Thread: The end of the Australian Ford

Probably a ploy to blackmail Gillard and her henchman Swan to give them more, much more taxpayers hard earned to"save" jobs.
Let them go and those made redundant can be retrained to flip burgers.
Or maybe Ford could be persuaded to make cars the public want instead.
AlanH.

If the politician have "balls"should tell Ford and any other company that act in that manner that in the future their products will be not allowed to enter in Australia until they pay all the money given to them in the past.
Bloody globalization it is only good for the economy of the big capitals but not for the people.

You cannot blame Ford for the government giving them money. It was the government's decision. Like it or not, the Australian people got what the voted for. I guess if people do not like it, they should show their displeasure at the polling booth.

Regarding Ford closing its doors. I think it is sad to see. The current Falcon / G series is in my opinion, by far the best they have ever built. I have a new G6 company car, and reckon it is fantastic.

It has the standard 4L 6cyl petrol which I find quite economical, very powerful, very smooth... But I guess everyone needs a SUV now days to take the kids to school and do the shopping.

Yep, we got told of this at work this morning, the mood isn't spectacularly happy as I'm sure you can imagine.

Now, before this descends into even more of the usual "Ford makes crap anyway, glad to see the back of 'em....make 'em pay back all the government handouts, etc, etc..." consider this:

The annual investment by our government in the auto industry works out to be about $18 per person.
In Germany, the government subsidizes the auto industry to the tune of $95 per person.
In the USA, it's $260 per person.

The 'hand-outs' that the car industry get here is a pittance compared to the rest of the manufacturing world.

Also consider that it costs a 5% tariff to import a car here, unless it comes from a free trade country we have an agreement with, in which case it's zero.
Now, if the car manufacturers here want to send a car overseas, there's a 15% tariff in Japan, a total of 29% tariff in Germany, a 60% tariff in India, 43% in China, etc...
These countries aren't stupid, they protect their local manufacturing!

Once upon a time, our industry was protected too, but then some politicians with 'balls' removed all the import restrictions that, surprise surprise, other countries kept in place.

I also recommend a bit of googling to see how much of 'our' money the government has invested in the car handling facility at Port Melbourne to make it even easier for foreign manufacturers to bring their cars here.

Would anyone want to continue manufacturing under these conditions?

I'm not for one minute defending the decision by Ford and its management, they have a lot to answer for and its absolutely terrible news for the local manufacturing industry and the people whose livelihood depends on it, just please spare me the inevitable holier-than-thou onslaught of "local cars are crap, pay back all the tax money, etc...." . It doesn't help.

Originally Posted by juddo

You cannot blame Ford for the government giving them money. It was the government's decision. Like it or not, the Australian people got what the voted for. I guess if people do not like it, they should show their displeasure at the polling booth.

Only problem is .......... I think you'll find that Ford (and others) have been given money by governments of both political persuasions.

So who do you vote for ????????

Interesting that the only vehicle maintaining sales is the one with a diesel option. The press say it's due to people wanting SUV's instead of cars. They keep missing the diesel thing entirely.

IMO the world is sick of thirsty cars. But Ford (AU) and Holden keep making them and their sales keep declining.

Originally Posted by Dougal

Interesting that the only vehicle maintaining sales is the one with a diesel option. The press say it's due to people wanting SUV's instead of cars. They keep missing the diesel thing entirely.

IMO the world is sick of thirsty cars. But Ford (AU) and Holden keep making them and their sales keep declining.

Indeed!
Not sure if it was ever seriously considered, but only putting a diesel option in the Territory (and even then being very late to the party!) and not in anything else, could be seen as a big mistake!

Originally Posted by Dougal

Interesting that the only vehicle maintaining sales is the one with a diesel option. The press say it's due to people wanting SUV's instead of cars. They keep missing the diesel thing entirely.

IMO the world is sick of thirsty cars. But Ford (AU) and Holden keep making them and their sales keep declining.

You may be right with what you say, but "sick of thirsty cars" is a perception that is in my opinion not a reality. example.

The other week I had to take a road trip down the Shepparton to do some work. It is 770km between filling and filling the tank and I used 65L of E10 fuel. That is in a Ford G6 4L straight 6 petrol engine. That equates to 8.4L/100km. I would not call that thirsty for a large car with a big powerful engine. Given, the day to day economy is not that good. It is between 10-11L/100km, and being a company car I do not drive it softly.

I have no idea what real figures the ecotech engine gets, but I imagine it would be quite a bit better.

As comparison, my Discovery 3 TDV6 used to get as good as about 7-8L/100km cruising on highways, but now with the new tyres it is more like 8-9L/100km.

Anyway, perception is everything, and trying to sell a product that customers do not want to purchase for whatever reason is folly.