The Thailand Special Thread - New Developments/News

[jpd80]

Originally Posted by Travesty

Just one of many, many "unintended" consequences of Ford, Toyota and Holden shutting up shop in Australia. We (as in Australia) haven't begun to feel the full effect of this exceptionally deleterious decision.

Isn’t it funny how free trade agreements were pushed
to end tariffs and protection of the local car industry.
That may have resulted in cheaper cars and a lid on
higher prices while Ford, Holden and Toyota made
vehicles in Australia but todays reality is the complete
opposite. Only a few short years after local manufacturing
ended, all brands started jacking up prices because thanks
to COVID, they all discovered that people would mostly
keep paying higher prices.
I guess the irony is lost on all those politicians that were
bent in ending government support for a local industry.
It’s like, Whoosh, straight over their heads just how
much was lost in terms of how much money used to
stay here in Australia.

Water under the bridge, end of rant.

[Travesty]

Originally Posted by jpd80

Isn’t it funny how free trade agreements were pushed to end tariffs and protection of the local car industry.That may have resulted in cheaper cars and a lid onhigher prices while Ford, Holden and Toyota made vehicles in Australia but todays reality is the complete opposite. Only a few short years after local manufacturing ended, all brands started jacking up prices because thanksto COVID, they all discovered that people would mostlykeep paying higher prices. I guess the irony is lost on all those politicians that werebent in ending government support for a local industry.It’s like, Whoosh, straight over their heads just how much was lost in terms of how much money used to stay here in Australia.Water under the bridge, end of rant.

It shouldn't be water under the bridge, what successive governments did with respect to the auto industry is tantamount to economic terrorism. By destroying car manufacturing, they didn't just kill it, they destroyed an entire ecosystem that was for vital to the country. Gone are the engineering jobs, gone are the apprenticeships, gone is the intellectual property (as is the knowledge base and thousands of years of cumulative experience).

Those in government knew full well the consequences of their actions that they parroted as for the good of the country. And no accountability...

[randel]

Originally Posted by jpd80

Isn’t it funny how free trade agreements were pushed
to end tariffs and protection of the local car industry.
That may have resulted in cheaper cars and a lid on
higher prices while Ford, Holden and Toyota made
vehicles in Australia but todays reality is the complete
opposite. Only a few short years after local manufacturing
ended, all brands started jacking up prices because thanks
to COVID, they all discovered that people would mostly
keep paying higher prices.
I guess the irony is lost on all those politicians that were
bent in ending government support for a local industry.
It’s like, Whoosh, straight over their heads just how
much was lost in terms of how much money used to
stay here in Australia.

Water under the bridge, end of rant.

Can not like this post enought - agree 100%

[jpd80]

Originally Posted by Travesty

It shouldn't be water under the bridge, what successive governments did with respect to the auto industry is tantamount to economic terrorism. By destroying car manufacturing, they didn't just kill it, they destroyed an entire ecosystem that was for vital to the country. Gone are the engineering jobs, gone are the apprenticeships, gone is the intellectual property (as is the knowledge base and thousands of years of cumulative experience).

Those in government knew full well the consequences of their actions that they parroted as for the good of the country. And no accountability...

Absolutely and is water under the bridge because once shut down, can never be restarted.

The reason that successive governments let it go is exactly because :
1. GST on new vehicle sales is not adversely affected, actually rises with rising price.
2. Even though all vehicles are imported, local service centres still charge GST on all services.

In essence, the government took the lazy way out by doing nothing (no financial support)
it still recovers significantly GST from sales and servicing with many jobs outside of local
manufacturing continuing. The short sighted part is that the failed to see why local production
that didn’t earn much profit was so successful for Australia, most of that spent money stayed here
and benefitted a much wider working community with increased business activity.

Bringing this back around to on topic, I think some benefit can be gained by
chasing post manufacture conversions of up fitting:
- efficient RHD conversions that bring some desirable vehicles within reach
- changes/modifications to make Rangers bigger/stronger, longer wheelbase versions,
maybe dual wheel axle options, start with things that mean something ot buyers.

