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May 27, 2013
Ford's withdrawal from car manufacturing in Australia in 2016 was bound to happen. It was just a question of time after Detroit excluded the Australian branch from its global production and Ford Australia continued to built big cars when consumer demand had shifted away from gas guzzlers to small cars.
Consequently, its production runs were far too small for the manufacturing plants to be economically viable.
David Rowe
The foreign imports have been able to satisfy the changes in consumer preferences where domestic manufactured cars have not. It does imply that there is a great future for broad-based car manufacturing in Australia. Future Australian governments will face a hollowed-out manufacturing sector as well as declining revenues from resources.
Holden is already hinting that it will probably need yet more public subsidy if it is to remain viable. Public subsidy is corporate welfare.
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Good riddance.
Ps Good summary, Gary.