Environmental Issues Facing The Usa Automotive Industry

Introduction Automobile usage has increased in America and elsewhere in the world. In a research done by Sutherland, J., et al. (2004) “The US has a contributed to 200 million passengers in cars and light truck over the past few years. Further in 1990, studies showed that US cars increased six times faster than human population. The leaders in the automotive industry must adopt some key elements to ensure success in this fast-moving environment. They must invest in knowing their markets, building brands, adapting product strategies and taking long-term view on their goals and objectives. This paper outlines some of the key factors which should be considered. Environmental factors automotive designers and engineers have always said the main threats in the American Automotive industry are the environmental factors such as fuel economy and the clean air regulations. Automotive Emission posed different problems than manufacturing discharges such as coal smoke. Increased fossil-fuel emission has resulted from the million car increase. Irritation smog, which is comprised of carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, sulfur oxide and other various chemical mixtures are cited in major cities such as Los Angeles. These auto emissions are also said to cause headaches, visual pollutions, contribute to lung cancers and other respiratory disease. In the end, the engineers have designed cars that are better environmental performers, cost effective and fuel efficient to reduce the environmental

In 2009, the Obama Administration bailed out the General Motors and Chrysler automobile companies. Having begun their decent into bankruptcy in 2008, losing thousands of jobs, sales plummeting forty percent, with a high threat of liquidation, General Motors and Chrysler finally reached government-assisted chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2009. Obama allocated eighty five billion dollars in TARP funds to the auto industry, close to fifty billion dollars of it going to General Motors. The allocated funds were successful in keeping two of the Big Three auto companies afloat, keeping taxes from sky rocketing and saving millions of jobs.

The market shares and stock prices of Ford have been declined in recent years. No further steps have been taken by the Ford

These losses necessitated governmental action in the financial markets. Companies such as Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns lost all of their stock’s value and were forced into bankruptcy. This risk spread throughout the American banks, forcing the American government to step in and buy all of the securitized, troubled assets from the balance sheets of

The enormous amount of unsecured consumer debt created by this speculation left the stock market essentially off-balance. Many investors, caught up in the race to make a killing, invested their life savings, mortgaged their homes, and cashed in

The people who are retrenched will be more cautious while spending their money, causing consumer-based industries to suffer The companies in those industries will have to fire employees and apply for government help. If this goes on, they will soon close down. As they borrowed money from the banks, those money becomes a bad loan and the weaker banks will also need to close down, adding to the number of unemployed

Globalization brought upon many changes to the American Automotive Industry in 1975. Increasing demand for import automobiles and the Energy Policy and Conservation Act served to be a real threat to the Ford Motor Company, American Motors, Chrysler Corporation, and General Motors. Out of these four manufacturers Chrysler was affected the worst by the industrial change, as they required a federal aid and required brand /management changes to revive themselves. Globalization formed a more competitive market in the United States during the 1970’s due to the changing emissions standards. The American Automotive Industry had to adjust to the new emissions standards from the Clean Air Act of 1970, and the fuel economy requirements of the Energy Policy and Conservation Act, all while building cars that attracted to American consumers.

Environmental concerns have been raised from time to time because of the dependency on the gasoline-fueled engine as the chief auto powertrain technology. This has resulted in exposing many automobile users to unpredictable prices of fuel. These issues were, however, the reason for

The climax of the 2008-2009 financial crises, the largest ever since the Great Depression of the 1930s, witnessed the near collapse of multibillion-dollar industries in the United States. Concerns over the economic impact of the possible collapse of these industries compelled the then administration and Members of Congress to seek legislative options to salvage them. Consequently, two of the industry biggest players in the auto industries, General Motors and Chrysler, were offered financial support by the government and in return, shareholders and other stakeholders had to make necessary sacrifices in order to fundamentally restructure their businesses and commit to the tough decision of returning the companies to financial viability. In

This move led to $700 billion bailout and bankruptcies resulting to declining of employment and finally causing the economic recession.

Since Henry Ford’s invention of the moving assembly line to mass produce civilian automobiles in 1913, the environment and air that we breathe every day is being ruined and polluted. Though people drive cars around every day with no worries, they still are damaging the world around them with every mile. Car emissions are causing multiple issues with the air and water sources. Harmful gases are being emitted from the cars and are messing up the natural gases already present in our atmosphere. These gases consist of sulfur-based substances and are polluting and contaminating the already present nitrogen oxide and other greenhouse gases up in the atmosphere. These harmful emissions then seep into our blue seas and clear lakes, poisoning the waters and killing the

This further led to an increase in the uncertainty of the market and balance sheets of huge financial players deteriorated which further caused a decline in economic activity. Industrial production and construction was made to cease which marked a widespread unemployment in the US.

In March 2009, the federal government took over GM and Chrysler after the Obama administration bailed both companies out of

bailout funding and with no recourse to private investors, suspend their debt repayments and also

In order to survive, many banks turned to sovereign wealth funds to obtain new capital. Bad news continued to pour in from all sides. In August 2007 that the financial market could not solve the subprime crisis on its own and the problems spread beyond the U.S borders. Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, Bear Stearns was acquired by JP Morgan Chase,