It seems like most celebrities don’t have a care in the world. They have loads of money, always look good, wear the snazziest clothes and drive the most expensive cars. Just ask Bird Man of the rap group Cash Money. Rather than donate to pressing world issues like Haiti relief, he recently dropped $2.5 million on a Bugatti Veyron. The average Joe probably doesn’t even know what that is (it’s a really fast car).

Fortunately, some celebrities are bit more down-to-Earth; and drive affordable cars with nameplates we not only recognize, but can afford. Shoppers looking to pull off that celebrity swag should check out the following list of celebrity cars that fall well within most shoppers’ budgets.

MSRP: $18,800 – $34,000

Teens rejoice! Kristen Stewart drives a very affordable Mini Cooper S. It’s black, which is rather fitting considering her role in Twilight: an emo, love struck teenager who swoons over both a vampire and werewolf. A quick look at the Mini S and you’ll see why Kristen chose it. It looks like a twenty-something’s car. It’s got a hip, boxy shape, optional funky exterior graphics, a great city/highway fuel economy rating of 28/37 mpg and enough horsepower to help them outrun the paparazzi. Plus it only costs about $30,000 for a souped-up model.

MSRP: $22,680 – $27,225

Introduced just last year, the Chevrolet Camaro is a big hit among celebrities. Just ask Brad Pitt. He drives the top-of-the-line Camaro SS, painted black with orange racing stripes. LeBron James, the Miami Heat’s six-foot eight baller, drives one too. Of course, he had to have his customized with enormous white rims which detract from its retro style and sporting abilities, but it’s a Camaro nonetheless. For roughly $24,000 you can drive one too — equipped with a 3.6-liter V6 engine that cranks 312 horsepower, painted in old-school colors like synergy green and fitted with a classic exterior that’s sure to age gracefully.

MSRP: $22,800 – $28,070

Living green is in, and everyone knows Hollywood is big on fads. Perhaps that’s why celebrities like Leonardo DiCaprio and Renee Zelwegger jumped on the eco-friendly bandwagon and bought a Toyota Prius. And why not? It has unique styling, offers loads of practical cargo room and nets a fantastic city/highway fuel economy rating of 51/48 mpg. Best of all, fans don’t have to spend a lot of dough to keep pace. Starting in the low $20K range, the Prius costs about $7,000 more than the Toyota Corolla. However, it’s still bundles cheaper than the $109,000 electric Tesla Roadster Matt Damon recently bought.

MSRP: $36,000 – $44,100

After starring in High School Musical, Hair Spray and 17 Again, Zach Efron bought himself an Audi A5 Cabriolet. This soft-top convertible features the finest of German engineering: impressive performance, a muscular exterior design and lots of high-end finishes like wood inlays, heated front seats and Bluetooth technology. Can’t afford the A5 Cabriolet? Opt for the A5 coupe instead. It costs about $6,000 less. Select a black one and you’ll look like Anne Hathaway and Katy Perry. Or, for $9,000 less than the A5 Cabriolet, drive off in an Audi A3. It’s what Sarah Jessica Parker drives.

MSRP: $51,400 – $61,500

Seeing Lindsay Lohan cruising around in a Porsche Cayman S, you’d never know that she was just released from prison and already broke parole by failing a drug test. That’s because luxury sports cars like this one give onlookers the impression that you’ve got your act together. In fact, Porsche penned the Cayman for hot singles and established professionals with sporty intentions. Equipped with a 3.4-cylinder, V6 engine that pumps 320 horsepower, the Cayman is force to be reckoned with. It isn’t the cheapest sports car, but definitely one of the more affordable ones that celebrities drive. Compared to Paris Hilton’s bubblegum pink Bentley Continental GT — customized for $200,000 — it’s a steal.

MSRP: $62,495 – $86,680

The Cadillac Escalade debuted in 1999, but didn’t enter pop culture until Ludacris bought one and brought it to life in his hit single “Southern Hospitality.” Twelve years later, celebrities continue to drive this now-classic SUV. Remember when Tiger Woods crashed his SUV in 2009, an event that led to everyone discovering his secret honies? That was an Escalade. More recently, Las Vegas police busted Paris Hilton for cocaine possession while she was sitting shotgun in one. Why are celebrities so obsessed with the Escalade? For starters, it’s luxurious. Plus it provides plenty of room, for things like bodyguards and illegal activities, and is even available as a hybrid.

