What will be the next car brand to leave Australia?

[zero_tolerance]

Mitsubishi have also become part of that nissan Renault crapshow back in 2016. In the next few years we might see mitsubishi cars become even worse. Surely the triton is the only thing keeping them afloat at this stage.

Yes don't even get me started on Mitsubishi, rental fleet specials like asx and outlander are pinnacles of mediocrity, while the horrific looking triton has a face only a mother could love.
I question the sanity of people who spend their hard earned money on cars like this.

 

[zero_tolerance]

Ford fans are blowing their trumpets about the Ranger, and how it was developed here, and how Ford still have a design studio here.
I could be wrong, but the next Ranger is not being developed here, it will be a VW/Ford co-product.
So what do Ford actually do now in Australia with all their HQ staff.

Ford fans can blow their trumpets all they like but the fact remains that Ford has been a one trick pony ever since they stopped manufacturing here.
Trends come and go, if/when the market shifts away from the Ranger they are royally screwed and Ford fans are delusional if they think Ford is safe in Australia.

 

[vs-lover]

Surely the triton is the only thing keeping them afloat at this stage.

Yep pretty much agree with all of the above, Outlander is what's keeping Mitsubishi going, Triton.........hardly as the Ranger and Hilux are selling huge volumes more.

 

[zero_tolerance]

Well it looks like Honda will be the next brand to leave Australia....

https://www.caradvice.com.au/833648/honda-considering-leaving-australia/

 

[Skylarking]

Do we have anything left that's owned by Australia?

Well we do make some brands of toilet paper Just not enough of the stuff at the moment as i'm out and can't find any

 

[marty351]

If Honda made a freeway capable version of the postie bike, and aimed its sales at the inner urban hipsters, perhaps toast and avo will continue to be a popular menu option.

 

[gr33nbastad]

Honda is a good example of what the challenge is with the Australian market. Do they make bad cars? No. Can they sell enough here to justify 106 dealers? Absolutely not. Honda sold 48000 cars here last year, if they sold at the same (per capita) rate as the US, they should have sold 29,000 CRVs alone! Let alone Civic and Accord. The yanks turn over cars like nobodies business, because insurance companies write them off really easily, the are really big into leasing, and they are cheap as sh$t relatively speaking. Aussies take out expensive loans, get taxed to buggery on cars, and have to hang on to them forever. No turnover, no market - 5% of the US population got new cars last year - we had less than 3.5%.

 

[Skylarking]

Honda is a good example of what the challenge is with the Australian market. Do they make bad cars? No. Can they sell enough here to justify 106 dealers? Absolutely not. Honda sold 48000 cars here last year..

48,000 cars per year? what would the importer make? $1000 per car? 48,000,000 per year?
Or is it simply creative Hollywood accounting being used to wipe per vehicle profits to $0, which seems to be the bullshite that every multinational uses? Then every business bitches they make no money and every business then wants government handouts or they’ll sack us all. Meanwhile COE’s take home morally obscene pay packets measured in the tens of millions.

Dealers may have a tougher time as it averages to 452 cars per dealer or around 1 car per day to service or sell... even at a guesstimate of $1000 per car, it’s a tough gig though I suspect the bigger dealers do ok.

Something is just seriously wrong with globalisation me thinks...

 

[vs-lover]

Well this all shows that Australia which opened the flood gates some time back now doesn't have the market to sustain all these brands being here.

Now if we were Left Hand Drive then it would be a totally different story, but being a RHD market makes it far more difficult and far less profitable to service this vastly isolated country with a relatively low population.

Honda do well enough with their outdoor power equipment in this country that they could easily delete vehicles off their portfolio and have far less outgoings and more in-comings.

It seems that only the Korean's seem to be able to make it all work, so what are they doing that's so right compared to most others.

I thing I won't ever own and that's a European car, the awkward engineering that's employed in them is just so diabolical to work with, just ask anyone that works on them and they'll say "Give me a Jap car to work on anytime" way more logical engineering used there.

