The Honda Civic is the world's largest selling hybrid car and competes with Toyota's Prius. Both the Civic and Prius are diesel electric hybrids, with two separate engines ? one diesel or petrol, the other an electric motor.

Second time car buyers also have the advantage of getting exchange or loyalty bonus ranging between Rs 5,000 and Rs 10,000 depending on the model and from which region they have bought the car.

On February 8, 2002, President Bush signed legislation changing the interest rates on education loans from variable rates to fixed rates for new loans issued after July 1, 2006. The interest rate on the Stafford Loan is 6.8% and the interest rate on the PLUS Loan is 7.9%. The scheduled increase in the PLUS Loan interest rate was subsequently changed from 7.9% to 8.5% by the Higher Education Reconciliation Act of 2005, as passed on February 8, 2006. This bill, however, failed to make a parallel change to the Direct Loan program, so only the FFEL PLUS Loan interest rate will be increasing to 8.5%. Thus the fixed rates on new loans for which the first disbursement occurs on or after July 1, 2006 are: 6.8% Stafford, 7.9% Federal Direct PLUS and 8.5% FFEL PLUS. Other recent interest rates include:

Car buyers will have to shell out more money for buying certain models as companies have cut down on their discounts.

In order to boost eco-friendly hybrid cars, the government is planning to slash excise and customs duties on such vehicles. The move is to encourage the use of alternative sources of fuel.

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Buying a new car will get costlier from this week. According to car dealers, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and Kotak Mahindra have all lined to hike rates by 50-100 basis points (bps).

The premium car segment is hotting up after Honda Siel Cars India (HSCI) marked down the price of Civic with the launch of a new variant.