For a closer look at these celebrity rides, check out our slideshow.

The auto industry’s problem is no longer that big cars aren’t selling. It’s that cars aren’t selling. Even fuel-sipping hybrids, which were in such hot demand this summer that they often sold after less than a day on dealer lots, are now slow sellers.

Automotive News reports, “U.S. sales of gasoline-electric hybrids fell 9.9 percent in 2008, after rising with gasoline prices early in the year and falling along with fuel costs and a collapsing auto market at the end.” Sales slowed dramatically as gas prices dropped and the economy soured. Sales figures for Toyota’s Prius, the most recognizable hybrid, tell the story: “It tallied 91,440 sales in the first half and 67,444 in the second.” In fact, in a blow to conventional wisdom, hybrid sales appear to be trending down over time. Both Honda and Toyota “sold 12.5 percent fewer hybrids [in the U.S.] last year than in 2007.” Both have new hybrids coming to market this year — a newly redesigned Toyota Prius and the all-new Honda Insight.

Hybrid vehicles represented just 2.4 percent of the U.S. vehicle market in 2008. Autoblog blames the recession, noting that the financial crisis “has caused consumers to cut way back, leading to dramatic drop in fuel prices, killing much of the argument for a hybrid’s price premium. Consumers shy away from hybrids when fuel dips below $3.50 per gallon, and the incessant clang of news stories about expensive fuel also dries up, causing the issue of fuel efficiency to fall from consciousness.”

The news may mean this is a great time to buy a hybrid. Facing the slow sales numbers, Toyota is offering a cash-back rebate on the Prius this month. Many experts believe that gas prices will climb again as the economy recovers and demand increases in India and China, so it may make sense to own a hybrid again in just a few years — so this might be a great time to get them while they’re cheap.

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The price of that Chevy Volt may go down another $2,500 this week, before the car even reaches production, thanks to President Obama’s massive economic stimulus proposa.

Kicking Tires explains, “Last year, legislators passed new rules about plug-in hybrids and their tax credits. Vehicles like the upcoming Chevy Volt would qualify for the maximum credit of $7,500. However, as part of the stimulus bill being considered in Washington, that amount would jump to $10,000.”

Green Car Congress reports that the measure would also increase the number of cars eligible for the credit, modifying “the plug-in electric drive motor vehicle credit by increasing the original 250,000-vehicle limitation to 500,000 four-wheeled units.”

One of the crucial questions about the Volt has always been its price. General Motors has spent billions developing the vehicle and would likely need to set a high price in order to recover that investment, but needs to keep the price low enough to make the car competitive. The new proposal, Kicking Tires points out, gives GM more breathing room when pricing the car. Assuming the measure passes, “If the Volt cost $40,000, the price after rebate would be $30,000, putting it pretty close to the price of a well-equipped Toyota Prius.”

Texas buyers might even qualify for a bigger discount. According to Autoblog Green, Texas Governor Rick Perry (R) has proposed “a $5,000 incentive towards a purchase of Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicles” in areas of that state that have significant air quality problems.

Both the $10,000 federal rebate and the proposed Texas credit, we should note, would apply to other electric-powered passenger cars as well, such as an all-electric Nissan that may appear by 2010, or the proposed Chrysler 200C.

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At the 2009 Detroit Auto Show, the focus was largely on electric cars. The Cadillac Converj, the Chrysler 200C, an electric Ford Focus, a drop-top Fisker Karma — electric cars were everywhere. The world’s largest automaker was conspicuously absent. Toyota brought a single electric concept – a battery-powered version of its iQ city car that, the company said, it had no plans to produce anytime soon.

It turns out, however, that Toyota wasn’t behind the other automakers. If the company is to be believed, it’s ahead of them.

Toyota now says it will sell a plug-in hybrid car this year, and a hydrogen fuel-cell powered car by the year 2015.

