Miscellaneous Car News

Had a great day riding around on this Honda ST1300ABS. Awesome bike, once I got used to it.
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"Born of a Blue Sky" the film of the Amelia Island Concours this year. Well worth watching, fabulous sights and sounds.

Born Of A Blue Sky: By Justin Lapriore | The Old Motor

 

VW is doing a Porsche. New car looks just like the old one.

http://carsales.mobi/reviews/2013/small-passenger/volkswagen/golf/volkswagen-golf-7-2013-launch-review-36188

 

and just as bland... should be called a Goat not a Golf...

 

Starting from June 1 Porsche will slash prices across its entire range.

Porsche has slashed prices across most of its range by up to $36,300 in an effort to boost sales and reduce hefty price premiums.

But Australians will continue to pay significantly more for the German-engineered sports cars compared with many other countries.

The sports car specialist has reduced the prices of its Boxster, Cayman, 911 and Cayenne SUV ranges, with the Panamera four-door set to follow suit by the end of July 2013 when a new model arrives.

Each car has had its price drop by between 5.1 and 12.9 per cent, which translates to discounts of between $5500 (for the entry-level Boxster) and $36,300 (for the 911 Carrera 4 Cabriolet).

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The changes come into effect on June 1, 2013, which may prompt some buyers to delay a purchase throughout May.

However Porsche anticipates the price reductions – done in response to changes in competitor cars – will ultimately increase sales.

“We had an issue with the pricing strategy of Porsche in Australia,” said Bernhard Maier, member of the board of management responsible for sales and marketing. “Our competitors, some of them have repositioned their brands or products and repositioned their prices accordingly.”

Despite the price reductions Maier said Porsches would always carry a price premium as part of the brand’s strategy to remain exclusive.

“We are not volume driven, we always want to sell one car less than the market is able to bear,” he said. “We want to maintain our exclusivity by maintaining our price premium.

Maier said the move was also about reducing discounting, admitting that many cars had been sold for tens of thousands of dollars than the recommended price as dealers maintained competitiveness.

“We want to achieve bringing the transaction prices quite close to the list prices.”

Maier said the discounts are about better positioning Porsche in Australia for significant sales growth.

The imminent arrival of the new Macan compact SUV – which will sit below the Cayenne and be the brand’s only car to be priced below $100,000 – is expected to grow sales from the current levels of almost 1400 cars annually to about 2500.

“There is always a relationship between price and volume and I suppose this will be more attractive for our customers,” said Maier.

Porsche Australia public relations manager Paul Ellis said the Macan had the potential to be the brand’s best-selling vehicle, overtaking the Cayenne that accounts for more than half of the brand’s sales.

Some cars have received bigger discounts because Porsche is trying to more closely align them with pricing relativity in overseas markets. The four-wheel-drive versions of the 911, for example, have all received price cuts of at least $30,000, whereas other 911 variants are as little as $19,500.

As for buyers who’ve bought a Porsche recently the company is ruling out any cash rebates but says it will look at individual cases for people who think they have paid over the odds when considering the price reductions.

“The reality is with the 911 ... the transaction price has been close to or at the new pricing,” said Ellis.

“There will be no reimbursals ... no cash rebates. We will do an audit on each particular customer where they perceive they have an issue or a disadvantage with this new pricing.”

Despite the massive price drops Australians will still pay significantly more for a Porsche than people in many other major markets.

For example, in the United States the basic Porsche 911 is listed at $84,300, plus local taxes.

In Australia the same car is $206,500, plus on-road costs - even with the recent discount.

Given the Australian dollar is these days stronger than the US dollar it’s understandable why many local buyers have a sour taste about what is perceived to be a massive mark up.

Luxury car makers quickly point to Australian taxes, including the controversial luxury car tax that singles out cars but ignores more luxurious items such as boats, helicopters and jewellery.

As well as a 5 per cent import duty, 10 per cent GST and state stamp duties, cars costing more than $59,133 attract a 33 per cent luxury car tax, which is added on top of the other taxes.

But it still doesn’t account for the huge premiums paid by Australians.

“We have to deal with different currencies, we have to stabilise the currencies,” said Maier. “This we can’t change day after day.”

 

Oh, that agreement

This rape and pillage of Aussie car buyers is disgusting
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And all to protect our local car manufacturers who are so uncompetitive that we then have to go and give them $2.5 billion of our money paid; in taxes.

You could also go on about all the taxes in petrol and the revenue raised from fines. How much of that goes into providing better roads and infrastructure? There are 2 million more cars on Victoria's roads than there were 10 years ago. Yet the Government wants to toll any new road infrastructure. Grrrr

 

yeah...but what's the reason we're uncompetitive?

Probably wages......and they can't be changed because of the high cost of living here.

Vicious circle.

And think of how many people it would affect if the subsidies weren't paid. Not just the manufacturers' employees, but everyone involved in the car industry. What would the cost be in dole payments?

 

+1 It is a disgusting shambles and ultimately a waste of money.

The other factor is that, leaving aside duty and LCT, the importers are still applying a huge uplift, because the relative premiums (e.g. price of a 911 compared to a HSV) buyers are accustomed to paying are being maintained and accepted by the market.

If the government allowed parallel importing for new cars, the premiums would disappear overnight, as we've seen with 360 prices.

I suspect the current situation is as much about smart lobbying by importers as it is about protecting local manufacturers. The states also benefit, as registration stamp duty is based on the drive away price.

