Today, Australia’s top-selling car notches up a little over 40,000 annual sales.There is not a car factory in the world that can survive on such small volumes, other than luxury brands that command premium prices.
Road safety is being put forward as one of the main arguments. Nearly 2,000 trucks were manufactured between 1972 and 1984.

As the article states a luxury maker could make a viable case while help from the government should help subsidise the plant.I think Rover Australia was one of the few profitable parts of the business back in the 70s and 80s. According to GoAuto, an Australian online car magazine, 77% of all new vehicles sold in 2017, were tariff free. It gave Holden and Ford the funds – and quite literally the platform – from which to build performance saloons with powerful engines, big brakes and sticky tyres.In their dying days, performance models accounted for almost half of Falcon and Commodore sales, because demand for fleet models had fallen off a cliff as buyers shifted to small cars and SUVs. Ford Australia has announced it will pull its car production out of Australia by 2016, with the loss of 1200 manufacturing jobs. "Labour cost in Australia is too high to be price competitive in production. The UK car industry survives because it exports eight out every 10 cars it manufactures (in 2016, 1.35 million of the 1.7 million vehicles produced).But Australia couldn’t export its way out of trouble because it is surrounded by developing countries with much cheaper labour costs. A first factory in Adelaide was closed in 2004, the second assembly line was closed in 2008, resulting again in thousands of jobless workers. That’s because Thailand maintained hidden, non-tariff barriers while Australia opened its borders completely. In October 2017, Australia witnessed the closure of its last manufacturing plant. Why Australia’s car manufacturers — Toyota, Holden and Ford — all conked out Joshua Dowling National Motoring Editor , News Limited Network February 14, 2014 4:06pm
The Nissan factory in Sunderland probably has similar labour costs, but it manages to be productive and profitable despite this (potential Brexit impact notwithstanding). It is that simple. Knowing a bit from Aussies themselves (the AU car industry is regularly debated on GMInsidenews), I know that government is reluctant to stimulate anything domestically.Agree with that but USA first and make plenty of landi trucks as wellEconomics don't operate in a vacuum, Australia's reliance on and lack of diversification from mining/commodities is a factor. And with the slowing in the mining construction boom the big earning hoons stayed away from performance cars....Australians took great pride in their manufacturing sector and the contribution it made to the nation's foreign exchange earnings. In short, no one is thinking about manufacturing in Australia anymore. A painful example of the free trade agreements is the 2005 deal with Thailand. Now we still have hordes of total rubbish vehicles all over NA from the Big 3. "In their dying days, performance models accounted for almost half of Falcon and Commodore sales, because demand for fleet models had fallen off a cliff as buyers shifted to small cars and SUVs." a car company like Tesla could have come from down yonder. Reducing the cost of a new car will incentivise a faster disposal of these “dangerous” vehicles.In other words, there’s a trend in favour of reducing the vehicle lifecycle. "ABC also reported that Australian opposition leader Bill Shorten called Toyota's decision an "unmitigated disaster". Toyota is one of the last remaining carmakers in Australia Cant help but notice my comment was deleted due to containing political content.