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VOA慢速英语2013 在泰国汽车制造业的繁荣

时间:2013-11-23 11:22:59

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(单词翻译)

 

AS IT IS 2013-11-21 Car Manufacturing Booms in Thailand 在泰国汽车制造业的繁荣

Hello, and welcome back. 

I’m Jim Tedder1 in Washington. 

On today’s program…they get you to the store quickly and quietly, they take you into the countryside for a nice weekend. But they also cost a lot of money to buy and to keep in good shape. And the cost of fuel? Forget about it! 

Today’s show is all about cars, and we will travel to Thailand and to the West Coast of the United States to hear what is going on.

This is As It Is, a program designed to help you learn and improve your English. 

A Booming Car Industry in Thailand

The automobile3 industry in Thailand is booming. In other words, it’s doing very well! The industry is now the world’s third-largest maker4 of commercial vehicles. Only the United States and China are ahead of it. Many foreign automakers are producing vehicles in Rayong for Southeast Asia’s growing middle class.

Matt Bradley is regional president of Ford5. He praised Thailand as a highly successful example for manufacturing.

“Thailand, I think, has made a concerted effort from government policy in the last 15 years to plan to support the automotive industry. Ford has been in Thailand about 17 years and just since 2007 we’ve invested over a billion dollars in our manufacturing and product cycle plant footprint in Thailand.”

The automotive area is now Thailand’s third largest industry. It has 12 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product and employs 400,000 workers.

As evidence of the industry’s success, roads in Bangkok are overflowing6 with cars. Government tax benefits for first-time buyers have sped up sales. But can these vehicles compete with those made in Japan, Europe or the United States?

Honda executive vice7 president Pitak Pruittisarikorn said the Japanese automaker was making high-quality vehicles in Thailand at a competitive cost.

“For Honda, cost efficiency is one of our key strategies. So we have established the good relationship with the strong and the highest quality parts suppliers, global suppliers and local suppliers.”

Some automakers operating in Thailand import critical parts, including engines, from overseas. But GM Powertrain plant manager Jennifer Bigelow said the American automaker not only puts together its engines locally. But she says they also get their components8 -- their parts -- in Thailand.

“It is definitely cost-effective. We reduce shipping9 costs, we develop partners here that we can then work with, and develop that partnership10 to help improve our engine and our product.”

Manufacturers must also produce their vehicles to meet area demand. The widespread availability of reasonably priced diesel11 fuel promotes the design of parts like four-cylinder diesel engines.

The situation for Thailand’s strong auto2 production industry faces some challenges, however. That is true although it exports vehicles beyond Southeast Asia to Japan, the Middle East and North America.

Growth is limited by a shortage of labor12 in the country with nearly full employment. But that has led to opportunities for women, who make up nearly one-third of the workforce13 at some Thai auto plants.

And when extensive flooding in 2011 closed manufacturing plants and parts suppliers, Indonesia briefly14 overtook Thailand in production. That competition between the two countries is sure to continue for many years to come.

Fighting Traffic                                                                                                 

If you drive a car every day, you probably spend a lot of time stuck in traffic. We certainly do in the Washington, D.C. area.

Faith Lapidus joins us now to tell about a scientist and a student who are trying to do something about it...

In the United States, Los Angeles and San Francisco tie for second place for having the worst traffic problems. Washington, D.C., is in first place with the worst traffic, according to the Texas A&M Transportation Institute. 

In Los Angeles, drivers spend 61 hours every year stuck in traffic. These drivers know all too well how bad the traffic can be.

“It’s a prison of cars. There’s too many cars, you can’t move around a lot.”

“I get very frustrated15. I try to listen to some music, maybe snap my fingers or something to try to pass the time.”

Professor Cyrus Shahabi also knows about traffic jams. He lives more than 65 kilometers from his office at the University of Southern California, in Los Angeles. He is always late -- even with the help of a navigation system.

He and PhD student Ugur Demiryurek decided16 to develop an app for that. The ClearPath app claims to do what other navigation systems cannot. Professor Shahabi says his program uses historical data to predict traffic conditions even before the driver leaves the house. 

