Ford Australia

Sad to see. I've always wanted to someday import a Falcon.

But, at the same time losing money on a product is a bad busniess model. GM proved it's not sustainable, and I'm sure Ford's shareholders were wondering why North America is subsidizing Ford AUS. And.... looking at sales figures it appears the Aussies have been buying globalized platforms anyways.

If they cannot make a profit there then they should close down the operations.

Interesting stuff. Like the Aussies are the victims of their own success.....I wonder if the unions will wind up making concessions to save the jobs like they did here in the US.

Ford was/is biggest in manufacturing, Holden is second. Holden announced a major cutback in manufacturing a month or two ago. Ford is closing all manufacturing. The have lost something like $600 million over the past several years, they lose money on every car manufactured there. The cost to manufacture there is twice what it is in Europe and four times what it costs in Asia. So ironic - largely driven by successful unions, and a national economy that did not falter during the 2007/8 economic debacle that devastated Europe and USA, so their economy did well, and their costs relative to the world went way up. The relative value of the $AUS has just about doubled over the past decade. That means the relative cost of salaries and materials has also just about doubled with respect to the $US.

Brian

I think GM's Holden division is the biggest there?

Why? I thought Ford was big in Austrailia.