" The inferior cars our auto industry can’t a-Ford" >

[Chopped]

What a load of tosh !

Check out what this "journalist" has written >

Source > http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/...y-cant-a-Ford/

" Australia’s car manufacturing industry is facing a self-inflicted crisis. After a decade of sliding demand for the locally made Holden Commodore, Ford Falcon and Toyota Camry, car makers have blamed everything but themselves.

But the hard reality is Australian customers are fed up with the half-baked ******** our car industry serves up and refuse to buy an inferior product simply because it’s Australian made.

Massive discounts to woo back disgruntled customers have been too little too late, as recent figures show Australian consumers have made up their minds and prefer superior foreign made cars.

In fact, last year the Japanese made Mazda 3 was crowned Australia’s highest selling car outselling the Commodore for the first time ever, while Falcon sales were down 20 per cent.

But despite the woeful output from local manufacturers, earlier this year the government rewarded the industry with hundreds of millions of dollars - adding to the billions in subsidies already given over the years - with few strings attached.

As Julia Gillard promised the funding would create more jobs, car companies promised to keep producing their mediocre cars in Australia for another few years.

However Ford appears to have had other intentions and yesterday announced another 400 jobs would be lost at two of its plants in Victoria despite a one hundred million dollar government handout earlier this year.

Ford justified the job cuts as necessary as the company continued to overhaul its business operation. Part of the overhaul includes a taxpayer-funded upgrade to the engines in their local car line-up, which will be centred around a “revolutionary” new 2.0L four-cylinder engine in its Falcon for the first time ever, replacing the fuel guzzling, sluggish, six-cylinder engine the Falcon used for nearly 20 years.

But despite the hype, there’s nothing revolutionary about it at all. European and Japanese car companies have been using a similar four cylinder engine for over six years now. Since then they have developed smaller and more efficient engines with more power and lower fuel consumption.

But this typifies Australian car makers’ ethos; they are reactive, rather than pro-active. While foreign car companies find innovative new solutions for their customers, we’re selling inefficient, superseded technology.

Several commentators have made the valid point that a country’s car industry should be its “technical innovation hub”, which would justify the billions of taxpayer investment, but I’m yet to see anything the Australia car industry has developed that would be considered cutting edge innovation.

Australian car manufacturers been pampered by government hand-outs and high import tariffs while producing a boring, uninspiring product that no one actually wants. And judging by the government’s response the cycle looks set to continue.

It might sound obvious, but the only way the car industry is going to reverse its fortunes is to develop a product that people actually want. That’s the idea of running a business, after all.

And with the prospect of over one million cars selling in Australia this year, they’re running out of excuses. "

> The ill informed "media" are out to kill are car industry <

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