“What’s unique is that we utilize17 a lot of data that’s currently become available including traffic data, weather data, and we analyze18 that so that we can predict what’s going to happen in front of you when you leave home.”

ClearPath uses two and a half year’s worth of traffic data from 9,000 sensors19 on the roads of Los Angeles. It also collects information on accidents.

“Now you are driving and there’s an accident in front of you, but the accident is 20 minutes away. And you know from historical data that that accident would clear by the time you get there. We can take that into account and send you towards the accident because we think by the time you get there, there wouldn’t be any accident.”

Professor Shahabi says his system does more than just respond to current traffic conditions. With ClearPath, he says, a driver can enter what time he wants to leave on a specific time and date, and ClearPath will give the fastest route. It looks at the entire road network, including surface streets as well as highways, before the driver hits the road. 

Ugur Demiryurek says, in a year, he and Professor Shahabi hope to have ClearPath available nationwide and overseas once they can collect traffic data from other cities.

“I thought always that L.A. had the worst traffic, but now I know that Shanghai, Beijing, Seoul, Tokyo, believe it or not, Singapore, Hong Kong definitely are examples that can immediately utilize this.”

Professor Shahabi hopes to license20 this new technology to companies that already have navigation systems, such as Google and Apple.

I’m Faith Lapidus.

Thank you, Faith. Let’s hope his work is successful! 

Before we drive on down the road, here is a bit of automobile history for you…

George B. Who?                                                                                        

  Have you ever heard of a man named George B. Selden? Well, 118 years ago this month, this New York lawyer received the legal right -- a patent -- to make automobiles21. During his lifetime, he never made a single one. But he tried to make a lot of money by selling his legal right to others. Sounds like a good idea, doesn’t it?

Well, hold on...

Into the story comes a gentleman by the name of Henry Ford, who went to court to challenge the patent. And in January of 1911, Mr. Ford won the case. The judge said Selden had used incorrect information when he asked for the original legal right to own the automobile manufacturing process. Disappointed, and a lot poorer, George Selden went into the truck business, and made them until he sold the company in 1930.

I’m Jim Tedder in Washington, and it is time for me to move aside and let some other Learning English programs pass. And not too far down the road is world news, coming at you full speed, on VOA.


