Bye Bye GM in Australia, New Zealand and Thailand

"404 - User No Longer Available" (toni-cipriani) 02/16/2020 at 21:43 • Filed to: GM

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So the real BOF Blazer and all the Opels Daewoos Holdens are all done, I suppose.

GM Thailand would be sold to the Chinese, although I do wonder why hasn’t the VE/VF platform tooling been sold yet.

pip bip - choose Corrour > 404 - User No Longer Available 02/16/2020 at 21:49

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Disgusting piss poor management led by Mary Barra

404 - User No Longer Available > pip bip - choose Corrour 02/16/2020 at 21:53

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Funny how my Australian coworker actually hates Holdens. He’s probably happy with this news.

To be fair though, I sense the Australian domestic car market has the same issue as the American market, i.e. the “I’m not paying that much for a Holden/Chevy/Buick/Ford ” syndrome. From a business standpoint it’s kinda hard to justify investment to make it better if they can’t sell it for more.

jimz > 404 - User No Longer Available 02/16/2020 at 21:58

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Yeah, it’s weird.  Apparently Americans and Australians are similar in that they want to have their cake and eat it too. 

Nauraushaun > pip bip - choose Corrour 02/16/2020 at 22:02

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Isn’t this classic GM? They’ve always been shit at building cars and shitter at adapting to change. I feel like they’ve been getting by for 50 years, because Americans want American cars and Australians think Holden is more Australian than it is. But they really never recovered from the Japanese taking their market in the goddam 80s, and they certainly didn’t bounce back when people stopped buying sedans 10 years ago. They certainly were never going to handle the current era of turmoil well were they?

Ever hear people who really know GM, talk about GM?

Oh yeah, X GM build/paint/interior quality was pretty bad.

Replace X with “00s”. Or 80s. 90s. Literally any decade since the 60s.

It’s sad, but GM has never really been good.

Distraxi's idea of perfection is a Jagroen > 404 - User No Longer Available 02/16/2020 at 22:07

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Pretty much inevitable after they sold their European opera t ions. GM never had much traction in Japan, which meant with UK out of the picture remaining RHD markets were all piss-ant .

Shame though. RIP the big red.

beardsbynelly - Rikerbeard > 404 - User No Longer Available 02/16/2020 at 22:19

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That’s not been my experience at all.
There’s a bit of anti-bogan stigma but it’s pretty borderline.

Holden/GM’s biggest problem is they just couldn’t keep up with Toyota, Mazda, Hyundai.
The market here is too small and without the local manufacturing there’s no Tax breaks for companies to lease Holdens as fleet vehicles anymore.

Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire > Nauraushaun 02/16/2020 at 22:33

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GM has had their moments of greatness, it’s just that the Pacific region has never been a large enough sales region. Only 1.1 million new  cars were sold in Australia last year vs America’s 17.1.

Nom De Plume > Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire 02/16/2020 at 22:42

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So following on from your birth announcement. Will there be a commensurate death toll announced to establish the flux in population?  

carcrasher88 > 404 - User No Longer Available 02/16/2020 at 23:29

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Actually...the BOF TrailBlazer won’t be done, since they’re also built in Brasil. It’ll just reduce the markets it’s sold in.

Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and likely India will see it dissapear, while South Africa, for example, will likely shift from Thai imports to Brasil imports.

Not sure on Saudi Arabia, but I’m sure there will be enough demand there to warrant shifting to Brasil imports as well.

LastFirstMI is my name > Nauraushaun 02/17/2020 at 01:51

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I was living in OKC when the GM plant closed; the paper ran an article about all of the cars that had been built there, and I wouldn’t have bought a single one. Citation, C elebrity, Pontiac 6000, Ascender, Trailblazer, Envoy....

From the newspaper:

August: “Officials upbeat over GM future. Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett emerged with renewed optimism from a meeting he and Gov. Brad Henry had with top General Motors executives“

November : “ General Motors announces it will eliminate 30,000 jobs and close nine North American assembly plants, including the plant in Oklahoma City.“

Was it it that GM management misled the Governor and Mayor, or maybe they really didn’t know they were on a sinking ship? Dishonest or incompetent?

pip bip - choose Corrour > Nauraushaun 02/17/2020 at 02:17

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yup

winterlegacy, here 'till the end > 404 - User No Longer Available 02/17/2020 at 02:33

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GM's only strong market is the US market. They seem to be blundering everywhere else.

pip bip - choose Corrour > 404 - User No Longer Available 02/17/2020 at 02:39

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and yes, GM plant in Thailand will be sold to Great Wall (per BBC)