 

[rtmpgt]

I'm what the media would consider a "milennial"... Whatever the heck that means.

For reference, these are the only new cars I would actually buy at the moment:
Suzuki Jimny - All the 4WD fun you can have without the gas tax that bigger 4WDs have.
Toyota Corolla Hybrid - ICE convenience with Electric efficiency. Also looks pretty freakin' dope.
Tesla Model Y - Like a Model 3 but with more room. (But I need to own a house to own one of these...)
Mazda MX5 - Becaise Miata is always the Answer.

Now, add to the fact these factors.

1. Wages in Australia have stagnated for the past 10 years as costs of things keep going up (Thanks Libtards.)
2. Negative Gearing has kept at least 50% of milennials out of the housing market (Even with Labor or Greens reforms, it would still keep a large chunk of us out... So, Once again... Thanks Libtards.)
3. Fuel prices will go up over the coming years as supply drops. (Oil is a finite resource, after all... And we've only got enough to last us another 200 years at the rate of consumption rates... So we need to conserve as much as we can for other purposes, like the manufacture of plastics)
4. Pretty much all of us (with some exceptions ofc) who live where transport is good prefer to stick to walking or public transit. More convenient, easier to get around, less environmentally damaging, and cheaper. That's how I mostly get around. My ute's a fun machine. Why drive when my workplace is a short bus ride away?
5. More of us are considering not having kids and instead focusing on their careers (Me included) for various reasons. For one, I don't want to raise kids in this socioeconomic climate. For another, Kids are a financial liability. There's also lots of kids who could do with a better home. If I did have a kid? I'm adopting.
6. Those of us who do decide to have kids look for the most car per dollar, with the most efficiency and safety... Which points us squarely at Hybrid and Electric SUVs, or cars with smaller engines. Ford doesn't make a single Hybrid. Honda makes only one. Holden rebadged the Volt but it was too weird to not appeal to wankers, and was released at the wrong time.
7. Let's be honest... Cars are a financial liability. We pay a huge chunk of our income for a car to spend most of its life being clutter. Also a car loses between 10-15% of its value the second it leaves the lot.
8. Those of us who do like cars are getting a bigger kick out of the used market than the new market. New enthusiast cars have to compete with used cars.
9. Why get into modding cars when YouTubers do it for us? Why get into cars when I can play Forza Horizon 4 and not spend a single dollar of my own money to play, and race on the road without getting busted by the cops?
10. People who buy utes mostly do so for work, so what good is a RWD coupe utility when it can barely get on site? Also, the company provides utes to use on site, so why do I need a ute?
11. Uber exists. Why own a car when you can just borrow someone else's? I personally don't use it but if you stand on St George's Terrace, every second car is either an Uber or DiDi driver.
12. No car has really been... Compelling since the release of the Tesla Model S. In fact, the only cars that I see are universally compelling are Teslas. That's why Automakers are playing catchup with EVs.
13. Japan's an insular market and one of the only LHD markets left that could survive for the long term, due to the culture of Japanese people. Us, Singapore, the UK and I think a few others are the only LHD markets left. Most of the world drives on the right... And they sell way more cars that are RHD than LHD. I think that Japan's the only market we're going to be able to rely on unless we allow RHD imports of cars post-1985... If that happens? The first car i'm importing is a BK2 Hyundai Genesis Coupe R-Spec. All the sportscar you could ever want, and cheaper than a 370Z.
14. Cars aren't... Cool to us. I mean, yeah Lambos are cool... Ferraris are cool... But they're cool to everyone. Most of us don't think a Commodore is cool. We don't see ourselves shaping our lives around a car, and we don't really see why car ownership is essential... Why drive a car when there's no jobs going? Why get a driver's license when I can get to my work without dealing with shitty traffic? I mean, yeah, some jobs require licenses, and to be fair that's the only reason why most of us get licenses these days. Not necessarily own our own cars, but to drive cars at work.