The New York Times reports, “Toyota plans to introduce its plug-in hybrid electric vehicle late this year, a year earlier than originally planned, and a year ahead of the Chevrolet Volt. James Lentz, the president of Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A., said in an interview that Toyota planned to initially make about 500 plug-in hybrids, which will be made available first to commercial customers. About 150 plug-ins will be slated for customers in the United States, Mr. Lentz said.”

Toyota spokesman John Hanson told Bloomberg, “Limited commercialization” of hydrogen cars “begins in 2015 and maybe sooner” according to the company’s plans. “The exact timing, sales volume and price haven’t been decided, Hanson said.”

Honda has already leased a small number of FCX Clarity fuel-cell vehicles in the U.S., and General Motors has a test fleet of hydrogen-powered SUVS as well.

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Apparently, designing the fastest production car ever built wasn’t enough for Shelby Supercars. They want to build an electric one.

SSC’s Ultimate Aero has been certified by the Guinness Book of World Records’ as the world’s fastest production car, running 256 mph. Now, the automaker claims to have an electric version of the car in the works – and the claims they are making about the Ultimate Aero EV are even more incredible than what they said about the gasoline-powered version.

CNET explains, “According to Shelby, the powertrain developed for the Ultimate Aero EV uses a lithium ion battery pack, which can be fully charged from a 110 volt AC outlet in 10 minutes. This powertrain can be scaled from 200 up to 500 horsepower, with a special, dual-motor configuration that could produce 1,200 horsepower. On top of that, Shelby claims a 200 mile range.”

According to DVICE, “The company says it’ll offer its unique electric motor tech to other car companies, and mentions that the motor can be scaled bigger, with enough oomph for SUVs and delivery trucks, too.”

Autoblog Green, however, is skeptical. “The car will reportedly use some kind of lithium ion battery pack with some sort of indeterminate nanotechnology,” they point out. “For the sake of argument, with a 50 kWh pack (a conservative estimate to get anywhere near 200 miles) a 10 minute charge with only 110V would require over 2,700 A of current, something you will not get from any existing 110V outlet. Hopefully next time Shelby opens up, they will provide some real details that are actually credible.”

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The next generation of Toyota’s popular Prius hybrid has made its first official appearance at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. After more than a year of rumors and spy photos, and a long series of press releases from Toyota offering hints about the car, we can bring you the official details.

The answer to the number one question Prius fans have been asking is: 50.

The 2010 Prius, according to Toyota, has a combined mileage rating of 50 mpg. It’s not the 94 mpg some early rumors had suggested, but it beats anything else found in a major automaker’s showroom.

Autoblog Green reports, “The new Prius has three driving modes: Eco, EV-Drive and Power. The EV Drive isn’t anything new – if you have a Japanese Prius. A first for the U.S., the Eco mode allows battery-only operation ‘at low speeds for about a mile, if conditions permit.’ This is still the nickel-metal battery pack, after all. The other modes should be fairly obvious, with Eco providing the best mileage and the Power giving the car a ‘sportier feel.’”

Edmunds Inside Line adds, “The 2010 Prius gets a larger and more powerful 1.8-liter four-cylinder engine that is paired with the hybrid system. It replaces the previous 1.5-liter unit. Output is boosted by 22 horses to 98 horsepower, with a torque increase of 23 pound-feet to 105 lb-ft over the 2009 model. Toyota said it cut more than a second from the Prius’ 0-60-mph time – to 9.8 seconds. ‘Contrary to conventional wisdom, the larger engine actually helps improve highway mileage,’ Toyota said in a statement.”

The new car is larger than the one it replaces – longer and wider, but no taller. A press release carried by Jalopnik notes, “the roof profile is altered by moving the top of the roof 3.9 inches to the rear. This emphasizes the wedge shape, and also allows for enhanced rear headroom and improved aerodynamics.”

The second-generation Prius, the one you see on the road today, put the phrase “coefficient of drag” in to the vocabulary of millions of car enthusiasts. The term refers to a measure of a car’s aerodynamic profile, and the previous Prius’ Cd was the lowest ever seen in a car, at 0.26. The new Prius, according to Jalopnik, measures a 0.25, providing a slight boost in fuel economy and something else for nerds to brag about.

