America was always known as an origin which produces good quality automobiles. “Although the blueprint for the modern automobile was perfected in Germany and France in the late 1800s, Americans dominated the industry in the first half of the twentieth century.” (history.com). However, the industry was facing a lot of challenges during the centuries and until today. The ones I want to discuss are the global competition, new technologies, impact on the environment and government’s reaction to it and consumers opinion about the product.
As I said earlier, America dominated auto industry in the first half of the twentieth century: “In 1929 before the Great Depression, the world had 32,028,500 automobiles in use, and the U.S. automobile industry produced over 90% of them.” (Wikipedia.org), but in 1980s the US was overtaken by Japan and by China in 2012. However, the USA was second after China in the “top 20 motor vehicle producing countries 2015” with more than 12 million units produced. (Wikipedia.org). USA company General Motors was second (first Toyota, Japan) by production in 2013 (Wikipedia.org). China and Japan are the biggest global competitors.
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Technology allows cars to “see” all the surroundings, automakers are creating new innovations such as lane departure and blind spot warnings, adaptive cruise control, automatic braking, telematics control system and more (http://www.autoalliance.org/) to assure the safety of the driver and passengers. “Today’s leading automakers are developing cars that park themselves, brake at the sign of danger and stay in lanes without driver assistance. What once only existed in the imaginations of science fiction writers is now being developed and tested by carmakers in laboratories and on roadways across the globe.”