Global production of automobiles faced a huge loss in recent years of more than 10 million units in 2021. The situation improved a bit in 2022 to almost 3.5 million units. But if you think that the year 2023 and the coming 2024 will witness a boost in automobile production, you’re wrong! Though achieving gradual and sizable improvements, recent global market analysis and announcements from big automakers hint that the semiconductor supply chain issues are yet to be fully resolved, possibly hampering the production output in 2023 and 2024 too.

The Forecast

According to the market analysis forecast, automobile production this year is likely to grow by 4.9%, which is still far below previous market levels. Especially, in comparison to the year 2017, when global light vehicle production reached a peak with more than 95.6 million units. While there’s no denying that the global automobile industry is recovering gradually and steadily, returning to its full potential and meeting that benchmark won’t be possible before 2028. According to experts, the vehicle production market will slowly head toward the glass ceiling of 100 million units, which is likely to be broken in 2033.

The Asia-Pacific Market

The Asia-Pacific market dominates a large part of the global vehicle production market. In 2023, the Asia-Pacific market is expected to produce 55.8% of the world’s vehicle output. Now, to meet this goal, all eyes are currently on China. As China usually makes up the largest share of vehicle production by far, a strong recovery in the market of China is necessary to propel the entire Asia-Pacific region forward. Presently, other important vehicle-producing countries in this area like Japan, South Korea, and India are also struggling to grow. But according to market experts, if China can get back to record levels showing steady growth over the next few years, this automobile production region can make a deserving transition from a domestic supply market to an international export hub.

James Bond had the coolest gadgets and we could not stop talking about them. They would get him out of the craziest situation with such suave and you could not help but ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ over it. But the coolest one among them was Vanquish, the Aston Martin that the 007 agent drove in Die Another Day. However, we all knew that it was all fiction, back then. But what if we told you that the vanishing car exists in real life too?

Not So Realistic

Daniel Craig took his final bow with No Time To Die as the James Bond. And people will always remember his films as more realistic. However, realism was not the best way to describe the 2002 film Die Another Day. Even Chris Corbould, the veteran special effects supervisor for about 15 Bond movies said that they took it too far with the inept CGI of the famous (more like infamous) invisible car. In an interview, Corbould said that he wasn’t very keen on it either but went along with creating the CGI for the Aston Martin anyway.

The Irony

As crazy as the idea of a vanishing car may be, the technology of invisibility was based on reality. It was inspired by some work done by the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA). DERA may be defunct now but it was part of the UK’s Ministry of Defence. Scriptwriters Neil Purvis and Robert Wade had made this discovery as they were researching for this film.

When Reel Become Real

Corbould has always found it amusing to see how reality eventually replicates the gadgets used in the James Bond films. BAE Systems is one of the largest defense and aerospace contractors in the world. They are working on this very invisibility technology. Alongside the Swedish Defence Materiel Administration, they aim to create a system known as Adaptiv, which will be used on tank fleets.