VIN Basics Blog

In this day in age, there's so much work to get done with such a small window of opportunity to do it in. Many of us have our time spread thin between work, family and social lives; so after a long days work, having to take more work home is less than ideal! This is where utilizing a 3rd party solution(s) becomes a necessity for many businesses. 

The saying "time is money" applies to most all professions, however, maybe none more so than professionals in the automotive industry. Regardless of which segment you work in (auto sales, marketing, insurance, software development, logistics, etc.) there will be a number of items on your team's agenda that cannot be contracted to a 3rd party. Luckily, with vehicle data solutions readily available from trusted data providers, you are not stuck having to create a solution in-house.  In fact, with the availability of delivered data, web services and hosted software solutions, integrating these products has never been easier.     

Blogging has become an important part of traffic generation and brand awareness for any type of business and has indeed reached its way to the automotive world. Since the vehicle data and VIN decoding solutions we provide are vital to all segments of the auto industry, we come across quite a variety of auto blogs.

Though the blogs we've shared below are not exclusive to one auto niche (auto listing sites, dealer solution providers, auto insurance, etc.), we still thought each one of these articles would provide some level of value or interest industry-wide.

A study from GE Capital Retail Bank in 2013 found that 81 percent of consumers research products online before making a big purchase decision. This percent is expected to continue to grow as consumers become more comfortable with the integrity of online information along with the readily available product information.  From clothing to electronics to large appliances, shoppers are using the internet to make smarter decisions before opening their wallets.

The 2014 BMW i8 is easily one of BMW's most impressive releases in quite some time, combining the most attractive features of a sporty, high performance vehicle with those of an economy car. This beautiful piece of machinery has many of the advanced technology features we've covered in our automotive technology series thus far... and more. 

Thinking about trying your hand at creating the next great inventory listing portal?  Make sure your plan for displaying inventory has all your bases covered by checking out our infographic!

Auto Technology: Hydrogen Vehicles

Imagine a vehicle that gets twice the combined MPG of equivalent gas models and whose only emissions are water vapor.  Seems too good to be true, right?  However, vehicles like the one described above are already available in the United States... well, only with very limited availability and only in one state.  

Auto Technology: Understanding Hybrid Technology 

By now you've most likely seen hundreds of hybrid vehicles - also referred to as hybrid electric vehicles (HEV) - on the road. They've been in the US market for over a decade and have continued to grow as a more popular and available option for consumers. Whether you're in the market for a hybrid or just want to learn more about this growing vehicle segment, there are a couple things you need to know to understand this auto technology.  

Auto Technology: Alternative Fuel

For many drivers, gasoline and diesel are the only forms of vehicle fuel they’re aware of. Every gas station they’ve filled up at offers multiple grades of gasoline and at least one grade of diesel. However, these are not the only options anymore. Ethanol, biodiesel and compressed natural gas are three popular alternative fuel sources we will discuss in this article.

Auto Technology: Gasoline and Diesel Advances

There are two primary benefits of fuel efficiency in the automotive world. As alluded in the title, better fuel economy will both minimize the amount of toxic air pollution and maximize money saved on fuel. Which of these green options is most important to you?

Auto Technology: Intelligent Vehicle Lighting

Vehicle lighting technology has become increasingly more advanced to the point where, in some cases, it can make driving at night as safe and easy as driving during the day. With these new technologies on the market, drivers will no longer have to worry about blinding other drivers, guessing what's around the bend, whats walking (or crawling) out into the street, as well as mitigating bad visibility due to inclement weather conditions. Automakers have covered all aspects of vehicle lighting with new technology for high beams, headlights, fog lights and a number of complementary technologies.