General Motors says it will lay off nearly 50,000 employees this year and that it plans to close five assembly plants, eliminate thousands of dealerships and reduce the number of its brands from eight to four - all in an effort to stay afloat.
VOA: standard.2009.03.30
Various designs of electric cars are already rolling offassembly lines and are expected to become widely available in 2012.
They have been rolling offassembly lines in unprecedented numbers since the country's accession to the WTO pushed down prices of imports and so helped to stimulate the market as a whole.