The cost of owning a vehicle goes beyond the purchase price. Expenses like insurance and maintenance can add up.

But most of all, it must start life with a sticker price well below even the most affordable luxury cars. A low purchase price holds down insurance premiums, taxes and fees, financing costs, and, especially, depreciation.

That’s why the priciest car on our list of the Top 10 Least Expensive Cars to Own is the tenth ranked Honda Civic DX, which starts at just $15,010.

Click through for the list of Top Least Expensive Cars to Own.

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Finding out what appeals to female drivers takes more than just putting on a skirt and high heels. But that can be a start.

To find out which vehicles women prefer, we compiled two lists. One looks at luxury vehicles most driven by women, and the other ranks the overall top 10 vehicles most driven by women, regardless of whether they are luxury or non-luxury.

Click through for the list of the Top 10 Cars Driven by Women.

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Honda of UK has secured a deal with British Airways where it will supply over 100 of its Civic Hybrid models the airline company. The deal represents one of the largest hybrid fleet contract in the UK.

The 100 Honda Civic Hybrids are going to make up nearly half of British Airway’s total company car fleet after they are delivered later this summer. British Airways will use the the fleet for its sales for cutting down each driver’s CO2 emissions by one tonne per year.

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Kelley Blue Book has announced its picks for the Top 10 Coolest New Cars Under $18,000. To make the list, the editors at KBB.com thought like consumers, picking cars that they felt were safe, good in fuel-economy, interior size, comfort, technology and fun-to-drive.

Now remember just because a vehicle is listed first doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the cheapest or the coolest on the list. All cars on the list are considered cool and are under $18,000. They are just listed in alphabetical order.

All the cars on the list were chosen using Kelly Blue Book’s New Car Blue Book Value which reflects real transaction prices and provide a useful comparison to the MSRP of the car.

Let us know what you would buy in the comments section below.

Click through for press release and the list.

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While everyone is talking up the Chevrolet Malibu sales beating Toyota’s Camry and Nissan’s Altima, Honda’s Accord is quitely taking over the mid-size sedan segment. According to an Edmunds analysis, the new 2008 Honda Accord was not only the best-selling car in America in March but also the best-selling vehicle.

Honda sold 36,161 Accords in March out selling the Camry by 4,851 units and the Malibu by 21,414 units. It also outsold the usual top-place vehicles like the Ford F-150 and the Chevrolet Silverado 15000.

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We’re huge fans of the Honda Fit here at eGMCarTech. Every time someone asks us what compact car they should by, we always recommend to get behind the wheel of the Fit for a test drive. The car is small but big enough to fit 4-5 passengers pretty comfortably.

But what if you wanted to fit in more than 5 passengers. We’re talking somewhere along the lines of 8-passengers. If Le Auto Blog is right, Honda is thinking something along the same lines and is planning a 8-seater based on the Honda Fit called the Freed.

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The horror that we saw at the 2008 Detroit Auto Show has become a reality. Honda has released the new 2009 Pilot and even after scoring lousy with the consumers, Honda decided to keep the awkward, flat face, unappealing design of the Prototype Honda Pilot concept.

Being pitched as an 8-passenger midsized crossover SUV the 2009 Honda Pilot is powered by a 3.5-liter i-VTEC V-6 with 250-horsepower and 253 lb-ft of torque. The 2009 Pilot comes standard with a 5-speed automatic transmission and VTM-4 four-wheel-drive is available as an option.

Along with the original trim lineup of LX, EX, EX-L a new trim level is being introduced, Touring. Touring trim offers Interface Dial with Scrolling and Multi-Line display, Bluetooth HandsFreeLink and power tailgate.

Pricing info and other details will be announced closer to launch date

Click through for more images and the press release.

2009 Honda Pilot:

   

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Honda is kicking Toyota’s butt. Okay maybe not financially or sales wise, but its CR-V is doing some serious damage in the compact crossover market. In February, Honda sold up to 15,695 CR-Vs even though the company’s overall sales declined 10 percent. That is up 11.4 percent from a year ago. That helped CR-V sales hit an increase of 14 percent in the first two months of 2008 as compared to 2007.

Selling almost 220,000 in 2007, the CR-V is the best-selling SUV in U.S., a spot long-held by the Ford Explorer.

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GM, Chrysler, Ford, Toyota and Honda all reported a dip in sales for the month of March, mainly due to the decline in demand for trucks and SUVs.

GM said it delivered 282,732 vehicles in the month, a decline of 19.1 percent from 349,866 a year ago. Chrysler was down 19.4 percent selling 166,386 as compared to 206,435 in 2006. FoMoCo said that its Ford, Lincoln and Mercury brands taotaled 213,074, down 14.4 percent. Toyota reported a 10.2 percent dip in sales to 217,730 units. Honda sales were down 3.2 percent to 138,734 vehicles, from 143,392 in 2007.

Source: Detroit News

Usually, owners of the Toyota Camry, Honda Accord or even the Nissan Maxima won’t even look at domestic brands when shopping for a mid-sized sedan. Well that’s all changing and the redesigned Chevrolet Malibu is attracting more cross-shopping with Japanese models.

According to J.D. Power and Associates, both Nissan and Toyota were among the 10 most frequently traded brands for buyers of the 2008 Chevrolet Malibu.

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While Toyota and GM are putting all their hopes in lithium-ion battery powered hybrids starting as early as next year, Honda will be staying away from the technology for now.

Honda’s CEO, Takeo Fukui says that lithium-ion batteries are still to unreliable for mass production. “Lithium ion batteries are still not usable from our perspective,” Fukui told Automotive News in an interview. “In terms of reliability and durability, I must say there still remain some concerns. I don’t think they are necessarily best suited for mass-produced vehicles.”

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The 2009 Honda Fit has finally landed on U.S. soil and is ready to go on sale this fall. While the Fit has always been a success in the U.S., Honda is looking to further its leadership in the segment with new features such as Honda’s Satellite-Linked Navigation System with a 6.5 inch screen, USB audio interface1 compatible with current generation iPods and many USB storage devices and rear Magic Seat®, with one-motion dive-down functionality.

Power comes from a 1.5-literi-VTECâ„¢ 4-cylinder engine mated to either a 5-speed manual transmission or an available 5-speed automatic transmission, which includes steering-wheel-mounted paddle shifters on the Fit Sport.

Click through for live images from the 2008 New York Auto Show and the press release.

2009 Honda Fit:

   

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Honda is hoping to reach an ambitious target of 400,000s hybrid in annual sales within the next five years. The Japanese automaker upcoming three hybrid models, including the next-generation Civic Hybrid, are expected to account for 10 percent of Honda’s total sales (compared to only 1.5 percent today).

Last year, Honda sold only 55,300 hybrids globally, and let’s not forget that the Civic Hybrid is currently the only hybrid car in Honda’s lineup. Toyota sold 429,000 units last year with its eight hybrid lineup.

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