End Of The Road

[fte50]

For those that missed it...
Interesting program regarding end of vehicle manufacturing in Australia and its likely cost & effects in our society


http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stori...14/3982809.htm

[pottery beige]

Was pretty full on the local component maker brushing over some of the Thai sweeteners to head offshore

[Franco Cozzo]

Originally Posted by pottery beige

Was pretty full on the local component maker brushing over some of the Thai sweeteners to head offshore

It amazed me how they offered free land etc, thats crazy.

Why couldn't the Government do something like that here? There are plenty of places with enough land around this country to start a massive industrial area.

[aussiblue]

What surprises me is that we seem to ignore the fact that South Korea keeps its car cost low by suppressing the free labour movement and jailing its union leaders. See http://www.ituc-csi.org/internationa...unions?lang=en etc Thailand's record is not much better http://www.solidaritycenter.org/cont...ntentid=902And of course China is hardly a model of democracy. Hardly fair competition.

[gtfpv]

I WATCHED IT . And it is sad and real . Frog in the Pot .

[sprint347dave]

had to laugh at the guy who had been working at holden for 30 odd years,,,driving into work in a little toyota,,and people wonder why they closing down

[mif73]

Watching that doco, people would think that only holden make cars in oz.

But yes it is annoying that we have let it go, but how do you compete with cheap labour, high volumes, cheap land, cheap electricity and a changing consumer taste etc.
Hoon laws also changed peoples tastes too i think.

Even in my industry, in manufacturing machinery sales and service we have noticed a big slump over the years.
Now Im off to practice making the perfect coffee for my next job....

[johnydep]

Originally Posted by Big Damo

It amazed me how they offered free land etc, thats crazy.

Why couldn't the Government do something like that here? There are plenty of places with enough land around this country to start a massive industrial area.

Wasn't that part of the package to get Holden's to move from Woodville to Elizabeth?

They told us the main problem - numbers. Our market is too small and our manufacturers could not get a strong foothold into overseas markets. Some will say it's because of protected markets, but the sad truth is we did not build anything that OS customers wanted; Falcon, Commodore, Camry, Magna. There all large cars in a market dominated by small cars and SUV's.

[gtfpv]

guys . the thinking you have has lost the plot .
what we do to stop it happen , ( which we failed ) is dont import cars !!!!!!!!!!!!!.
And then you pay , for a car that we make , for what we charge !!!!!!!
the answers are simple . you think you can exploit cheap labor in other countries , and not have it ultimately put you out of work !!!
ONCE AGAIN WE HAVE BEEN DONE OVER BY GREEDY PEOPLE WANTING A BUCK FOR NOTHING , BY DANGLING A CARROT TO THE MASSES .

now i might sound extreeme left wing here . but right wing thinking is wheeling and dealing by a no hoper , and our country has turned into just that , smart ( doesn't mean making a quick buck at someone elses expense ) it means your a loser , and you've cheated everyone , even worse you have made them like you , and then you have a bunch of people that need spoon feeding , just like you do . trouble is nobody knows how to use the spoon anymore .

[johnydep]

Originally Posted by gtfpv

guys . the thinking you have has lost the plot .
what we do to stop it happen , ( which we failed ) is dont import cars !!!!!!!!!!!!!.
And then you pay , for a car that we make , for what we charge !!!!!!!
the answers are simple . you think you can exploit cheap labor in other countries , and not have it ultimately put you out of work !!!
ONCE AGAIN WE HAVE BEEN DONE OVER BY GREEDY PEOPLE WANTING A BUCK FOR NOTHING , BY DANGLING A CARROT TO THE MASSES .

now i might sound extreeme left wing here . but right wing thinking is wheeling and dealing by a no hoper , and our country has turned into just that , smart ( doesn't mean making a quick buck at someone elses expense ) it means your a loser , and you've cheated everyone , even worse you have made them like you , and then you have a bunch of people that need spoon feeding , just like you do . trouble is nobody knows how to use the spoon anymore .

Which ones use cheap labour?
BMW
Chrysler
Opel
Range Rover
Land Rover
Mazda
Nissan
Renault
Puegeot
Isuzu
Daihatsu
Volkswagen
Honda
etc.

The USSR tried it and failed.

