Automotive industry

The automotive industry designs, develops, manufactures, markets, and sells the world's motor vehicles. In 2007, more than 73 million motor vehicles, including cars and commercial vehicles were produced worldwide.[1]
In 2007, a total of 71.9 million new automobiles were sold worldwide: 22.9 million in Europe, 21.4 million in Asia-Pacific, 19.4 million in USA and Canada, 4.4 million in Latin America, 2.4 million in the Middle East and 1.4 million in Africa. [2] The markets in North America and Japan were stagnant, while those in South America and Asia grew strongly. Of the major markets, Russia, Brazil, India and China saw the most rapid growth.
About 250 million vehicles are in the United States. Around the world, there were about 806 million cars and light trucks on the road in 2007; they burn over 260 billion gallons of gasoline and diesel fuel yearly. The numbers are increasing rapidly, especially in China and India.[3] Urban transport systems based around the car have proved unsustainable, consuming excessive energy, affecting the health of populations, and delivering a declining level of service despite increasing investments. Many of these negative impacts fall disproportionately on those social groups who are also least likely to own and drive cars.[4][5][6] The sustainable transport movement focuses on solutions to these problems.
In 2008, with rapidly rising oil prices, industries such as the automotive industry, are experiencing a combination of pricing pressures from raw material costs and changes in consumer buying habits. The industry is also facing increasing external competition from the public transport sector, as consumers re-evaluate their private vehicle usage.[7] Roughly half of the US's fifty one light vehicle plants are projected to permanently close in the coming years with the loss of another 200,000 jobs in the sector, on top of the 560,000 jobs lost this decade.[8]

Britain

Lotus Cars final assembly line
The British motor industry has always been export oriented[citation needed]. Today it employs about 850,000 people and produces about 1.5 million cars and 216,000 commercial vehicles per year, 75% of which are exported.[9] The top five UK car producers are Nissan, Toyota, Honda, MINI and Land Rover.[10] However, international competitiveness of UK cars have declined consistently since the 1990s and the country became unable to sustain production on par with Germany or France. Since 2000, motor vehicle production fell from 1,813,894 to 1,750,253.[11] The country was overtaken by fast industrializing economies such as Brazil, India and Mexico.[11] The UK is the 12th largest automobile producer in the world but Russia is poised to overtake it in 2008.[11]

China
Main article: Automobile industry in China
The Chinese Autmotive Industry Plan, announced on the main Web site of China's central government, said China aims to create capacity to produce 500,000 "new energy" vehicles, such as battery electric cars and plug-in hybrid vehicles. The plan aims to increase sales of such new-energy cars to account for about 5% of China's passenger vehicle sales. [12]

[edit] India
Main article: Indian automobile industry
India is one of the fastest growing automobile industries in the world. After 1960, the automobile industry saw rapid growth and many automotive manufacturers started production. In 1920 one of the first companies was Hindustan Motors which produced the Ambassador; later, Fiat entered a collaboration with Premier. Chrysler entered India in the early 1960s. After 1990 Mercedes-Benz, Tata Motors, Ford, General Motors, Hyundai, Toyota through Toyota Kirloskar, and Maruti (owned jointly by the Government of India and Suzuki) grew to be major forces in the country's economy. Honda came up in 1996 with the Honda City, then the Civic, CR-V, and the Accord. Also BMW started production for the local market due to import duty. Tata purchased Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford Motor Company in 2008.
Other automotive manufacturers include Ashok Leyland, Bajaj Auto, Chinkara Motors, Eicher Motors, Force Motors, Kinetic, Mahindra, Rajah Motors, San Motors, Swaraj Mazda, TVS Motors, Tara and Tatra.and many more...