This year has been tough on the auto industry worldwide, for the most part due to rising fuel prices. The North American automobile industry has been especially hit.

The biggest buzz seems to have sprung form the Meryl Lynch report, and the idea that they couldn’t rule out bankruptcy for the world’s largest automobile manufacturer, General Motors. At the same time the company’s stocks fell to a 54-year low. And all of it ocurred at a time when GM reported uninspiring sales figures (i.e. 265,937) in June this year.

In order to avoid bankruptcy, GM would need to raise $15 billion in cash as has been said. While the company hasn’t responded to the report, but it thinks that it’s got enough cash for 2008 and that it would take the required measures if needed.

However, it’s not just GM that took the hit, Toyota’s sales also came down by over 21%, while Ford’s figures showed a drop of 28.1%. For the most part the mechanism seems to be the same, that is lower demand for gas-guzzlers owing to high fuel prices.

Meanwhile in Canada the trend has been replicated with the auto sales plummeting by 5.7 percent from last year to reach 159,500 vehicles in June. The drop is significantly higher than the 0.5 percent fall in May.

So How Long is it going to last?

Predictions were made earlier as well, wherein it was said that things could begin to look up for North America by 2009. However given the present trends, some experts feel that for the North American auto industry revenues could decline in 2008 and 2009. And that we could see increasing losses as the year-end approaches.

To learn more about challenges before the auto industry worldwide and for other insights, kindly visit my blog, Automobile Hotspot.



By: Freddic

About the Author:

Jane

Auto insurance is another name for security of your vehicle. As the name suggests auto insurance is all about insuring one’s vehicle against all kinds of threats for instance theft, accident and other related dangers. The basic types of auto insurance coverage are -



Bodily injury liability, which provides coverage for bodily injury claims from the people who might get injured in an accident with your vehicle.



Property damage liability covers any property damages to third parties such as another person’s car you damaged or are responsible for.



Medical expenses to the policy owner and other passengers in the policy owner’s car.



Uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage saves the negligent driver with or without insufficient insurance. In most states, this covers only bodily injury losses while in other cases property damage losses are also included. However it is quite important for everyone to get this coverage because it protects us from all expected as well as uninvited problems. For instance at some places an uninsured motorist caught driving with a suspended license in a car with a revoked registration goes to jail.



Physical damage stands for damage to your car that can be through accident or any other means such as collision, storm etc. In this the collision coverage pays for the physical damage caused to a person’s vehicle through collision.



However prior to purchasing an auto insurance policy there are quite a few things, which should be borne in mind. For instance- shop for the best policy available, always ask for high deductibles, check the insurance of the car or any other vehicle prior to purchasing it, coverage of the car varies with its worth, the profile of the company through which you will buy the insurance and last but not the least go with a low cost auto insurance for instance at places such as Santa Clara, San Marino Mateo and Alameda counties low cost auto insurance has arrived at premium rate of $322 and $355 respectively.

Whereas the auto insurance rates are concerned the American Farm Bureau suggests that the insurance rates for a driver should be based on the risk of that the driver should be based on the risk that the driver confronts for having an accident or loss and since rural drivers in the rural areas are less prone to risks, they should not be asked to pay more for their auto insurance.

In California there is a debate over the auto insurance policy rates. While on the one hand due to the rules offered by California Department of Insurance the rates of auto insurance are expected to touch the sky, on the other hand the California Farm Bureau strongly opposes it and claims that the new rates presses rural residents to shell out more money in order to subsidize the cost for urban residents.

However nowadays auto insurance companies are troubled with excess of crime or fraud in this area. Lately in North Carolina thirteen people were arrested accused of staging motorcycle wrecks to collect insurance money. Many such cases are reported in other parts of the world. As a result the government of different countries is looking for ways and means to combat the crime situation.



By: Mansi Gupta

About the Author:

Owen