[Perko]

Doesn't matter how cheap the labour is or the manufacturing costs are when people are not buying the product. To make the argument simplistic is wrong. The market moved on and neither Ford nor Holden moved with it. They hung onto the hope that Falcon and Commodore could be their saviour. Business people understand that putting all your eggs in one basket is wrong.

There is more than one reason why we have no more local manufacturing. It sucks. But until manufacturers can produce products that people want, until we can produce then efficiently and at a competitive base, until both sides of government realise that free trade agreements do not make the playing field equal, and until Australian consumers take some pride in local products and purchase them we will see more off these sort of 7:30 Report style pieces.

[mechanic]

gtfpv stated "and then you have a bunch of people that need spoon feeding "

100% correct, and those getting spoon fed the most are those who don't contribute, Federal Politicians.
How about while we're employing people to run the country we start looking at the spoon feeding program and just see what returns we're getting for what it is costing us?
Forget about the left right or center of the political scenario, are we getting any value from any of them?

[johnydep]

Originally Posted by mechanic

gtfpv stated "and then you have a bunch of people that need spoon feeding "

100% correct, and those getting spoon fed the most are those who don't contribute, Federal Politicians.
How about while we're employing people to run the country we start looking at the spoon feeding program and just see what returns we're getting for what it is costing us?
Forget about the left right or center of the political scenario, are we getting any value from any of them?

Especially when we change Prime Ministers like there's no tomorrow - Rudd, Gillard, Rudd, Abbott. Let's hope we get value for money this time.

Oh, and can you really only blame Federal? The States seem to do pretty good at sucking up the dollars from the troff. Anyone been following the NSW corruption hearings?

Too many layers of government. But that is not why car manufacturing failed. It failed because people - customers, stopped buying.

The product was not right. Just look at the sales figures. Unless your all seriously saying that the governments should go back to the 1960's and stop 90% of imports to force Aussies to buy what the government wants us to buy; hang on, that sounds weird.

I think I'm a typical Aussie person, I deal with the public 6 days a week at work and my kids local sport club and schools. Not many people wanted to drive a big Falcon or Commodore. the majority of the cars in car parks are Cruze and Focus size; where is the Focus built?

Has anyone taken the door trim off of a 2000 Golf? Under the trim is a steal plate to separate road noise, the quality is miles ahead. We're still playing catch up, customers are not stupid.

The Manufactures got lazy and failed. Governments got complacent and failed. Unions took care of their members privileges. They all failed.

This goes back 30 years. And even with all the subsidies that Labour federal and state gave, Mitsubishi still closed up.

Get over it and move on. Stop trying to blame a few.

[zilo]

Holden have an infatuation with 6L 8 cyl cars, Ford have an infatuation with 4L 6 cyl.


It's all about the fuel economy.


No brainer really.

[bobthebilda]

The issue would never have been about wages. The three car makers always received more money from the government than they were spending on wages. The issue was the amount of cars that each factory was making. Like they stated in the 4 corners show, a factory in australia could make the 5 best selling cars in australia, and still not have sufficient scale to compete with other factories in the world.

[mechanic]

Another subtle, or maybe not so subtle factor is the clout that developers have with councils to cram more car spaces into smaller areas resulting in some really tricky situations to park your car.
I'm a reasonably competent driver [ well, apart from a considerable number of speeding tickets ] and have parked all sorts of vehicles in crowded workshops over the years but some of the shopping center carparks are very tight indeed.
One other factor, bad roads are handled better by a longer and heavier car, the roads today are light years ahead and maybe it's just as comfortable to travel in the smaller lighter vehicles.

[4stanger]

Didn't some one on that show say,
to be profitable and stand alone, you need to produce/sell 75000 cars a year?

[johnydep]

Originally Posted by Arnaldo

Didn't some one on that show say,
to be profitable and stand alone, you need to produce/sell 75000 cars a year?

No. They said - 'even if a manufacturer was No.1 in the top 4 categories, they'd still only be able to sell 75,000 cars.' Exporting was the only way to survive.

Even the American manufacturers are staring to now go full swing into exporting. Chrysler were bust, exporting helped save them.

We can only hope that one of our car manufacturers gets second thoughts and re-commits. Never know, could be another success story like Range Rover.

[buggerlugs]

Think I'll cross off Elizabeth on my realestate.com.au watch list..................

