Is Australia the first.

[aussie muscle]

Originally Posted by Tonz

What other governments are sponsering their local car industry to the tune ours were.

um, all of them protect their own industry and jobs, be they european, american or japanese.

Only australia was stupid enough to think we could get a fair FTA.

[nstg8a]

Originally Posted by BlueBear

What other federal Government in the world doesn't use locally made vehicles for their fleet?
Can you imagine the US using Mercedes or BMW for their politicians?
Or Germany using cars from some other country?
Shows the national pride stemming from the top down.
Would have been so easy to save, but it's not in the best SHORT TERM interest of any recent government.

Cheers,

Well the USA does use Australian made cars as cop cars...

[roddy1960]

Originally Posted by aussie muscle

um, all of them protect their own industry and jobs, be they european, american or japanese.

Only australia was stupid enough to think we could get a fair FTA.

G'day YEP, even allowing for wages and inflation rates etc , Thailand just under three times our population...We buy 13.4 billion dollars off them , they buy 4.3 billion dollars worth of our stuff..That was 2015 I think..The maths is
13,400,000,000 divided by 24,000,000 people that equates to about $560 for every man woman and child we buy from them .Thailand with about 69,000,000 spends 4.3 billion so equates to about $63 for every man woman and child in Thailand...about nine times per person difference..I know it's a lot more complicated than that but based on the Dept of Trade figures I saw last year I have my doubts that it is properly fair...Remember too that Thailand is now a major car supplier of ours...Hmmmm...I hope it's evened up a bit more lately....Cheers Rod...

[CyberWasp]

I have said it 100 times.
Lima Declaration. signed in the mid 70's. It took a bit longer to play out but it has.
We seem to be the only idiots that followed it out.

Australia is the smart country when it wants to be.
The CSIRO just cracked the Carbon-Fibre Code - Cheaper Stonger and Mass produced.
Article in Caradvice on Monday 21st Feb.
Just no car industry here to use it.

[Kieron]

Originally Posted by Bossxr8

The Crown Vic was lost cause it couldn't pass future crash tests. It was nothing to do with the gfc. And it was replaced with the taurus interceptor, which is unique to the US.

Both incorrect. It was dropped as part of Mark Fields "Way Forwards" plan which called for a consolidation of platforms, the basis of One Ford. This is documented in the book American Icon.

The Taurus Interceptor was a replacement for the CV Interceptor, both essentially option packs on the base model therefore, it is not a stand alone unique to US model.


On the original question, NZ had a car manufacturing industry which has long gone.

[SpoolMan]

Poms are going great guns on exporting the cars they manufacturer, 2016 news.
http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/topten/t...itish-exports/
https://www.smmt.co.uk/2016/01/best-...h-record-high/

[MAGPIE]

Originally Posted by Kieron

On the original question, NZ had a car manufacturing industry which has long gone.

Incorrect, NZ had a car assembly industry not a car manufacturing industry which is substantially different.

[Kieron]

Originally Posted by MAGPIE

Incorrect, NZ had a car assembly industry not a car manufacturing industry which is substantially different.

True, however the fact and point remains, NZ had an automotive industry which is now gone. Yes, it was largely CKD but it also used localally made componentry.

[CyberWasp]

There was a video posted on this forum a while ago showing the XA Falcons being assembled in NZ.

[MAGPIE]

Originally Posted by Kieron

True, however the fact and point remains, NZ had an automotive industry which is now gone. Yes, it was largely CKD but it also used localally made componentry.

The OP was about the loss of Australia's car manufacturing industry...

NZ was in no way comparable to Australia's, there was no design and manufacturing of cars from the ground up like with the Falcon, it was all PKD/CKD.

[Bossxr8]

Originally Posted by Kieron

Both incorrect. It was dropped as part of Mark Fields "Way Forwards" plan which called for a consolidation of platforms, the basis of One Ford. This is documented in the book American Icon.

The Taurus Interceptor was a replacement for the CV Interceptor, both essentially option packs on the base model therefore, it is not a stand alone unique to US model.


On the original question, NZ had a car manufacturing industry which has long gone.

The cv was body on frame. It could never be engineered to pass future crash tests. And the us taurus is unique to the us, its not sold anywhere else. I wasnt implying the interceptor was unique, the taurus it is based on is. You misinterpretted. The chinese taurus is on the mondeo platform, the us taurus is the old volvo/ford eucd? Platform first used on the xc90.

