Stuttgart, Germany  - It is a common scene wherever today's pioneering electric vehicles whirr through inner city streets - startled pedestrians leap aside and cyclists start to wobble.

For electric cars are not only clean, but virtually silent too and there's the rub. The noise of a conventional car engine warns people that a vehicle is approaching. Pure electric cars and diesel electrics are powered by electric motor at low speeds or in traffic, making it harder to hear them coming.

Silent running makes for a calmer panorama in the city but critics see pedestrian safety at risk. Several manufacturers have come up with innovative, technical solutions to the problem.

Budapest - So far 201 Suzuki workers have opted to take voluntary redundancy, the Hungarian wing of the Japanese carmaker announced on Tuesday.

Suzuki last week offered two months' full pay and this year's annual bonus in full to any workers at its plant in northern Hungary who opted to take voluntarily redundancy by December 18.

The car maker announced on December 8 that 1,200 jobs, or over a fifth of the workforce, would be axed in the face of a drastic drop in orders.

Owing to a dip in the passenger car sales, Toyota Kirloskar Motor Ltd (TKM), a joint venture between the Japanese auto giant Toyota and the Kirloskar Group, has decided to cut production by 30% during the current month.

Mr. Hiroshi Nakagawa, Managing Director, TKM stated, "This month, we are cutting production by 25-30 per cent. We will review the market scenario during the month. Accordingly we will decide for the next months."

Berlin - European car sales plunged 25.8 per cent in November, data released Tuesday showed as global economic downturn continues to deepen.

Tokyo  - Japan's largest automaker, Toyota Motor Corp, is implementing a series of cost-cutting measures to weather the global financial crisis and its resulting fall in car sales.

Toyota has put a project to develop a diesel motor with Isuzu Motors Ltd on ice, Japanese media reported Tuesday, citing informed sources.

The engine was to be used in small cars for the European market.

Paris - As French President Nicolas Sarkozy prepared to meet with representatives from the country's auto industry later on Monday, the head of Renault, Carlos Ghosn, said emergency government loans were necessary for the sector to survive the economic crisis.

"What we are demanding from the state is some reasonable financing, over 2 to 3 years, at interest rates between 4 and 5 per cent," Ghosn said in an interview published Monday in the daily Le Figaro.

The car industry is very "credit-intensive," Ghosn said, with two of every three cars purchased on credit. "If the finance crisis continues, you will see one producer after the other fail," he warned.