Holden to stop making cars by 2017

[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.