Even though it’s Canada Day today, my fair nation has never managed to build its own local auto industry with any sort of distinct brand.
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Tag: Australia
The next Holden Commodore will come from GM’s European product portfolio, but it won’t carry the Commodore name either.
Come 2017, Holden will cease producing cars in Australia, ending a decades long lineage of big, rear-drive, V8 powered sedans. But their high-performance HSV division is expected to survive the transition, albeit in a very different form.
While our own Ronnie Schreiber may have taken Zero Hedge to task for its inaccurate story on unsold cars, Australia is facing a situation where rising inventories have created a buyers market, just as local production of automobiles is winding down.
Holden may be losing the Commodore, but the brand will gain three new “premium” offerings, suggesting a possible direction for its famed HSV performance shop.
In the span of 24 hours, Australia inked two free trade agreements with both Japan and South Korea. Even though Holden, Ford and Toyota had already committed to ending auto manufacturing in Australia, it’s hard not to see the agreements as the last nail in the coffin of Australia’s once strong auto industry.
Sometime in the future, Cadillac global marketing boss Uwe Ellinghaus believes Cadillac could enter the Australian market, being able to “easily flourish” under the proper conditions established on top of the goodwill the brand already has in the country.
In a study conducted by Roy Morgan Research, one in eight Australian consumers prefer locally made vehicles for their next new-car purchase today, down from one in four a decade earlier.
As Chevrolet slowly exits from the European market while Holden exits the production line altogether, General Motors is mulling over increasing exports to Australia out of South Korea.
Though the local auto industry in Australia is slowly drawing to a close, a few Opels will soon be found in Holden showrooms, beginning with the Cascada convertible.
As far as automotive marketing goes, a truck story is always going to appeal to your emotions. More so than any passenger car, truck buyers ask more from their pickups, put them through more strenuous tasks and treat them in a very different way.
It’s fitting, then, that Australia’s Ute has a similarly heart warming story, one that we can all connect with – even if the Ute was never sold here. (Read More…)
Sources close to Toyota say the engine plant in Altona, Australia will likely be relocated to Siam Toyota Manufacturing in Thailand once the automaker ceases Australian manufacturing operations in 2017.
In light of Toyota Australia’s decision to cease all manufacturing operations in Australia by 2017, the Federation of Automotive Products Manufacturers is warning that as many as 33,000 jobs in the supply chain are at risk of following the automakers out of the country.
Toyota announced Monday that as of 2017, the automaker will no longer manufacture any of their vehicles in Australia, driving in the final nail to the coffin containing the nation’s local automotive industry following similar announcements by Holden and Ford.
Reuters is reporting from “a source with direct knowledge of the matter” that General Motors plans to reduce shifts at its South Korean factories by half as it aligns its global manufacturing. The move could eliminate 1,100 jobs. GM had announced last month that it was discontinuing the Chevrolet brand in Europe by the end of next year and GM Korea produces many of the Chevy branded cars sold on the continent.
According to the report, GM Korea has already approached the union representing its production workers about reducing the current two shifts at the Gunsan factory to a single shift. That plant employs 2,200 manufacturing employees. It’s not clear if the surplus employees will be laid off, offered voluntary retirement or relocated to other facilities. (Read More…)
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