Abstract
The car industry has witnessed major changes over the years, thanks to the growing number of external forces that changed the decades-old practices of manufacturing. This paper analyses the important forces in the last two decades that have had a major impact on the car manufacturing practices. The paper provides statistics on the production figures of cars in various countries and analyses the external forces such as Euro Emission Standards, outsourcing, introduction of alternate fuels and the advent of computers in the automobile industry. Among the various external factors, environmental issues such as air pollution, global warming and ozone layer depletion have become one of the major forces that have influenced the design and manufacturing of automobiles. Governments across the world have created regulations such as the Euro Standards and US Emission Standards that specify the maximum amount of gases such as nitrous oxide that is allowed in the exhaust gases of automobiles.
