[blackwasp]

Holden, a subsidiary of General Motors and the last remaining car manufacturer in Australia, will be shutting down its Elizabeth car plant on October 20, 2017.

This will end the 69 years of car manufacturing for Holden in Australia. According to the company, 1,000 employees will be retained in the production, engineering and support departments. Since 2015, over 700 employees left Holden and the company claims that 80% of those have transitioned - either to other fields, are in training, retired or working as a volunteer within a year of their departure.

In October 2016, Ford shut down its plant citing lack of future demand. It ended the 91-year period of making cars in Australia. Established in 1925, the company has built over 43,00,000 vehicles in the country. The factory workers were paid up to AUD 2,50,000 (Rs. 1.27 crore) as compensation. The company will retain over 1,100 employees to design future models which will be built elsewhere.

Holden and Toyota were the last two surviving manufacturers till this month. Australia was the first country to have a Toyota factory apart from Japan which was shut down earlier this month. The company’s total production till 3rd October 2017 stands at 21,68,104 cars including 50,296 hybrid vehicles. Further, Toyota exported 12,45,914 cars from the Australian plant to their largest export market - the Middle East. Along with the cars, the company also made 25,35,963 engines for the domestic as well as export markets.

With very low (almost none) import duties on cars in Australia, many imported cars are either cheap, better equipped or both. Further, manufacturing in countries like Thailand is cheaper due lower labour rates. Cars made for exports are gradually decreasing with cheaper manufacturing facilities available around the globe. Many manufacturers will hence find it difficult to competitively price the made-in-Australia cars elsewhere.



Sources - Car Advice

Link to Team-BHP News

[SmartCat]

I guess Australians are happy digging up stuff from the ground, growing crops and herding cows/ sheep /goats for money.



Sales of automobiles is quite impressive (1 million units per year) actually.

[rohitoasis]

Autocar article lists down the damage the free trade agreement nearly killed the manufacturing Industry in Australia.

Of all the Free Trade Agreements that Australia has with other countries, none was more brutal than the deal with Thailand introduced in 2005. Since Australia agreed to lift the import tariff on cars from Thailand, more than two million Thai-made vehicles have been imported; from familiar brands such as Ford, Holden and Toyota, as well as Honda, Nissan, Mitsubishi, Mazda and others.

In return, Australia shipped to Thailand just 100 Ford Territory SUVs. That’s because Thailand maintained hidden, non-tariff barriers while Australia opened its borders completely. Ingeniously, Thailand continued to impose higher registration fees on cars with larger engines – such as those made by Ford and Holden.

The reason that outsourced car manufacturing was preferred:

(Australia) is surrounded by developing countries with much cheaper labour costs. The minimum wage in Thailand equates to less than $2 an hour (Australian dollars, so about £1.20). Car assembly line workers are paid more generously – about $6 an hour (£3.65), or close to $12,500 a year (£7660) – but it’s nowhere near the average Australian car manufacturing worker wage of $69,000 (£42,850).

What the world will miss with the demise of Australian car production:

A Holden Commodore with the V8 from a Corvette – or a Ford Falcon with a supercharged V8 or a blistering turbocharged in-line six-cylinder – could be had for the equivalent of £30,000. But those Aussie hero models could be created only because, once upon a time, fleets and families bought the regular saloons in the tens of thousands each year. It gave Holden and Ford the funds – and quite literally the platform – from which to build performance saloons with powerful engines, big brakes and sticky tyres.

The end of the era for car enthusiast with the absence of these sedans and Utes. Any video with these cars was a riot. Be it Autocar, Top Gear, Evo or Drivetribe.

Lets hear what Jethro had shared when he took them for a spin.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwS_xEHkwkg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MU93U2Z8b7I

[GTO]

Whoever came up with the decision to slash duties on imported cars should be the lead actor in Dumb & Dumber III.

The Australian car market is big enough for local manufacturers to sustain their business. But when you make imported cars so damn cheap, where is the incentive to build locally?

This is one of the major reasons that I fully support the exorbitant CBU duties in India. I firmly believe that if you want to SELL here, BUILD it here. The auto industry brings lots of investments & jobs to the homeland.

Here's an older, related discussion - link (Ford to shut plants in Australia. EDIT: Now, Toyota too).

[sandeepmdas]

Originally Posted by GTO

Whoever came up with the decision to slash duties on imported cars should be...

An example of how a single wrong decision by politicos just wiped out a mega-industry.

Originally Posted by GTO

The auto industry brings lots of investments & jobs to the homeland.

An industry of industries and therefor, the third stepping stone (from top) that makes a country to "developed" from "impoverished" or "developing" status. The first and second are being considered as Defence (weapon systems) and Aircraft.