Finally, rumors of a solar panel roof have been confirmed, though the truth is perhaps a bit disappointing to those who hoped for a solar-powered car. Kicking Tires explains, “The new Prius will have an optional moonroof with solar cells embedded into it. However, the solar cells will only power a ventilation system that keeps the car cool when parked and turned off. The theory is that it takes exponentially more power to cool down a car for every degree hotter it gets, so this should cut down on those gas-sucking A/C blasts on a sunny day.”

Pricing has not been revealed, but with the new, low-cost Honda Insight on its heels, Toyota is under some pressure to keep the price reasonable. We’ll report it as soon as we see it.

Rocked by slow sales, the automakers have all opened 2009 with aggressive price discounts. Research January’s Best Car Deals with U.S. News’ car Rankings and Reviews.

It sounds like a futurist’s dream scenario: drive your electric car to work, get out, plug it in and let it power the building. But in Newark, Delaware, it’s about to become a reality – at least on a very small scale. The system is an Energy Department experiment that could point the way toward a greener future.

Delaware’s News-Journal explains, “The City of Newark has become the first electric utility to allow a two-way flow of energy between vehicles and the grid.” A grant from the U.S. Department of Energy has allowed the city of Newark and the University of Delaware to buy a total of five Scion Xbs converted to run on electricity, and “equipped with software that communicates with [the] regional energy grid.” Each car charges itself when plugged into the grid, but has “the capability of sending electricity back into the grid, if…the regional grid manager needs it.”

Each vehicle can send only a tiny amount of electricity into the public grid, so five vehicles won’t make much of an impact. “But if there were a few hundred such vehicles on the road, that would be enough to make a palpable difference,” according to Professor Willet Kempton. “That might even allow car owners to make money when [the regional electric company] buys their electricity back.”

To make the system work on a massive scale would require a huge investment. “What Delaware needs now, besides the EV cars,” Autoblog Green notes, “is a complete network of garages, apartment parking lots and city streets outfitted with the right size plugs.” That’s no small outlay, but “the grid is actually ready to go,” and such a system could be added gradually.

Of course, with purely electric cars, the system is just an energy loop – the cars would draw energy from the grid and send it back into the grid. But as technologies like hydrogen-powered cars become more realistic, it is possible to build a system where driving would ultimately provide the electricity to power homes and offices. With electric cars dominating the list of future cars on display at this week’s Detroit Auto Show, the experiment in Newark may be a sign of what’s to come.

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Herbie and the talking Beetle in the VW commercials have a new reason to feel inferior – and this time it’s not Brooke Shields trying to sell rebadged Chrysler Minivans. It’s a gorgeous drop-top roadster that reportedly gets Prius-beating mileage and weighs in at barely more than a Mazda Miata, most likely making it a very agile ride.

For now, the BlueSport Roadster is just a concept. But many present for its unveiling at the Detroit Auto Show believe the car is headed for production.

Motor Authority reports, “VW’s goal was to build a convertible sports car that was affordable, economical and quick, and the numbers for the BlueSport seem to indicate they’ve achieved their goal.” The diesel-powered, mid-engine, rear-wheel-drive two-seater may get some astonishing fuel-economy numbers.

Autoblog Green notes, “The car is powered by a 180 PS Clean Diesel TDI engine that uses a NOx storage catalytic converter to reduce CO2 emissions. Using a 6-speed DSG dual clutch transmission, the Concept BlueSport gets 54.7 mpg (US); punch the Eco mode button to get 57.36 mpg in city driving.”

Left Lane News adds, “The car, if ever produced, would be relatively affordable and extremely lightweight.” The concept weighs in at just 2,200 pounds.

VW, according to Jalopnik, is “promising fairly realistic performance. This includes a 0-60 MPH time of 6.2 seconds and a top speed of 140 MPH. Jalopnik thinks the car could be on its way to production. “There’s no definite word,” they write, “though the design looks closer to a production vehicle than most we’ve seen.”