[TheInterceptor]

Originally Posted by mike_nofx

And here lies the problem. People decided they would rather drive white goods on wheels instead of Aussie made cars. Now the Falcon replacement option from Ford is the biggest white goods on wheels, the Mondeo.

Careful, every time I pipe in about this I get majorly shut down. People are in love with their soulless crap. Be it hatch back or dual cab full of gadgets and gizmos. This is the way it goes these days and the govornment doesn't want any industry anyway. They seem adamant in selling off all our assets to make a quick buck however that's another argument waiting to happen.

Despite govco pumping money into our now dead car industry, they wouldn't have had this problem if they scrapped the fair trade agreement. Now they have to permanently *** kiss everyone overseas.

[Vesper Martini]

This is an interesting list, data up to 2015, Australia ranks 33rd behind Uzbekistan for vehicle manufacture
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...cle_production.

On this list can anybody identify which countries only assemble - for instance does Canada only assemble?

I know Canada manufacture Bombardier - no cars, but ski-doo, sea-doo, CanAm atv's, Trains, LRT, aircraft, sno-cats, etc.

[ljf12]

I read recently that Australia was one of thirteen countries in the world that could build a car from the ground up, I would imagine that places like Thailand only have manufacturing plants.

[Kieron]

Originally Posted by MAGPIE

The OP was about the loss of Australia's car manufacturing industry...

NZ was in no way comparable to Australia's, there was no design and manufacturing of cars from the ground up like with the Falcon, it was all PKD/CKD.

Design is not part of manufacturing and we still have design centres here so that's irrelevant. As i mentioned, locally manufactured parts were sourced to complete those CKD's.

[xrystl]

Sweden had Saab and Volvo - Saab is now defunct , the Swedish Government poured big $$ into the manufacturer but they still never made a profit , along comes GM bastardizes the Saab and makes it a Opel/Vauxhall clone and the buyers stay away in droves and still no profit,
Volvo now Chinese owned .

[Bossxr8]

Originally Posted by Bevsta007

This is an interesting list, data up to 2015, Australia ranks 33rd behind Uzbekistan for vehicle manufacture
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...cle_production.

On this list can anybody identify which countries only assemble - for instance does Canada only assemble?

I know Canada manufacture Bombardier - no cars, but ski-doo, sea-doo, CanAm atv's, Trains, LRT, aircraft, sno-cats, etc.

The big 3 all have plants there.

[Stefan]

Unfortunately we have priced ourselves out of a manufacturing industry. High wages, high cost of living, high energy costs, high taxes, too much bureaucracy means it is simply not feasible for any manufacturing to occur in this country.

We came from Germany on the 80's my dad running his own business and the first thing he said is labour costs are simply too high in Australia to be sustainable.

It ain't going to get better, so it begs the question where will we be in 20 years from now? We have nothing to export except some raw material that we buy back processed into goods, so we are loosing on that front, we just keep going backwards.

A little scary when you think about it.

[Kieron]

Originally Posted by Bossxr8

The cv was body on frame. It could never be engineered to pass future crash tests. And the us taurus is unique to the us, its not sold anywhere else. I wasnt implying the interceptor was unique, the taurus it is based on is. You misinterpretted. The chinese taurus is on the mondeo platform, the us taurus is the old volvo/ford eucd? Platform first used on the xc90.

It may well be the case but the Way Forwards plan was first shown in 2006 and the CV (along with the Windstar) was on the chopping block then. They stopped retail sales not long after, making it fleet/Police only until it's demise. If it was due to Fords inability to meet future crash test, they COULD have built it on a platform that would and kept the nameplate but that would be pointless.

Re the Taurus (which is available in Canada), I re-read what you said and understand how you meant it. Interestingly, it could be said that the Taurus was a result of GFC, a number of years earlier, the Taurus name was dropped and replaced by '500', Mullaly resurrected the Taurus name

As part of One Ford, Mullaly wanted to cast the complete Mercury division off too but that needed a managed approach due to Mercury dealers losing their livelihood, it finally happened so you could say all the Mercury models.

[XWGT]

This isnt the entire blog article I was wanting to link but its a good start.
No point lamenting manufacturing, its just a drop in the ocean of the modern economy.

http://www.news.com.au/finance/econo...ff3addaf436242

[GasoLane]

Originally Posted by xrystl

Sweden had Saab and Volvo - Saab is now defunct , the Swedish Government poured big $$ into the manufacturer but they still never made a profit , along comes GM bastardizes the Saab and makes it a Opel/Vauxhall clone and the buyers stay away in droves and still no profit,
Volvo now Chinese owned .

