
An automobile, commonly referred to as a vehicle (an old word for carriage) or a truck, is usually a wheeled car that carries its own engine. Older terms include things like horseless carriage and motor vehicle, with “motor” referring to what exactly is now typically known as the engine. It has seats for the driver and, practically without exception, for at the very least 1 passenger.
An automobile is often a wheeled vehicle that carries its personal motor. Diverse forms of automobiles consist of automobiles, buses, trucks, vans, and motorcycles, with vehicles getting probably the most well known. The term is derived from Greek ‘autos’ (self) and Latin ‘movére’ (move), referring for the fact that it ‘moves by itself’. Earlier terms for automobile include ‘horseless carriage’ and ‘motor car’. As of 2005 there are 600 million automobiles worldwide (0.074 per capita).
The automobile was hailed as an environmental improvement over horses when it was initially introduced. Ahead of its introduction, in New York City, over 10,000 tons of manure had to become removed from the streets everyday. However, in 2006 the automobile is amongst the major sources of worldwide air pollution and reason for substantial noise and health effects.
Manufacturing

In 2005 63 million vehicles and light trucks were created globally. The world’s greatest auto producer (including light trucks) is definitely the European Union with 29% of your world’s production. In non-EU Eastern Europe yet another 4% are developed. The second biggest manufacturer is NAFTA with 25.8%, followed by Japan with 16.7%, China with 8.1%, MERCOSUR with 3.9%, India with two.4% along with the rest in the planet with 10.1%. (vda-link)
Massive free of charge trade places like EU, NAFTA and MERCOSUR attract manufacturers worldwide to generate their products inside them and without having currency risks or customs, furthermore to getting close to shoppers. Hence the production figures tend not to show the technological capacity or business enterprise ability in the regions. In truth significantly if not many of the Third Globe automobile production is utilized western technology and automobile models (and sometimes even comprehensive obsolete western factories shipped for the nation), which is reflected within the patent statistic as well as the locations from the r&d centers.
The automobile industry is dominated by relatively few substantial corporations (not to become confused with the considerably more numerous brands), the largest of which (by numbers of produced vehicles) are currently General Motors, Toyota and Ford Motor Company. It is expected, that Toyota will reach the No.1 position in 2006. Essentially the most profitable per-unit car-maker of recent years has been Porsche due to its premium price tag.
The automotive industry at massive still suffers from high under-utilization of its manufacturing potential.
Images:
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Benz-velo.jpg
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Late_model_Ford_Model_T.jpg
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.
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