multiple input streams and for performing simultaneous tasks,” write the study’s authors Reynol Junco and Shelia R. Cotton.
Previous studies have determined, for instance, that driving while talking on a cell phone can have more of an impact on driving performance than alcohol does. Even simply walking and talking on the phone at the same time can throw our brain off of its game.
In other words, one would think that any multitasking during study time — not just using Facebook and texting — would have a negative impact on grades.
Junco suggests the difference might have something to do with how students are using different technologies. Students may be more likely to email professors and search out of academic curiosity than to socialize through email or search, while they’re unlikely to text message their teaching assistants for homework help.
“It could be that students with lower grades just happen to do more Facebook and texting,” Junco tells Mashable. “But I think this study in the context of other research does seem to show that it is about what they’re doing while they study and not the other way around.”
On average, students in the study sent 97 text messages and spent 101 minutes on Facebook every day. Junco doesn’t think that they’ll leave either technology behind, but in his own classes at Lock Haven University he encourages students to think about how they use them.
“What I tell them is, ‘look, you’re going to sit down to study anyway,” he says. “You might as well make it the most efficient use of your time.’”