In February, Honda said it would close its Swindon plant by 2021, with the loss of about 3,500 roles, while Jaguar Land Rover and Nissan are also cutting production and jobs. It comes as carmakers around the globe struggle with a range of challenges, while consumers are buying fewer cars.

1. 1
MAJOR CHALLENGES THE CAR INDUSTRY IS STRUGGLING
VARUN KESAVAN, RESEARCH SCHOLAR, E-MAIL ID – varunkesavan@yahoo.com
In February, Honda said it would close its Swindon plant by 2021, with the loss of about
3,500 roles, while Jaguar Land Rover and Nissan are also cutting production and jobs.
It comes as carmakers around the globe struggle with a range of challenges, while
consumers are buying fewer cars.
Falling demand
After years of strong growth, global car sales were broadly flat in 2018, largely because
of a slump in demand in the world's biggest market, China.
 Nissan chooses Japan over UK to build new X-Trail car
 Honda confirms Swindon car plant closure
"Trade tensions between Washington and Beijing have hit confidence in China
generally.
Jaguar Land Rover has blamed its poor performance recently on falling Chinese
demand, while Ford has pulled plans to sell a Chinese-made Ford Focus in the US
because of the impact of trade tariffs.
The Chinese slump comes as demand in two other giant car markets, Western Europe
and the US, has also slowed amid waning consumer confidence.

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Emissions woes
In Europe, emissions issues are also causing headaches for car firms.
Air quality concerns and taxation changes have led to a big drop-off in diesel sales,
contributing to a 7% fall in new car registrations in the UK in 2018.
More challenging, perhaps, is the introduction of tough new CO2 emission standards,
designed to tackle global warming, that make it much more expensive to build cars.
From 2021, manufacturers will face big fines in the EU if their fleets break agreed
emissions limits, and these targets will get progressively tougher.
It means consumers will be less inclined to buy, which only adds to the general
slowdown in consumer confidence.

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The electric challenge
To get their emissions levels down, carmakers are also going to need to sell a lot more
electric vehicles, but there are big obstacles in the way.
The other side of the problem is that the market isn't quite ready for electric cars.
Global sales of battery electric cars surged 73% in 2018 to 1.3 million units, but that was
still just a fraction of the 86 million cars sold overall.
 Brexit: Car investment halves as industry hits 'red alert'
 UK car output driven down by plunging demand in China
 Ford set to close Bridgend engine plant in 2020
According to an supply chain and logistics expert at the University of Salford Business
School, one issue is the lack of charging infrastructure on roads in Europe and the US,
although he says China is making great strides in this area.
Another is about the limited range of some mid to lower-market electric cars.

4. 4
A shift away from ownership
Other worries are weighing on carmakers' minds, too - one being the emergence of new
technologies that could radically change our relationship to car ownership.
Traditional car companies are having to fight to stay relevant as technology giants such
as ride-hailing firm Uber and Google's driverless car business Waymo dive into this
market.
However, the research and development (R&D) costs a lot and so many are teaming up
to spread the risk.
Recent examples include Ford and Volkswagen's agreement to "investigate" ways of
working on electric and autonomous vehicles together, while Honda invested
$2.75bn (£2.1bn) in rival General Motors' driverless unit with a view to launching a fleet
of unmanned taxis.

5. 5
Brexit
In the UK, car firms have been warning repeatedly of the dangers of a no-deal Brexit
since the EU referendum in 2016.
And investment in the UK car industry has fallen in the last two years, slumping 46.5%
in 2017 alone.
The problem, analysts say, is that British car plants rely heavily on components
imported from the EU, while most of the finished cars they produce are exported to the
European mainland.