Changing Tastes !

It was not that long ago when the vast majority of cars on Australian roads were either Holdens or Fords.  Then came a wave of innovative Japanese cars and slowly Toyota rose to world dominance - and now both General Motors and Ford are about to cease Australian car manufacturing.

It seems that the word "Holden "is fading from the Australian lexicon and being replaced by "Chevrolet ".   It is not helping that General Motors seems to be going through a rough patch with assembly quality and last year it shared the dubious honour with Jeep in issuing a massive fourteen recalls to fix problems.

Now another recall is in the works.  It seems that the popular Colorado utes and family SUV's have a faulty cable assembly that may come into contact with the battery housing and start a fire.  The company will recall twenty-six thousand vehicles to dealer workshops to have this fault fixed at no cost to the owner, but safety recalls do little to build brand confidence in public minds.

Sadly, what was billed "the car of the future " also seems to be a non starter in Australia.  General Motors has decided not to proceed with a right hand drive version of this innovative electric vehicle and it will not be offered for sale in this country.   It is probable that the sharp fall in oil prices has a lot to do with that decision.  The Volt was supposed to make the move from hybrid petrol/electric combinations to pure electric power and become a volume seller.   That now seems to be a fading dream.

The decisions by Holden and Ford to quit manufacturing in Australia were greeted with shock and dismay at the job losses, but  the car industry is fast moving to robotics and siting factories is now a matter of extracting concessions from countries eager to host operations.   The last few years has seen the Australian taxpayer coughing up an ever increasing subsidy on every car rolling off the assembly line to keep the factory doors open.  Now that local manufacturing no longer needs tariff protection, the Australian motoring public will enter a new era.

Car manufacturing is steadily condensing into an ever decreasing number of manufacturers.  Mergers and acquisitions bring economy of scale and each new year model breaks new ground in the technology race.  We seem to be heading towards the era of the driverless car - and what is amazing is just how much value is packed into vehicles at the lower end of the market in comparison to the selling price.

The biggest problem for those tasked with car design - is the fickle nature of public taste.  The Australian public turned their back on the big family saloon and wagon models of rear wheel drive touring cars like the Commodore and the Falcon.   Firstly, they favoured compacts - and then tastes changed to massive SUV's.   Judging what will find favour twelve months from now seems to be in the realm of crystal ball readers.

Along with design change comes a vast realignment in the vehicle servicing industry.  The service interval gets ever longer, but the modern car has moved beyond the ability of independent car mechanics.  There is a need for factory equipped dealer workshops that allow computer to computer alignment to monitor and decide servicing, and the algorithms necessary will be tightly restricted by the car manufacturers.

The one certain fact is that the cars offered for sale in Australia will continue to meet world standards - and those standards will increase exponentially.    The car we are driving a decade from now will be almost unrecognisable in comparison to what we drive today.