The New York Times, however, is skeptical that we will ever see a BlueSport in showrooms. “It looks real,” they write, “it could be real, but it’s called a concept for a reason. It requires a new platform, it is a niche vehicle and past VW roadster concepts are still in the company’s concept garage.”

VW may have the flexibility to build the new model despite poor market conditions. While other automakers are scaling back new models due to the recession, Wired notes, “VW is among the few automakers that didn’t take a beating last year. Although sales were down for the industry as a whole, VW sold 6.2 million cars last year, a 6 percent increase over 2007.

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Batteries are keeping the next generation of ultra-efficient green cars out of your driveway. The Chevy Volt, the Cadillac Converj, an electric Ford Focus and half a dozen other electric cars are supposedly coming by 2010, or 2011. But they aren’t here yet and no one can put a final date on when they will come because of batteries.

The Holy Grail of green car engineering is a battery that can store enough energy to power all of the features people expect and still move a ton of metal and plastic, recharge quickly from a standard household outlet, and yet be small and light enough to fit in a car while leaving space for people and their stuff. A battery far more efficient than the nickel-metal hydride cells of today’s hybrids is just a theory until someone mass-produces one.

GM now says it is close.

Kicking Tires reports, “Today, GM announced it will manufacture lithium-ion battery packs in the U.S. for its Chevrolet Volt and other future electric cars. The plant will be built at an undetermined location in Michigan ‘in time for Volt production,’ GM vice chairman Bob Lutz said following an announcement at the Detroit auto show. The Volt is scheduled for production late in 2010.”

The San Jose Mercury News called the announcement “the biggest news to come out of the Detroit Auto Show.”

Edmunds Inside Line explains, “Lithium-ion batteries are widely viewed in the industry as the key to making viable electric cars.” GM’s announcement means that a major automaker, for the first time, is “serious about building battery packs for electric vehicles, which should accelerate the push to get them into your driveway.”

The Los Angeles Times characterizes GM’s announcement as the automotive industry “stepping on the accelerator as it shifts away from the piston and toward the electron.” But while some other automakers are following GM’s lead in hoping to develop batteries internally, the Times notes, one major competitor is skeptical. “Ford on Sunday said it was developing a mid-size battery-powered vehicle for sale in the U.S. in 2011, as well as a plug-in hybrid for 2012. But unlike GM or Toyota, Ford has no plans to develop the battery itself.” Ford will buy batteries from an outside supplier instead. “Alexander Edwards, head of auto analysis for consulting firm Strategic Vision Inc., believes that such a plan carries less risk. By shifting attention to batteries, he said, ‘GM and others might be locking themselves too much into one solution rather than keeping open to various solutions,’” he told the Times.

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The slowing U.S. auto market and the threat of collapse looming over America’s Big Three automakers may not be hurting even the fuel-efficient, foreign-built cars that are supposedly the auto industry’s life rafts today.

Kicking Tires reports, “Toyota is halting plans to produce its next-generation Prius hybrid at a new plant being built in Mississippi. Sales of the Prius were down heavily last month, and the company points to an uncertain future in explaining the decision.”

Autoblog adds, “Toyota will launch an all-new Prius at the upcoming Detroit Auto Show. The 2010 Toyota Prius is expected to go on sale later in 2009, and with the delay of production in Mississippi, all new Prius hybrids will continue to be imported from Japan.”

Edmunds Inside Line comments, “Toyota’s dilemma in Blue Springs presents powerful evidence that the industry’s problems are not limited to Detroit-based automakers.”

The decision may have political consequences in the U.S. Jalopnik comments, “This is an interesting development in a regional / political Civil War conflict pitting anti-union Republicans from southern states and their foreign automaker allies against Democrats in the north and their domestic automaker / union supporters. According to the NY Daily News, right-to-work states have given over $3 billion in subsidies and tax incentives to foreign-owned car companies since 1992,” so bailout proponents car argue that “southern Senators believe loaning the not-so-Big Three money so they can pay to put people to work building the next generation of fuel efficient American cars is bad. Giving Toyota and others free money to pay people not to work building Japanese cars is good.”

The depressed car market may be bad news for automakers, but it’s leading to some great deals for car buyers. Research the best car deals available in this market.