Fact is, among BRICS, (other than SA which is slowly declining to a level of rest of African countries) India is the only country that lags behind in the capability of fully-qualified defence and aircraft design and manufacturing. Assembling Su-30MKIs, while great, is still just assembling. We are yet to make a mark as far civilian aircraft are concerned. This was emphasized by the great Dr.APJ just months before his demise.

[Jeroen]

A nice CNN article on Holden:

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/10/19/as...ars/index.html

[extreme_torque]

I will miss the Commodore. The supercharged V8's are as fast or faster than any from Europe without wanting expensive fuel, are comfortable and full of character unlike the clinical Germans. It also helps that bhp vs bhp they are less than half the price of any competing German fast saloon. Yes the Germans have more toys and technology but part of the appeal of the Commodore lies in the fact that its not complex for complexity's sake.

They are simple, robust cars that can deal with a lot of punishment that Australian's normally put them through. And that V8 noise once again. Its a sad sad day.

Was going through an article on Topgear on my way to work this morning. This pretty much summed it up for me
“As an Australian in London, seeing a plasterer with their gear in a diesel Vauxhall Combo is about as depressing as it gets, because, in Australia, the tradies (that’s tradespersons) have rear-drive, 5.7-litre V8 utes.”
https://www.topgear.com/car-news/why...-manufacturing

[CrAzY dRiVeR]

Originally Posted by GTO

The Australian car market is big enough for local manufacturers to sustain their business. But when you make imported cars so damn cheap, where is the incentive to build locally?

This is one of the major reasons that I fully support the exorbitant CBU duties in India. I firmly believe that if you want to SELL here, BUILD it here. The auto industry brings lots of investments & jobs to the homeland.

Small difference in the numbers game though. Australia, having a significantly less population and higher percentage of ownership - has far less numbers and much lesser scope for future growth as compared to India.

For example - Toyota being the market leader sold their maximum number of vehicles last June, which was about 25k vehicles with their big portfolio of products - which is less than the single highest selling model in the Indian market (DZire).

Holden shutting shop would also be due to the fact that their exports were less. The brand which was very popular in Australia had very less brand recognition abroad. Labour was not cheap in Australia and the brand was perceived sub-par in the developed countries.

Anyways - The journos seem to be getting emotional about their Holden cars today morning.

http://www.news.com.au/technology/in...a26f69ca1e1c1d

https://youtu.be/dzfvscSUvL8

https://youtu.be/5_XRRQzMN48

[extreme_torque]

Originally Posted by CrAzY dRiVeR

For example - Toyota being the market leader sold their maximum number of vehicles last June, which was about 25k vehicles with their big portfolio of products - which is less than the single highest selling model in the Indian market (DZire).

Yes but they do not sell a pesky hatch back converted to a sedan contraption. Their volumes are made up of the likes of Corolla, Hilux, Prado an LC200's etc. All high margin products relatively speaking.

Originally Posted by CrAzY dRiVeR

Holden shutting shop would also be due to the fact that their exports were less. The brand which was very popular in Australia had very less brand recognition abroad. Labour was not cheap in Australia and the brand was perceived sub-par in the developed countries.

There is no market for Australian built cars outside Australia. They are too big and thirsty but they need to be because tow caravans over hundreds of kms everytime the sun is out. Its not the case in most countries.

Originally Posted by CrAzY dRiVeR

Anyways - The journos seem to be getting emotional about their Holden cars today morning.

http://www.news.com.au/technology/in...a26f69ca1e1c1d

Fast Holdens and Ford's have a character all of their own but you will never know until you have driven one. They were working class superheros unlike fast Germans. The Chevvy SS Redline sold in the US was based on Australian Commodore and got rave reviews from the automobile press. I dont think any European fast saloon can survive the punishment that these cars get day in and out.

[nitinbose]

Originally Posted by GTO

Whoever came up with the decision to slash duties on imported cars should be the lead actor in Dumb & Dumber III.

Slash in import duties and Holden shutting down due to increase in labor are two different issues. Australia still requires vehicles, hence the duties were slashed or kept minimal. An increase in import duties would not mean decrease in the labor costs. This would mean the car prices would go up and the entire burden placed on the car buyers - A punishment imposed on the innocent.

Indeed yes, the sad part is that the employees lose their jobs due to the factories shutting down, but with cars still being affordable, the business goes on in other sectors, more or less undisturbed, hence a lesser impact in the overall economy.

It is the local system attitude to favor the "local industrialists" who simply sit and feed on the blood and sweat of the innocent citizens while they earn free money.