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点击收听单词发音收听单词发音  

1 tedder 2833afc4f8252d8dc9f8cd73b24db55d     
n.(干草)翻晒者,翻晒机
参考例句:
  • Jim Tedder has more. 吉姆?特德将给我们做更多的介绍。 来自互联网
  • Jim Tedder tells us more. 吉姆?泰德给我们带来更详细的报道。 来自互联网
2 auto ZOnyW     
n.(=automobile)(口语)汽车
参考例句:
  • Don't park your auto here.别把你的汽车停在这儿。
  • The auto industry has brought many people to Detroit.汽车工业把许多人吸引到了底特律。
3 automobile rP1yv     
n.汽车,机动车
参考例句:
  • He is repairing the brake lever of an automobile.他正在修理汽车的刹车杆。
  • The automobile slowed down to go around the curves in the road.汽车在路上转弯时放慢了速度。
4 maker DALxN     
n.制造者,制造商
参考例句:
  • He is a trouble maker,You must be distant with him.他是个捣蛋鬼,你不要跟他在一起。
  • A cabinet maker must be a master craftsman.家具木工必须是技艺高超的手艺人。
5 Ford KiIxx     
n.浅滩,水浅可涉处;v.涉水,涉过
参考例句:
  • They were guarding the bridge,so we forded the river.他们驻守在那座桥上,所以我们只能涉水过河。
  • If you decide to ford a stream,be extremely careful.如果已决定要涉过小溪,必须极度小心。
6 overflowing df84dc195bce4a8f55eb873daf61b924     
n. 溢出物,溢流 adj. 充沛的,充满的 动词overflow的现在分词形式
参考例句:
  • The stands were overflowing with farm and sideline products. 集市上农副产品非常丰富。
  • The milk is overflowing. 牛奶溢出来了。
7 vice NU0zQ     
n.坏事;恶习;[pl.]台钳,老虎钳;adj.副的
参考例句:
  • He guarded himself against vice.他避免染上坏习惯。
  • They are sunk in the depth of vice.他们堕入了罪恶的深渊。
8 components 4725dcf446a342f1473a8228e42dfa48     
(机器、设备等的)构成要素,零件,成分; 成分( component的名词复数 ); [物理化学]组分; [数学]分量; (混合物的)组成部分
参考例句:
  • the components of a machine 机器部件
  • Our chemistry teacher often reduces a compound to its components in lab. 在实验室中化学老师常把化合物分解为各种成分。
9 shipping WESyg     
n.船运(发货,运输,乘船)
参考例句:
  • We struck a bargain with an American shipping firm.我们和一家美国船运公司谈成了一笔生意。
  • There's a shipping charge of £5 added to the price.价格之外另加五英镑运输费。
10 partnership NmfzPy     
n.合作关系,伙伴关系
参考例句:
  • The company has gone into partnership with Swiss Bank Corporation.这家公司已经和瑞士银行公司建立合作关系。
  • Martin has taken him into general partnership in his company.马丁已让他成为公司的普通合伙人。
11 diesel ql6zo     
n.柴油发动机,内燃机
参考例句:
  • We experimented with diesel engines to drive the pumps.我们试着用柴油机来带动水泵。
  • My tractor operates on diesel oil.我的那台拖拉机用柴油开动。
12 labor P9Tzs     
n.劳动,努力,工作,劳工;分娩;vi.劳动,努力,苦干;vt.详细分析;麻烦
参考例句:
  • We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
  • He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后,他已经疲惫不堪了。
13 workforce workforce     
n.劳动大军,劳动力
参考例句:
  • A large part of the workforce is employed in agriculture.劳动人口中一大部分受雇于农业。
  • A quarter of the local workforce is unemployed.本地劳动力中有四分之一失业。
14 briefly 9Styo     
adv.简单地,简短地
参考例句:
  • I want to touch briefly on another aspect of the problem.我想简单地谈一下这个问题的另一方面。
  • He was kidnapped and briefly detained by a terrorist group.他被一个恐怖组织绑架并短暂拘禁。
15 frustrated ksWz5t     
adj.挫败的,失意的,泄气的v.使不成功( frustrate的过去式和过去分词 );挫败;使受挫折;令人沮丧
参考例句:
  • It's very easy to get frustrated in this job. 这个工作很容易令人懊恼。
  • The bad weather frustrated all our hopes of going out. 恶劣的天气破坏了我们出行的愿望。 来自《简明英汉词典》
16 decided lvqzZd     
adj.决定了的,坚决的;明显的,明确的
参考例句:
  • This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
  • There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。
17 utilize OiPwz     
vt.使用,利用
参考例句:
  • The cook will utilize the leftover ham bone to make soup.厨师要用吃剩的猪腿骨做汤。
  • You must utilize all available resources.你必须利用一切可以得到的资源。
18 analyze RwUzm     
vt.分析,解析 (=analyse)
参考例句:
  • We should analyze the cause and effect of this event.我们应该分析这场事变的因果。
  • The teacher tried to analyze the cause of our failure.老师设法分析我们失败的原因。
19 sensors 029aee483db9ae244d7a5cb353e74602     
n.传感器,灵敏元件( sensor的名词复数 )
参考例句:
  • There were more than 2000 sensors here. 这里装有两千多个灵敏元件。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • Significant changes have been noted where sensors were exposed to trichloride. 当传感器暴露在三氯化物中时,有很大变化。 来自辞典例句
20 license B9TzU     
n.执照,许可证,特许;v.许可,特许
参考例句:
  • The foreign guest has a license on the person.这个外国客人随身携带执照。
  • The driver was arrested for having false license plates on his car.司机由于使用假车牌而被捕。
21 automobiles 760a1b7b6ea4a07c12e5f64cc766962b     
n.汽车( automobile的名词复数 )
参考例句:
  • When automobiles become popular,the use of the horse and buggy passed away. 汽车普及后,就不再使用马和马车了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • Automobiles speed in an endless stream along the boulevard. 宽阔的林荫道上,汽车川流不息。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

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