[Sprintey]

Originally Posted by russellw

How quickly we have adapted to the new world pricing. It's not overly relevant to this thread but I posted this elsewhere so here is an abridged version.

The price of the last base model Territory (TX Petrol RWD) was $30,670 including ORC so if we add the 24.8% for inflation between 2017 and now, it should now cost $38,276 and the top of the range Titanium AWD which was $54,890 on-road would be $68,502. More accurately, before that final price decrease the base Territory was $35,640 which would be $44,478 now so let's use that as the baseline and the Titanium baseline remains $68,502.The base Everest is now $60,251 (in Victoria) which is ~$16k or 35.9% more than the Territory would be if it were still around while the range topping Platinum is $90,399 or ~$22k (32.1%) higher.It's probably not a fair comparison as the Everest was considerably dearer than the Territory back in 2017 as the first step in getting consumers used to the new world of pricing. A better example is to pick something like the Toyota Prado that was on sale then as well. The base Prado GXL was pretty much line ball with the Territory at $36,500 (on-road) and the range topping Kakadu was $66,400.

If we only factor in the CPI increase then these should be $45,552 and $82,867 respectively. The current base model (GX) is now $78,395 drive-away which is nearly $33,000 or 72% more than it should be while the Kakadu is $115,167 which is the same $33,000 above expected although in this case it's only 42%.The reality is that the major importers were holding their prices artificially low (but still profitable) because the local manufacturers provided enough competition to set the market expectations and they do so in every market except the Japanese and Koreans don't have to do it in their own local markets thanks to import tariffs keeping imports down to a trickle.

If you are still not convinced let's look at the Toyota Hilux. The mid range SR5 4x4 dual cab ute was $34,500 in 2017 and if we add the CPI uplift it should be about $43,056 but instead it is currently $55,190 or $12,000 (27%) above expectations.

We all bitched for decades about the build quality and features of our Australian produced cars when compared to the Japanese (then Korean) imports and then we bitched about paying import tariffs that artificially inflated the cost of those imports.We got our way. Import duties dropped from 20% to 10% in 2005 and then 5% in 2010 and then nothing for FTA countries and our local industry disappeared along with that protection. Easy to argue that we weren't competitive without the protection of tariffs but is that really the case or was the presence of local manufacturing setting price points that the importers had to compete with?

Great post Russell, it brings home how much we are now getting ripped after the loss of the domestic industry. Those last Territory Petrol RWD prices were very good indeed!

Rant: Australia has to be the dumbest country on earth to do this to it's industry, Australian economic complexity now ranks 102nd out of 145 worldwide (we are one spot above Yemen, which is currently being bombed into a worse state than it was in). Our policy makers actually decided to do this.

[Dr Smith]

Originally Posted by jpd80

That might have been the case a few years back when supply was really limited
but things have changed, particularly after supply of V6 freed up and the other
transport ship came on line. A lot of the back orders have been brought down
to more reasonable wait times but more dealer stock definitely helping

If you get bad vibes from local dealer, maybe shopping around helps,
guy a few years back put new vehicle he wanted out to tender to
five or six dealers, let them all see and picked best


Great to hear, seeing some deals on new Transit Custom, fingers crossed
you get a great deal, no matter what you end up with.

I was about to order a Transit Custom to replace our 2017 but for some reason got sidetracked...probably because the Vito was in the panel shop and in that time the Transit Custom Trail has been announced with AWD...so I'm probably going to buy one of these instead as it gives us another van that can tow over 2,000kg easily up steep gravel roads where low speed traction is vital.

[Dr Smith]

Who would have thought that local manufacturers had to keep their plants running and so priced their products at a level which also held the importers to a pricing structure in step to be competitive.......don't worry....a serviced based nation is where we were told we had to go to succeed...until we found out that when overseas manufacturers had hiccups or favoured others... then being a serviced based nation doesn't help us when we actually need "things" that you hold, use and work with...