[fte50]

Im gonna be shot down here, but id rather have protections in place ensuring the imports remain high protecting local manufacturing, products & jobs.
Yes its sad, we wont have the same choices and majority of us will all drive the same car...... but we will have been more prosperous and alot more people in work.
Success of 1 individual alone isnt measured by what they do or might want to drive as its all meaningless should someone close to them be left in the unemployment scrap heap.

[MITCHAY]

Originally Posted by sprint347dave

had to laugh at the guy who had been working at holden for 30 odd years,,,driving into work in a little toyota,,and people wonder why they closing down

Lol yep and I'd bet the reason was either

a) I don't want/need a large car
b) It's too expensive
c) It uses too much fuel
d) or all of the above.

The same reasons why the rest of the country isn't buying them. There really is no practical reason for a lot of people to buy them despite only getting better with each new model. You're only building a better version of something that is not in demand.

Anyways there really was nothing said in that program that hasn't already been said here and elsewhere a million times.

The problem is how does Australian manufacturing transition from where it is now to where it needs to be.

We need to shift the focus onto how do we get to there not on why auto manufacturing failed and who is to blame as it is pretty much well understood.

[fte50]

To late for that .... we had them and let em go. Cars, textiles, appliances, electronics, etc' Unfortunately this isn't some Steven King movie - once they wind up their plants, they're gone for good and never coming back. Ever.
Educate our children and wish them well starting a new life o/s where opportunities are greater, coz the only thing left here is SFA.... and in the light of increased competition chasing work, real wages will fall by half.

[champ]

Originally Posted by gtfpv

guys . the thinking you have has lost the plot .
what we do to stop it happen , ( which we failed ) is dont import cars !!!!!!!!!!!!!.
And then you pay , for a car that we make , for what we charge !!!!!!!
the answers are simple . you think you can exploit cheap labor in other countries , and not have it ultimately put you out of work !!!
ONCE AGAIN WE HAVE BEEN DONE OVER BY GREEDY PEOPLE WANTING A BUCK FOR NOTHING , BY DANGLING A CARROT TO THE MASSES .

now i might sound extreeme left wing here . but right wing thinking is wheeling and dealing by a no hoper , and our country has turned into just that , smart ( doesn't mean making a quick buck at someone elses expense ) it means your a loser , and you've cheated everyone , even worse you have made them like you , and then you have a bunch of people that need spoon feeding , just like you do . trouble is nobody knows how to use the spoon anymore .

Oh how so very sadly true!!! Could not have put it better myself!

[sico]

Originally Posted by fte50

To late for that .... we had them and let em go. Cars, textiles, appliances, electronics, etc' Unfortunately this isn't some Steven King movie - once they wind up their plants, they're gone for good and never coming back. Ever.
Educate our children and wish them well starting a new life o/s where opportunities are greater, coz the only thing left here is SFA.... and in the light of increased competition chasing work, real wages will fall by half.

Sad but true.

[XR Martin]

Originally Posted by johnydep

Which ones use cheap labour?
BMW - South Africa
Chrysler
Opel
Range Rover
Land Rover
Mazda - Thailand
Nissan - Thailand
Renault - Korea
Puegeot
Isuzu - Thailand
Daihatsu
Volkswagen - South Africa, South America
Honda - Thailand
etc.

The USSR tried it and failed.

Those (that we get here)

[aussiblue]

Default Re: End Of The Road


Which ones use cheap labour?
BMW
Chrysler
Opel
Range Rover
Land Rover
Mazda
Nissan
Renault
Puegeot
Isuzu
Daihatsu
Volkswagen
Honda
etc.

Most of them:

a) Opel has plants on Spain and Poland.
b) Land Rover/Range Rover Defender models are assembled several locations worldwide, including Spain (Santana Motors), Iran (Pazhan Morattab), Brazil (Karmann) and Turkey (Otokar).[28] The former BL/Rover Group technical centre at Gaydon in Warwickshire is home to the corporate and R&D headquarters. In May 2010, Tata Motors announced that it plans to build Land Rover and Jaguar models in Mainland China (PRC) as the company seeks to cut costs and expand sales.[29] Currently Tata Motors are working on having all aluminium body constructions on all Land Rover vehicles. The Defender replacement is due for 2015, that too is expected to have an aluminium body, but it may be based off the Discovery Platforms

c) Mazda has plants in China, Taiwan, Thailand, Philippines, Colombia, Ecuador, Zimbabwe and South Africa.

d) Nissan has a plant in Mexico.