No votes for either side in making flash cars cheaper, so nothing will change.

 

the world has a massive oversupply of car manufacturing capacity, because govts everywhere subsidise their local industry. The only exception is Germany, because people actually want their cars.

Australia suffers from a small market and inflated costs across the board - it's not just wages, it is throughout the cycle. A good portion is red tape - I am aghast at what is involved for my 80 person company to comply with the latest workplace regulations. We are being killed by politicians' constant fiddling with the rules.

The manufacturers will go eventually, its just a matter of time. We will get the dole costs anyway, why continue to pour money into (American owned) companies?

 

My toy for a few days.
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Looks very "Dykes on Bikes"

NTTIAWWT

 

Why else would I be riding it?

 

Cookies must be enabled | Herald Sun

You really notice how expensive Australia has become when you visit other countries. Europe used to be horrendously expensive to visit 25-30 years ago, now it's dirt cheap compared to home.

I distinctly remember a trip to Stockholm as a 15 yr old with my parents. The food was so expensive that my old man wouldn't let us order anything but an entree. Now you can go there and eat a full 3 course meal for a fraction of the cost here.
We are getting absolutely reamed with taxes and mark ups in this country.

 

From the sublime to the ridiculous. Why would someone who rides an electric scooter be interested in riding a lounge room on 2 wheels ?

 

Surely that's because of our strong dollar more than anything else.

 

I thought "why the hell not?"

 

You've touched on some good points.

Our dollar is high mainly because of the demand for resources, and our strong currency makes imports ( relatively ) cheaper. Add to that the relatively high wages ( mainly due to labour/skills shortage) and small domestic market ( which doen't provide economies of scale ) it's not hard to see why manufacturing is not doing that well in Australia. This has all happened in the context of the rise of China as a low cost manufacturer of eveything in the past 20 years.

The global shift in manufacturing to China has affected all western countries, Australia is relatively fortunate compared to many countries because we have a large resources sector, without it we would be in pretty poor shape.

Comparing say the German (car) manufacturing industry to Australia isn't valid. They have a much larger local market, and the European market at their doorstep is even bigger. The Germans also benefitted significantly from the rebuilding of all their industry after WW2, which put them in pretty good shape in the 60-70's and built the foundation of where they are now.

From a purely economic sense, propping up manufacturing in Australia is a waste of money. However there are other considerations - there are some industries that are considered strategic to Australia's interest, so the government does support them - eg military shipbuilding and the automotive sector are examples. Its probably also cheaper to support and industry than paying for all unemployed people and dealing with the resultant social problems.

M

 

I read today that the car companies state there are 50,000 jobs at stake, including those companies that supply parts to the car companies.

I can't see dole payments for those people from redundancy to new job costing $2.5 billion.
Not even close would be my guess.

 

Partly of course; but the long term average value of the Aussie dollar compared to the US dollar is about 82 cents from memory. The difference is WAY more than 20%, way more.

 

What about the US car giants where they rolled into town in their private jets with hands out for billions to keep their car industry afloat ..... GM were the worst I think and the flow on effect to "Aussie " Holdens

 

History is littered with examples such as these.
I remember Kodak in Australia being handed tens of millions of dollars to keep their 135mm film production plant going in Coburg in the interests of keeping people in jobs. The digital age was taking off and anyone with half a brain could see digital was going to kill off traditional film. Sure enough, 18mths or so later they shut the plant, sacked the workforce and retreated to America. All the money spent by the Oz tax payers counted for nothing AND we still had to pay the dole for the workforce in the end. The same thing will happen with our car industry, you can see it coming a mile off.

 

Amazing riding!

Pete

 

Holden needs to build a hybrid to future proof them.

I cannot understand why they invested apparently billions in the designing of the current Commodore platform when it was uneconomical from day one. It should have had a diesel model in the range and/or a hybrid and no new car should be designed with a bigger engine than 2.5 litres. If you design a good engine that is all you need.

Designing a new platform should be thinking 20 years ahead. Even me, a confirmed idiot, can see that hybrids and fuel economy was the future more than 5 years ago, how could GM and Holden have their head in the sand so badly.

They missed the mark by so far that the first questions on its press release was about economy and they couldn't answer it, or said something along the lines there will be another car in the range for that ... WTF!!!

I see plenty of Cruises in Sydney ... a rear wheel drive version of a car that size should have been the new Commodore with as I've already said diesel or hybrid versions.

They deserve to go out of business, but unfortunately the people putting them together don't, it is the management that should be sacked not the workers.

IMO our Government should be ensuring OUR investment is well spent and I doubt this is happening. They should be stipulating emission and fuel economy figures that are really aggressive and that is a requirement for government funds. We have to tell these local car manufacturing idiots we demand modern products to ensure they are competitive.
Pete

 

It's the failure of the Cruize that is leading to Holden shutting down the Adelaide plant from memory, and then you have this :

We must repair relationship with Holden says SA Premier Jay Weatherill | adelaidenow

The short story here for Horse is that the US CEO of GM and the Aussie equivalent did a handshake deal over the jobs in SA for $50M but never got a signed contract whereas in VIC the same deal was done but they got a contract and now rightly say they will not give them a cent due to the 100 people sacked.

Trusting the US corporate execs is like the Poland treaty all over again, I never realised how appropriate the following picture is for a lot of current affairs, Vettel will probably make a good CEO of a large corporation one day
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