Ash the point I was trying to make is this --- If I were fortunate enough to have say $60K to spend on a car at the moment I could choose a mid to top range Commodore for instance or an entry level euro, say.
The Commodore would be the usual three to four years behind the euros in terms of technological advancement, would be noticeably deficient in measurable areas such as Noise Vibration and Harshness, and would depreciate at much the same percentage rate.
If the Holden product were not manufactured in Australia there would morally be no need for tariff protection, introduced to protect a product unable to compete with overseas cars in just about every aspect, and there would be no need for a luxury car tax, originally introduced to deter buyers from buying high-end imports and to buy the local product.
So... with the phasing out of the luxury car tax (if the govt could bring itself to do the right thing) and the abolition of tariff protection, my $60K suddenly allows me to buy an E Class Merc or an Audi A5 or a 5 series BMW, and yes even the Hyundai Genesis, mentioned earlier, with plenty of change left over.
For years we've been funnelled towards the local product, even though it has been foreign owned and has been showered with huge sums by the govt to remain viable, and, and I acknowledge the importance of this, to provide employment for lots of Australians who in many instances would struggle to hold down jobs outside of the boring repetitive work found on an inefficient and outmoded vehicle asembly line.
The You Tube I posted reveals that GM has also been sucking huge amounts from the US govt. Detroit has collapsed and GM now produce 70% of vehicles off-shore because it can't produce them in the US due to this same inefficiency, which has forced it to establish new plants in emerging industrial countries such as China where, and again I acknowledge the problem, labour costs are lower, and computerised and robotised assembly produces a far superior product at the expense of providing employment to many.
This vid of the new Tesla plant in California shows the future of car assembly, and the production process is similar to that of many euro and Asian car makers, who also have moved off-shore in many instances -- Honda to Thailand, BMW to Turkey etc.
Tesla Motors Part 1: Behind the Scenes of how the Tesla Model S is Made-The Window-WIRED - YouTube
The big three, Ford GMH and Toyota have unanimously declared that making cars in Australia is unsustainable. The govt now must accept that fact, sooner rather than later, and start making plans to relocate the many thousands of unskilled workers in this industry who will be displaced as a result of our being conned for so long by the US companies into not updating and modernising their assembly plants. And for not making, for many years, the cars that Australians have been wanting to buy. How long did it take them to get into the SUV market? How many taxis are still Falcons or Commodores? Too slow --they were caught napping by the Asians.
It's a global economy now, and our cars will be made in countries where technology has been embraced. We had the chance.....
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