e)Peugeot has factories in many other countries (Spain, Slovakia, Portugal a joint-venture with Toyota in the Czech Republic, a joint-venture with Dongfeng in China, an assembly agreement in Thailand, facilities in Argentina and Brazil, and a major assembly agreement with Iran Khodro. It also has some joint-ventures with Fiat, producing vans and van-based MPVs in France (807 and Expert), Italy (Boxer) and Turkey (Bipper). The 4007 SUV is produced by Mitsubishi, either in Japan or the Netherlands, and the forthcoming Ion electric car will also buy manufactured by Mitsubishi in Japan. The new RCZ is produced in Austria by contract assembler Magna-Steyr.


f) Isuzu has a number of subsidiaries in other countries making cars , including Anadolu Isuzu (a Turkish 50:50 joint venture with Anadolu Group), Isuzu Astra Motor Indonesia, Isuzu Malaysia (Isuzu HICOM), Isuzu UK, Isuzu South Africa, Isuzu Philippines and Isuzu Vietnam.

g) Daihatsu has had plants in Chile, Thailand, Trinidad, Tobago, Indonesia before there masters Toyota dramatically reduced production and closed many overseas plants.

h) VW operates 106 production plants in 19 European countries including Turkey, Poland, Hungary, Spain, Portugal, Bosnia Herzegovina, and a further eight countries in the Americas (Argentina and Brazil), Asia (China, India and Thailand) and South Africa.

i) Honda makes cars in China, India, Thailand, Indonesia, Pakistan, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Belgium, and Turkey
.

g) Some Jeeps were made in China for a while (and sold in Oz) and also in Austria but since Fiat took over I think they are all now US and Mexican made. Until recently it had the jeeps chassis made in Korea.

h) BMW has plants in China but I think they are only for the Chinese market...so far. In the mid-1970s, 50 percent of all car assembly line workers in West Germany were immigrants. In BMW’s Munich factory 11,000 of the 17,000 workers on the line were Muslim Turks.

It's very hard to find out where cars sold in Oz are made; as the makers like them to sold as American or Japanese cars etc. regardless of where they are made. But we are lucky that, like Japan, we are in the small group of RHD countries so for our small market we do often get the Japan made version.

[FormulaFG]

All very sad points but the thing that disturbed me the most is the brazen audacity of the Thais coming into this country and soliciting our business owners to get them to shut up shop here and move over there.

F.O. you Cnts and build your own damn industry. We did.

On the flip side I suppose, at least their government is out there doing something to help its country and people prosper. All our guys do increase taxes, increase electricity and increase red tape. Not surprising they go over there.

[93EB_SXR6]

Ford Australia and Holden both nailed their own coffin lids shut.
It makes no sense to make large sedans powered by "fuel guzzling" 6 or 8 cylinder engines. Not in Australia, not anywhere.

The manufacturers attempted to dictate what people "should by" and the general public responded by looking elsewhere for their vehicles. Like it or not, that is what happened.

This is coming from an enthusiast of large sedans powered by fuel guzzling 6 or 8 cylinder engines.

[aussiblue]

There must be some more accessible stats somewhere but for Financial Year 2013 the best I could get on Oz vehicle imports by value and source were from

http://www.dfat.gov.au/publications/...ion_trade.html

I extracted the following from the pivot table for just passenger motor vehicles by value and country of origin (which may not in some cases be where they were entirely made):




$000’s
Japan 6,824,675
Thailand 1,743,027
China 59,203
Korea 2,039,206
Spain 238,161
Turkey 6,473
Mexico 179,431
Poland 53,657
Portugal 27,330
Germany 2,256,950
India 179,775
United Kingdom 1,058,555


This excludes the utes like the Ranger and BT50 from Thailand; another $2,902,489,000
in goods vehicles came from Thailand in 2013.

[bobthebilda]

Originally Posted by FormulaFG

On the flip side I suppose, at least their government is out there doing something to help its country and people prosper. All our guys do increase taxes, increase electricity and increase red tape. Not surprising they go over there.

The issue is that the things that every Australians love about Australia, are the very same reasons that make manufacturing very hard in this country.

No one wants to be living in a city that has thousands of people per square kilometres, and yet its high density populations that have advantages in taxes and manufacturing scale.

No one wants to be working for $2 an hour, and yet a lower wage can add to job security.

No one wants pollution, but yet if you spend less on environmental care, your manufacturing costs can be lower.