Carsguide article - Holden crisis talks - Exclusive interview

[blackSRi]

http://carsguide.news.com.au/news/story_page/0,8269,16522650%255E21822,00.html

Holden crisis talks - Exclusive interview
Paul Gover
09sep05

Times are tough at the red lion. Holden has seen Commodore sales slump this year, it has taken an all-round beating from Toyota in showrooms and has been forced to call an early finish to the Monaro.

[blackSRi]

Shame Holden don't make Barinas (Corsas) or Astras in Oz - I wonder if the Adelaide plant could do it or it would be cost effective - there's one way to satisfy small car demand locally (I mean why source from Europe or nowhere?).
I can understand why Daewoos are coming in (pure cost and market segment capture), but could there not be an option to produce "Opels" in Oz (I mean it was done for the Vectra)? At least why couldn't we get Opels from South Africa (like Ford and Toyota do already)???

[Red AH SRI T]

This story is the biggest beat up of whipped **** i have ever seen.

Sure, they have cut jobs, and Commodore sales have slowed, but in terms of market share overall they have increased.

Its hardly a ****ing crisis

[01CDsedan]

Shame Holden don't make Barinas (Corsas) or Astras in Oz - I wonder if the Adelaide plant could do it or it would be cost effective - there's one way to satisfy small car demand locally (I mean why source from Europe or nowhere?).
I can understand why Daewoos are coming in (pure cost and market segment capture), but could there not be an option to produce "Opels" in Oz (I mean it was done for the Vectra)? At least why couldn't we get Opels from South Africa (like Ford and Toyota do already)???

There's no point in building Astras or Barinas locally - the cost of them would have to go up, and it would take up capacity at Elizabeth that would be better used building Commodore variants for local sale and export.

In short, it's a case of stick to what you're good at. Opel builds hundreds of thousands of small cars a year, so importing ours from them takes advantage of those economies of scale.

The one thing that they could consider, though, is getting them from a lower cost GM plant elsewhere, in the same way that the Zafira comes from Thailand. GM Brazil would be one option, and I remember reading a few years ago that they were building the Astra F in India - if they were building the H there (and maybe they are now), it could be viable.

[BassyAstra]

The car guide said today that holden were still the number 3 car company.
Thats bloody good. "Crisis" my arse.

[astralavista]

Lota****e about nothin I expect....but we are seeing a strategic shift in Holden here. HSV Astra's....shock horror.....but that is what the market (us ) want.

I know Toycars is number one, I thought Holden was number 2, The fouled on race day's number 3....
Astra was 4th overall top seller and second in its class....Pipped (a lot) by ToycarRolla... These adjustments are swings and merigorounds and Holden have seen that small is better for a lot of reasons.

I'd actually say Holden have their eye on the pulse better than most right now and these changes make a lot of business sense even if us enthusiasts are wondering. In 2 years or so we will have a hell of a lot more options, if not too many ...at which time they will pare it back to the winners. Holden will have its AWD range sorted its large car sorted and its small and cheapie cars sorted.

The shame is they are so slow to catch on to the small car thing and the small car go fast thing.

[180HOA]

[QUOTE=01CDsedan]In short, it's a case of stick to what you're good at.QUOTE]

But sticking to what we're 'good' at is what's got the Australian car industry in its current state. I'd be inclined to call it 'clinging to a sinking ship'. The large car market has been shrinking for a long time - but we ignored the signs. With the effect of rising fuel costs, changing fashions and changing needs, the big Aussie sedan is, to many eyes, boring, inefficient and unnecessary. If we built small cars in siginificant volumes (which we've never really done) we might be able to be competetive. This is where I believe the government should step in - to assist the transition through tax breaks/etc.

How bout the Torana showcar? If they managed to get the weight of that thing down to around 1300-1400 kg and borrow a good Turbo Diesel from Opel, they'd have a good thing on their hands. Good looking, not too small, efficient, powerful, lazy engine characterisitics (that Aussie car buyers love), plus the effects of Aussie/Holden street cred and nostalgia. It would be a combination that nothing else out there offers.

[NUTTTR]

[QUOTE=01CDsedan]In short, it's a case of stick to what you're good at.QUOTE]

But sticking to what we're 'good' at is what's got the Australian car industry in its current state. I'd be inclined to call it 'clinging to a sinking ship'. The large car market has been shrinking for a long time - but we ignored the signs. With the effect of rising fuel costs, changing fashions and changing needs, the big Aussie sedan is, to many eyes, boring, inefficient and unnecessary. If we built small cars in siginificant volumes (which we've never really done) we might be able to be competetive. This is where I believe the government should step in - to assist the transition through tax breaks/etc.

