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Environmental Challenges For The American Auto Industry

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Environmental Challenges for the American Auto Industry This essay will analyze the current environmental challenges faced by the auto industry in the United States, focusing on its global competition, new technologies, environmental impacts and government reactions as well as opinions from consumers. Global competition in the industry According to Statista, over 742 million passenger cars are expected to be produced worldwide in 20151 . The world’s largest automakers include General Motors and Ford, the Volkswagen Group, as well as the Toyota Motor Corporation, Honda and Nissan2 . Toyota, the world leader, sold around 10.08 million vehicles and its main markets are Japan and the U.S. In the United States, the Toyota Camry and the Toyota …show more content…

Until 2030 doesn’t come, cars in 2016 already have some autonomous functionalities, for example BMW’s selfparking system4 . Another important technology is smart dashboards. Apple’s CarPlay5 and Google’s Android Auto6 are two of the big players in this new technology. Smart dashboards act just like smart phones where users can read text messages, make calls, navigate maps and play songs. Some of the new smart dashboards also come with a gesture control functionality where users may control their radio and Bluetooth systems just by waving his/her hand in the air7 . Finally one other recent and promising new tech is vehicle tracking. By tracking the driver’s behavior, insurance companies expect to provide better rates to customers8 . Environmental impacts and government reaction Car emissions are becoming more and more on the spot lately. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, the U.S. transportation sector produces nearly thirty percent of all US global warming emissions. Their study shows that cars and trucks together account for nearly one-fifth of all US emissions, emitting around 24 pounds of carbon dioxide and other globalwarming gases for every gallon of gas9 . Governments seem to be closely looking at this problem. In the United States, new cars are required to have an economy label posted on the window sticker and also must be certified to meet federal emission

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