[anjan_c2007]

Australia has had a history with international car makers establishing their bases in the continent viz. Rootes Group, Chrysler, Renault, Volkswagen and British Leyland to name some of them. They all vanished due to one reason or the other.

Lately, Ford (1925-2016), Toyota (1958-2017) and now Holden (1931 - 2017) are the prominent ones to exit. GM lately made Holden and also badge engineered Chevrolet, Suzuki, Isuzu, Vauxhall cars along with a few other brands.

Australia is a developed nation, no doubt. Its GDP of 3.0 to 3.2 % p.a. depends on its many sectors that are established since ages. For instance, the mining sector contributes about 9 to 9.5 % to its GDP as it is endowed with a rich bounty of valuable mineral resources. Australia and Canada (10 to 10.5 % to GDP) are the two top nations in the world, where the mining sector contributes more than 9 % to the national GDP. The Indian mining sector contributes only 2.4 % to its GDP of about 6 %. India imports a major chunk of its coking coal requirements from Australia. "When the Australian coking coal sector sneezes, our steel industry catches a cold" as is said.

Back to the car industry, the Australian car industry has been progressively throttled and it was a battle for survival since the turn of the last century. Imports have been dominating a major chunk of the car sales since 2000 onwards. The import duties afford easy accessibility for foreign car makers to export their products here.

The government is to blame for such a fiasco. I was talking about mining and export of raw material to earn foreign exchange where Australia is doing well. This is a primitive way of earning by giving away the natural resources to other nations to facilitate them to generate jobs,industrialize, manufacture and sustain themselves. The local industry needs to be encouraged to industrialize, manufacture and generate jobs, rather than going for exports of natural resources, that are perpetually depleting.

India has since ages been always exporting raw minerals to the industrialized countries, where they generate their own jobs industrialize and manufacture. But lately, there has been a policy shift by our government towards industrialization and manufacturing, rather than exporting raw material. The older MoU's for export of minerals are being honoured, but we are treading with caution when it comes to signing new MoU's for mineral exports. We are now the # 3 steel producer in the world, after China and Japan. The US is at # 4 since Sept 2015.

The unemployment rates in Australia range between 4.1 to 6.0 % in its eight states that could have been lower if it had a flourishing car industry. Ironically, Victoria where Holden is based, has the nation's highest unemployment rate of 6.0 %.

Most of the indigenous brands and the car industry of the U.K. were systematically killed since the early 1980's for a totally different set of reasons. Now 2017 has seen another major car industry casualty viz. Australian car industry solely due to government apathy.

A sad saga that will have to be endured !

[Rahul Bhalgat]

Originally Posted by anjan_c2007

Most of the indigenous brands and the car industry of the U.K. were systematically killed since the early 1980's for a totally different set of reasons.

This shall be interesting to know about. Can you brief about what exactly happened and why and how?

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by anjan_c2007

Most of the indigenous brands and the car industry of the U.K. were systematically killed since the early 1980's for a totally different set of reasons.

Very interested in hearing more about this. My Observer's Book of Cars of 1974 edition features numerous British brands which by 1995 were history - Triumph, Sunbeam, Wosley, Morris and others.

Originally Posted by Rahul Bhalgat

This shall be interesting to know about. Can you brief about what exactly happened and why and how?

Ditto Rahul.

[invidious]

Originally Posted by Rahul Bhalgat

This shall be interesting to know about. Can you brief about what exactly happened and why and how?

Was taught this in a class. The French industry managed to survive because of doles and subsidies by the French Government. The Reagan-Thatcher model of economics did not permit such gifts to the British car industry. It was all about free market economics and no trade tariffs or barriers. British firms except for really small players like Morgan Car Company (which I believe still exists) - could not withstand the onslaught of LEAN manufacturing that firms like Toyota provided. Britain also had issues with unions in various industries. Why just cars, pretty much all manufacturing in Britain ceased. In the 90s as a last gasp, Rover even imported the horrible first generation Indicas from Tata and marketed them as City Rover. It was predictably a disaster. There was a documentary on Morgan - it is both hilarious and sad. They even cut their own trees for some parts. It was a combination of free market economics and British refusal to move with the times and adopt modern manufacturing techniques which ultimately lead to its demise. I don't think the British cars were any worse than the French cars of that era. Come to think of it, French cars even today are pretty crap. Had rented a Renault 5-6 years back in Spain - absolute rubbish. Iconic British brands like Mini were bought by BMW and other players. Ford and then Tata took over Jaguar. Britain had no one but itself to blame.

[sgiitk]

I do not think with the current requirements for emissions and safety it is feasible for a small carmaker to survive. We may not like it, but it is true. In this context I wonder what happened to the common engine plant in the EU.