Holden to stop making cars by 2017

[Finance_Analyst]

the houses that the foreigners are buying and than rent back.

I think you will find the actual proportion of these foreigners are quite small in absolute numbers, given that they cannot buy a landed property, only new ones (which is a good thing to prop up new housing approvals).

People who complain about foreign investment should remember that without money from China, this whole economy was done for years ago. Plus the fact the there is not enough local capital to swallow investment here locally.

[Sharkie]

Sir, Holden's death is almost entirely to be blamed on the staff.



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Nowhere in the world is this acceptable. Unfortunately for many great Australian companies we do not have the same forgiving financial system as seen in the USA which has allowed many giant corporations nullify their outdated and impossible to service staff agreements.

Exactly, this and nothing else (not even any government past or present) is the sole reason Holden is stopping production in Australia.

Common sense says, if you price yourself out of the market, do not be surprised if the market passes you by. Trouble is common sense is not very common these days.

[Tom87]

Exactly, this and nothing else (not even any government past or present) is the sole reason Holden is stopping production in Australia.

Common sense says, if you price yourself out of the market, do not be surprised if the market passes you by. Trouble is common sense is not very common these days.

Actually I kind of disagree.

I think this could have been prevented.

If action had been taken 10 yrs ago when the check engine lights were flashing it is possible Ford and Holden would be looking at a healthier future. The issue of course is back then the every day plebs or indeed the population would have taken sides with the employees and unions in wondering why on earth it was required. If anyone can't remember, 10 yrs ago was 2003. it was pre GFC, and money was flying around everywhere. Things were looking pretty peachy.

[Transporter]

I think you will find the actual proportion of these foreigners are quite small in absolute numbers, given that they cannot buy a landed property, only new ones (which is a good thing to prop up new housing approvals).

People who complain about foreign investment should remember that without money from China, this whole economy was done for years ago. Plus the fact the there is not enough local capital to swallow investment here locally.

Is that right?
Just look at the German economy, they don't have the amount of minerals we have, their farming land is non existent compared to ours, they have 4x more people to feed and yet they are second to China when you compare their production on their homeland.
Maybe our economists should learn something from them.
Smart people don't sell their own factories and utilities to foreigners, that's the bottom line.

Sent from my GT-I9505

[Sunny43.5]

I think part of the problem is that for years Holden and Ford have fed a frenzy of rev heads with their constant V8 battles on the road and on the track , meanwhile the rest of the world has moved on from gas guzzling oversized dinosaurs . So they can only blame themselves for fuelling the V8 and big car crowd with their tired old line that Aussies like big cars , the autobahns in Europe are crowded with small to medium size cars running diesel turbo engines and they run all day at high speeds on the smell of an oily rag . The US on the other hand is littered with big cars as their fuel is cheap as so are their cars . I think there are many other reasons we all will trot out for this demise of the local car industry , but one story told to me by a motoring insider twenty plus years ago was that we pay twice as much for our cars to keep 20.000 workers in a job .

[hoi polloi]

Sad day indeed...

Can't help thinking Toyota will follow soon enough... As others have said we just aren't buying large cars as we used to - I owned a Commodore in the early 90's (primitive but reliable enough once the bugs were sorted) then went to a Corolla (liked to destroy alternators and blow tail lights), then an Astra (nice car but 60,000km cam belt changes were a drain) before my Golf... Most of the time it's just me in the Golf so can't justify a Commodore - if I was in the market for that size car though... As for the Cruze - we have a few at work and a couple have had to have their automatic transmissions replaced under warranty... Funnily enough these are Korean made ones before production came to Australia (not that it makes much of a difference)... My work is in Zetland (next to Suttons City Holden) and the number of Cruzes that I see get towed in is a bit alarming...

As for the subsidies the car industry gets - many industries get subsidies in one form or another... Whether it's housing/real estate (negative gearing), private health insurance (premium rebate), private education (Govt subsidies) or primary producers (diesel fuel rebate)... It seems there are just some sacred cows that can't be touched is all...

Regards,
Anthony.

[wai]

The likes of Ford, GM and Toyota do not manufacture the cars we are now buying. The problem is that the local operations cannot simply change this as the cars we want have been allocated to other facilities around the globe.

So their demise in Australia was completely in their hands. If GM wanted to keep the local facility operating, they could have easily allocated a tiny fraction of global manufacturing for the cars we want to Australia. They chose not to. They would rather close the local operation. Their decision completely.

[ian]

GMH has treated Australia like a milking cow , Gillard announced she had done a deal with holden to stay till 2022 at considerable costs to the tax payer , There is a $500 carbon cost on every car made in Australia but none on imported vehicles . , Car manufacturing in Australia pay on average over $70,000 per assemble line worker twice as much as the USA worker gets , through the greed of the unions and the dysfunctional Labor party . It has now forced the hand of GMH, they are not just closing up shop in Australia ,as they are now building 4 large factories in china where the hourly rate is about $7 per hour, We will only have Toyota left by 2017 and they just might be next .

[ParaBul]

I think it's a shame, because I think Holden have turned the Commodore into quite a nice car. Unfortunately, like a vast majority of Australians, it's simply not a car that I want to buy.

I believe there are two co-conspirators who need to share the blame for Holden's demise.

Primarily, I believe it is the unions who have made Australian manufacturing too expensive to be competitive - their members were doing very well while it lasted, but how well will they do when it's all over? Outstanding Performance in the Lack of Vision category...

GM is the other major culprit. Their US-centric management doesn't understand what the non-US world wants. The Australian market isn't large enough to support a large rear drive family car, but BMW and Mercedes seem to do OK globally - why can't GM? Because they expect the rest of the world to buy what America buys from them, and haven't yet figured out that even Americans are turning away from Detroit and embracing foreign cars. I believe Holden have developed a platform (Commodore) that could be globally competitive - if GM had the vision - but because they don't expect it to sell well in the US, they don't expect it to sell well anywhere else. To be fair, the cost of manufacturing here doesn't help (see above), but it's still a performance worthy of Honourable Mention in the Lack of Vision category.

While I'm whingeing, what have they done with the Cruze? The Mazda 3 / Toyota Corolla category is what Australians want, but Holden couldn't make the Cruze compete - not even with a "Buy Australian" advantage. When I bought my Golf, I didn't particularly want a Golf - I wanted a Golf sized diesel (that wasn't a Ford...)

My list came down to Golf, Mazda 3, Hyundai i30, and Cruze:

• i30 was competent, but completely uninspiring, and sold (by the sales staff) as cheap. They couldn't understand why I was asking about options that would increase the price, much less tell me about them - but I digress.
• The Mazda 3 was in runout, and there were only two left in the country - not in Adelaide, and I would have to sign for one without a test drive.
• Holden said they couldn't supply a diesel Cruze for 6 months - not even to drive. They couldn't get engines.
• Volkswagen had more choice, a range of vehicles to test drive, and offered me a cancelled order at a discount that I couldn't go past.

One of the few times an Australian-built car was on my list, and they crossed themselves off.

I'm disappointed that Holden is going, but I think it was inevitable.