Car manufacturing is ONLY about the numbers. Look at all the points that have been brought up in interviews, market releases etc directly from Holden, GM, Government, Unions, Opposition etc etc
The one resounding thing that they all are in 100% agreement about is that Volume (greater sales) would have saved Holden from closing.
Even Abbott said multiple times if they can do a good export deal on the VF the government would look at the numbers to see if they could financially help Holden with some short term relief to get the export program underway. But he also made it clear that they wouldn't be pumping endless money that was going into a bottomless barrel........ i.e. Holden have no hope of getting a profit in a 100 yrs.
Now as sure as a fresh egg will splatter if you drop it onto a concrete floor the VF dunny might be the best Holden ever built but NO ONE WANTS IT.
GM say they will sell between 1700-2000 Chev SS dunnys per year. WTF LOL
Put a Camaro body on the same platform you sell 85,000 per year. I mean ffs its that bloody dumb how everyone is playing the blame game when its clear HOLDEN where selling the wrong product that EVEN with $8000-$10,000 off what we pay here in Australia (where we make the bloody things) in a market that is 13 times our market size they are considered by GM to be more NICHE than a VETTE.
- Holden was $152.8 million in the red in the 2012 calendar year despite $73.5 million in government funding.
- Its biggest result in the red was $210.6 million in 2009.
- The 2012 figure means Holden has lost $730 million over six of the past eight years, and a $202 million profit over the same period.
- The last time Holden finished in the black, in 2011, the profit of $89.7 million was identical to the taxpayer funding it received in that calendar year.
- Although other General Motors factories in South Korea and Thailand can build cars for $3750 less than Holden does in Australia, the savings likely won’t be passed on because the company made a loss on its locally-made models.
- The Chevrolet SS sports sedan will carry a sticker price of US$44,470, including shipping, making it $10,000 cheaper than buying the equivalent VY Commodore in Australia.
It is like the three stooges designed the whole holden business plan, and obviously from decades of running up massive losses while being charity feed into just plain bone lazy all it took was a few market induced changes in a few area's (ex rate, volume) to show the ineptitude of the whole Holden business Model.
The only Hindsight we can take is that in reality the whole loss making show should have closed decades ago because they obviously management inc GM couldn't run a fish and chip shop using one of their business models. Now obviously after its bankruptcy GM has turned around its models and is now making cars people now want to buy. This is just GM continuing to clean house of dead wood and trying to stay on top of things rather than getting lazy and sloppy like it did. With the end of zeta and switch to alfa for the iconic Camaro the timing for closure on a loss making charity precipitant was perfect.
Commodore Sales
2009 : 44,387
2010 : 45,956
2011 : 40,617
2012: 30,532
So at the end of the day Holden needed to sell around 80,000 dunnys per annum. Now its as clear as being hit over the head with a bit of 4x2 Jarrah that No Way In The World could it do that with the dunnydore as its main and volume product.
If you open your eyes you can see that in the same enormous (13x our market) that if you give the same platform a different market segment the numbers dramatically change. i.e.
Chev SS = 2000 units pa (even with a $10k discount)
Camaro = 85,000 units pa (more niche market being 2 door)
Now this is the key to car manufacturing (POPULARITY) because Chev is massive discounting to try to get someone anyone to buy the unwanted, unloved (except a few fanatics) enormous butt ugly sedan.
Forget all the excuses and bs oh the camaro is this and that, the bloody Camaro is not a volume seller and never will be its a very niche limited market product, its only one step down from the vette.
The bloody Chev SS (dunny) is a big 4 door sedan just as quick etc etc and should have a bigger market but hell one issue THE WORLD DOEST WANT BLOODY BIG SEDANS.
That's why the big whale sized dunny killed Holden and that's why the Alfa platform will be the platform of choice.
It's physical size that kills the hope of any volume sales and the big dunny died years ago.
All this blame cr#p is just knocks, twists and bumps from business and market movements it was not the MAJOR NO1 Problem.
The worst part is that these business fools could have fixed it by doing their job, but to me (and will await management departing whistle-blowers for confirmation) it sure looks like GM had this planned and on their agenda straight after they re-worked their business plan to get through Bankruptcy.. I am not an insider but the numbers speak volumes and anyone who knows anything about business esp big business knows its a numbers game.
I.E. Giving the market what it wanted to buy.
Its not hindsight because the car industry lives its whole life on evolving history data analysis.
Its like Holden trying to sell Ice to the Eskimo's - (wrong product)
Holden: Here guys buy our ice "its the worlds best"
Eskimo: We don't want ice but if you have "a good fire place" for sale we might buy that?
Holden: Sorry we only sell ice, everyone needs ice.
Eskimo: You didn't google us to find out what we wanted or might need?
Holden: No we been making the same ice for decades and it normally sells very well.
Edited by LXSS350, 20 December 2013 - 01:26 PM.
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