How bout the Torana showcar? If they managed to get the weight of that thing down to around 1300-1400 kg and borrow a good Turbo Diesel from Opel, they'd have a good thing on their hands. Good looking, not too small, efficient, powerful, lazy engine characterisitics (that Aussie car buyers love), plus the effects of Aussie/Holden street cred and nostalgia. It would be a combination that nothing else out there offers.


110% mate... You always come up with good stuff and this is another time...
It's so true that the aussie car market is a sh*t hole, second hand cars are so damn cheap it's not funny, there's only so many cars people can wreck or get rid of each year... problem is australia's growth really, well, isn't... So there's still 21mill people here or whatever it is, petrol price going up, house prices going up (that's been coming for years and years and years) and if local car places go down, it's because they were too stupid not to read the signs... People don't mind having 2 small cars now, they don't want 1 big family car, besides, the family car uses too much fuel so 2 smaller ones is perfect...
Just the signs of change

[01CDsedan]

But sticking to what we're 'good' at is what's got the Australian car industry in its current state. I'd be inclined to call it 'clinging to a sinking ship'. The large car market has been shrinking for a long time - but we ignored the signs. With the effect of rising fuel costs, changing fashions and changing needs, the big Aussie sedan is, to many eyes, boring, inefficient and unnecessary. If we built small cars in siginificant volumes (which we've never really done) we might be able to be competetive. This is where I believe the government should step in - to assist the transition through tax breaks/etc.

If you cast your mind back to 1990, you could have bought an Australian-made Colt, Corolla, Pulsar or Laser. Ten years later, you couldn't buy any Australian made small cars. Why? As tarrifs came down, the cost of making them here became more than the cost of importing them. They weren't sold here in small numbers, they were basically the top sellers of their day. They were as significant as those volumes were ever going to get.

Because there wasn't a single unique-to-Australia product among them, by far the easiest thing to do was to simply import them from another plant somewhere else that was making them in far greater numbers than we were.

If big cars die out - and I don't believe that they will - then the Australian car industry goes with it. There isn't a single thing that we could build in the small category that someone else couldn't do better or cheaper. No car maker is going to run a plant building 20,000 small cars a year just for Australia when they could source those cars from their 500,000 a year production run in Japan or Europe.

One of the other upsides of our large car products is that we can export them, because they're not made in any/many other places. We couldn't say that for any small car, the world is full of them.


How bout the Torana showcar? If they managed to get the weight of that thing down to around 1300-1400 kg and borrow a good Turbo Diesel from Opel, they'd have a good thing on their hands. Good looking, not too small, efficient, powerful, lazy engine characterisitics (that Aussie car buyers love), plus the effects of Aussie/Holden street cred and nostalgia. It would be a combination that nothing else out there offers.

That would be a winner - on the other hand, Holden could just import more Vectras, or source a medium size car from Daewoo for less.

[180HOA]

What I meant by significant volumes were volumes similar to those of the Falcodore...

Today, there are more Corollas and Astras sold here than Camrys or Magnas, which suggests to me that small car volumes would be enough to sustain local production - but I agree that it's only worthwhile if it's a unique product - hence my comment about the Torana. Otherwise, we may as import it.

I sure as hell hope the Torana could outsell Camry, anyway. If it can't, there's something drastically wrong.

And I also agree that there'll always be a certain amount of demand for large cars - but the risk for the Australian industry is that the more volumes fall, the closer is the day that Holden's financial guru's will realise it's cheaper to import an Opel Omega or some American lump to satisfy this market than it is to maintain the enormous overheads of designing and manufacturing them here. We've seen this start already - nearly 50% of the parts in the VE are foreign sourced - how long till the whole car is? When this happens, we'll be in one of two places: We'll be building more efficient cars here, and still have some sort of motor vehicle industry; or Holden will effectively be an importer.

And while Holden could just import Vectras or Korean made mid-size cars instead of building the Torana, the Torana has that intangible Aussie/Holden street cred. While they're at it, make sure it's rear drive. Those things are their competetive advantage - the things that would make our small/medium car unique from the rest of the pack. I see no reason the Australian car industry should die, but it does need to pay attention, and I think it needs a break from the government to make the transition.