Only the cars.

[Stefan]

Originally Posted by XWGT

This isnt the entire blog article I was wanting to link but its a good start.
No point lamenting manufacturing, its just a drop in the ocean of the modern economy.

http://www.news.com.au/finance/econo...ff3addaf436242

Yeah I get the services thing but surely to pay for services we need to make money else where too.

I always figured that services are a by product of some kind of productive industry. An example being when a coal mine opens in a small town, the mine and it's workers bring the money to the region and then buy services with that money, so now you have bankers lawyers, doctors, teacher all earning money indirectly from the mine. No mine no services.

On the big scale no major export, no money, no jobs, no services...

[XWGT]

Originally Posted by Stefan

Yeah I get the services thing but surely to pay for services we need to make money else where too.

I always figured that services are a by product of some kind of productive industry. An example being when a coal mine opens in a small town, the mine and it's workers bring the money to the region and then buy services with that money, so now you have bankers lawyers, doctors, teacher all earning money indirectly from the mine. No mine no services.

On the big scale no major export, no money, no jobs, no services...

Service DO earn income, big income. Education, tourism, business services all create both domestic and foreign income and now in values that eclipse manufacturing. And cheap manufacturing from OS allows us to deliver cheaper services yet again to the global economy.

Let the less clever economies pound each other to death who can produce the cheapest car.........while we charge them to engineer them, move them, market them and sell them

[Stefan]

Originally Posted by XWGT

Service DO earn income, big income. Education, tourism, business services all create both domestic and foreign income and now in values that eclipse manufacturing. And cheap manufacturing from OS allows us to deliver cheaper services yet again to the global economy.

Time will tell, I can tell you the Large(est) Construction company I work for has already off- shored nearly all financial services, IT services, I'm sure.....next will be engineering and design too services..

Why pay $300 - $500 per hour for Engineering when you can get it for under $100 from India. Most communication is via email anyway, I can see it coming from a mile away.

The only future I see for us is us making a damn Latte, you can't really off-shore that.

[MAGPIE]

Originally Posted by Kieron

Design is not part of manufacturing and we still have design centres here so that's irrelevant. As i mentioned, locally manufactured parts were sourced to complete those CKD's.

Doesn't change the fact that in NZ cars were assembled not manufactured.

[Vesper Martini]

Originally Posted by Bossxr8

The big 3 all have plants there.

Yeah I could figure that much out, same cars as built in the US but are they assembled or manufactured in canada?

Just a question

[XWGT]

Originally Posted by Stefan

Time will tell, I can tell you the Large(est) Construction company I work for has already off- shored nearly all financial services, IT services, I'm sure.....next will be engineering and design too services..

Why pay $300 - $500 per hour for Engineering when you can get it for under $100 from India. Most communication is via email anyway, I can see it coming from a mile away.

The only future I see for us is us making a damn Latte, you can't really off-shore that.

And that allows that construction company to undertake more projects more competitively and employ more front line staff

People have to stop equating the term "service" with "low paid". Its actually the opposite. Manufacturing jobs are generally very low paid and services jobs that encompass everything from medicine to law to real estate to design to marketing etc etc are normally very well paid.

[Hemihunter]

So what are we Australians doing about it? Absolutely Nothing.

[Bossxr8]

Originally Posted by Bevsta007

Yeah I could figure that much out, same cars as built in the US but are they assembled or manufactured in canada?

Just a question

Oakville Assembly and Windsor engine plant. Plus others. They make the Edge etc. I would say full manufacture but with Ford plants across the river in the US it's a fair chance stampings etc get shipped there.

[Grunter]

Originally Posted by Hemihunter

So what are we Australians doing about it? Absolutely Nothing.

This Australian (along with many others) are finding new ways to continue to be relevant and grow.

There's more to the Aussie economy than just big manufacturing and mining. A lot more, with a lot more opportunities if you're willing to do the Aussie thing and keep on keeping on.

Not a shot at you Hemihunter at all, but as a general comment it's all to easy to throw the hands up in the air and complain about how terrible everything is, then wait for others to fix (aka GovCo).
The only stories you hear/read on mainstream media, is how bad everything is, when the reality is that whilst some major industries are now gone or dying, there's plenty of the quiet achievers (inc manufacturing and mining) that are going from strength to strength.