With Australian car manufacturing an increasingly distant memory, we’re now reliant on the kindness of strangers – and that’s becoming a problem.
Ford and General Motors vowed to support the local market despite no longer making cars here, but it is becoming clear as time goes on that the support is starting to slow as the global industry changes.
Sure, Ford is riding high on the back of the Ranger and the Mustang arrived to ease the pain of the Falcon’s demise, and General Motors has replaced Holden and the Commodore with Chevrolet and its Corvette and Silverado, while also introducing Cadillac.
But, as a percentage, Australia receives a tiny fraction of the cars available to us from the American market and there are also several notable European models we’re missing out on because we drive on the opposite side of the road to two of the world’s biggest car producers.
Thankfully, Japanese-based Toyota, remains committed to right-hand drive, and the brand is duly rewarded with its sales dominance. But a recent visit to the USA rammed home to me just how much we’re missing out on here.
Looking at both the Ford and GM portfolios in their home market, there are so many obvious candidates that Australians would seemingly embrace. Cars like the Chevrolet Colorado, Ford Maverick, GMC Acadia, Ford Bronco, Chevrolet Blazer and others would have both market relevance and market appeal here.
Unfortunately the problem is the same as it has always been – Australia drives on the wrong side of the road (at least as far as Americans are concerned). This means the cost of engineering and then manufacturing these cars in right-hand drive becomes far more challenging for the brand’s to mount a viable business case.
Both Ford and GM have invested significant amounts of money in local conversion programs for certain models, namey their large pickup trucks, the F-150 and Silverado.
This is possible thanks to Australia’s accepting the six-figure asking price for these behemoths, which allows for the cost of importing and converting them to be absorbed.
However, anything smaller and cheaper is simply going to be either unprofitable or uncompetitive to convert locally, which rules out the previously mentioned Chevrolets, GMCs and Fords.
In a recent discussion with GM Australia boss, Jess Bala, she explained the situation was difficult but left the door open for GM HQ to keep an open mind on future products.
“ Definitely for conversion, 100 per cent, you’re 100 per cent correct,” Bala said, when asked about future options for GM locally.
“But we’re always in conversations as GMs working through product plans and next generations and things like that. When and if there might be an opportunity to study right-hand drive in the plant. That depends [on many factors]. It’s got to be a much bigger global study, obviously extensive business cases, things like that.”
That leaves a lot of our local future reliant on the decisions of the American executives who are seemingly increasingly removed from Australia’s needs in the post-manufacturing era.
While it’s great the GM has decided to make Cadillac a factory-produced right-hand drive brand, and done the same for the Corvette (although not the ZR1), those decisions were believed to have been made years ago, when Holden was still expected to survive.
The automotive world on both sides of the Pacific Ocean have changed a lot since then. And the challenge is only becoming greater due to recent geopolitical events.
The US has declared a trade war with China, which has impacted both economies but also forced Ford, GM and the rest of the brand’s manufacturing there to reassess their priorities. It has also affected the broader economy and the exchange rate between the US and Australia, which will only be making the situation harder to get a factory right-hand drive model produced at a competitive price.
If the political uncertainty remains in the US, Ford, GM and even Stellantis will likely focus on shoring up their home turf, even at the expense of international markets and, in particular, expensive, low-volume right-hand drive markets.
So while it’s lamentable that we don’t have more choice, my concern is that if the current state of the world continues on its trajectory, we may get even less choice in the future. Hopefully I’m wrong though and the US giants will only deepen their connections to Australia and the underlying ‘red v blue’ fight that has underpinning the Australian car industry for nearly a century will continue well into the future.
Discussion about this post