Will Adelaide Mitsubishi factory last?

[Ext User(Dan---)]

Not to shit stir.

Robert McEniry says the Adelaide Mitsubishi factory will have to seek
funding from Japan to keep the factory running.

Tokyo will have to approve a 380 replacement plan for the Adelaide plant
to survive another decade.

Mitsubishi Australia is talking to Tokyo about replacing its 380 sedans to
keep its Adelaide factory alive into the next decade.

Mitsubishi Motors in Japan is working on a large-car replacement and the
Australian arm has just begun its pitch for fresh investment.

Mitsubishi Australia CEO Robert McEniry said Adelaide's Tonsley Park
assembly plant could build the next model “if it makes business sense for
them (Mitsubishi Motors Corp) as part of their global manufacturing
footprint."

However, it would not work at current 380 production levels and could not
be funded by Australia. “We will have to go to Japan to ask for money,” Mr
McEniry said yesterday.

“The 380's life cycle runs out to 2011, so we'll be due to start talking
about replacement plans over the next 12 or so months.”

Unlike the current car, the 380 replacement would not be specific to
Australia but part of Mitsubishi's global model strategy.

Local design and engineering work would probably be limited to fine-tuning
the suspension for Australian conditions.

Mitsubishi Australia spent $600 million on the 380, which began as a US
model before being re-engineered for the local market.

However, its launch two years ago coincided with a slump in demand for
large cars and it has never met sales expectations of 30,000 a year. The
Adelaide outfit restructured last year, closing its Lonsdale foundry with
the loss of 670 jobs.

Mr McEniry said the current production level of 10,000 380s a year was
sustainable.

Financial results due in two months would show an improvement on last
year's $226 million loss, although the company was not yet in the black.
Write-offs over the past couple of years meant it was possible to sustain
380 production at 50 cars a day. “Effectively, we wrote off all the
investment in the plant and in the car, which then results in production
at variable cost,” he said.


Ok was to stir up ozone and his sockpuppets.
;-)
--
Regards
Dan

[Ext User(Noddy)]

"Dan---" <nospam@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:139bb0vn535bh02@corp.supernews.com...

> Not to shit stir.

Of course not :)

> Robert McEniry says the Adelaide Mitsubishi factory will have to seek
> funding from Japan to keep the factory running.

No surprises there.

Selling 700 cars a month if you're lucky isn't sustainable given the
reported investment in the model.

Still, the alleged 500 million development costs of the 380 have to be taken
with a grain of salt in my opinion, as I'm fucked if I know how you can take
an existing car, spend half a billion dollars on it and release it in
another country having it look almost identical to the car you started with.

Only two possibilities for that to happen: You're talking shit about the 500
mil, or you have no fucking idea how to do anything other than waste money
on a *grand* scale.

> Tokyo will have to approve a 380 replacement plan for the Adelaide plant
> to survive another decade.

I would have thought Tokyo would have to approve the next batch of 380's to
be built as soon as they manage to sell the 5000 odd they have sitting
around now doing nothing :)

--
Regards,
Noddy.

[Ext User(Dan---)]

On Thu, 12 Jul 2007 15:33:56 +1000, Noddy PCM code reading says:


> I would have thought Tokyo would have to approve the next batch of 380's
> to be built as soon as they manage to sell the 5000 odd they have
> sitting around now doing nothing :)

Maybe they should offer free dresses and shoes and hats with them and call
it the Peter Wherrett edition.

No wait that would decrease sales it would be like calling Dame Edna a
real woman.


--
Regards
Dan

[Ext User(Ron)]

Dan--- <nospam@nospam.com> wrote in
news:139bb0vn535bh02@corp.supernews.com:

> Not to shit stir.
>
> Robert McEniry says the Adelaide Mitsubishi factory will have to seek
> funding from Japan to keep the factory running.
>
> Tokyo will have to approve a 380 replacement plan for the Adelaide
> plant to survive another decade.
>
> Mitsubishi Australia is talking to Tokyo about replacing its 380
> sedans to keep its Adelaide factory alive into the next decade.
>
> Mitsubishi Motors in Japan is working on a large-car replacement and
> the Australian arm has just begun its pitch for fresh investment.
>
> Mitsubishi Australia CEO Robert McEniry said Adelaide's Tonsley Park
> assembly plant could build the next model “if it makes business
> sense for them (Mitsubishi Motors Corp) as part of their global
> manufacturing footprint."
>
> However, it would not work at current 380 production levels and could
> not be funded by Australia. “We will have to go to Japan to ask for
> money,” Mr McEniry said yesterday.
>
> “The 380's life cycle runs out to 2011, so we'll be due to start
> talking about replacement plans over the next 12 or so months.”
>
> Unlike the current car, the 380 replacement would not be specific to
> Australia but part of Mitsubishi's global model strategy.
>
> Local design and engineering work would probably be limited to
> fine-tuning the suspension for Australian conditions.
>
> Mitsubishi Australia spent $600 million on the 380, which began as a
> US model before being re-engineered for the local market.
>
> However, its launch two years ago coincided with a slump in demand for
> large cars and it has never met sales expectations of 30,000 a year.
> The Adelaide outfit restructured last year, closing its Lonsdale
> foundry with the loss of 670 jobs.
>
> Mr McEniry said the current production level of 10,000 380s a year was
> sustainable.
>
> Financial results due in two months would show an improvement on last
> year's $226 million loss, although the company was not yet in the
> black. Write-offs over the past couple of years meant it was possible
> to sustain 380 production at 50 cars a day. “Effectively, we wrote
> off all the investment in the plant and in the car, which then results
> in production at variable cost,” he said.
>
>
> Ok was to stir up ozone and his sockpuppets.
> ;-)

If the Japs throw more money at MMAL, they will have more money that
sense. If it had been me, that joint would have been shut down and now
making washing machines, years ago :-)

[Ext User(Marco)]

On Jul 12, 2:20 pm, Dan--- <nos...@nospam.com> wrote:
>
> Mr McEniry said the current production level of 10,000 380s a year was
> sustainable.
>
> Financial results due in two months would show an improvement on last
> year's $226 million loss, although the company was not yet in the black.
> Write-offs over the past couple of years meant it was possible to sustain
> 380 production at 50 cars a day. "Effectively, we wrote off all the
> investment in the plant and in the car, which then results in production
> at variable cost," he said.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but does this mean the only reason MMAL is
not in a worse financial position than it appears is that it has
written off the development and tooling cost of the 380? In other
words, if you were to take the 'big picture' in terms of what they
spent on the 380 compared to what they've made from selling it, then
there's a huge loss of money involved.

10,000 cars a year is only sustainable if your development costs are
low or your prices are high, because that's well and truly a niche
market volume. So it may be that they can keep going on 10,000 cars a
year if they take the next model that Tokyo designs for them and make
no changes whatsoever before putting it into production.

A better plan would be to build a car that could be exported, even if
that means fewer local sales. It seems to be working for Holden and
Toyota.

I was only thinking last night that I suspect in ten years time the
Australian car industry will consist of General Motors and Toyota -
and I hope that I'm wrong.

Marco

[Ext User(Athol)]

Dan--- <nospam@nospam.com> wrote:

>> I would have thought Tokyo would have to approve the next batch of 380's
>> to be built as soon as they manage to sell the 5000 odd they have
>> sitting around now doing nothing :)

> Maybe they should offer free dresses and shoes and hats with them and call
> it the Peter Wherrett edition.

I doubt that Peter would put his name to them, but I can ask if you'd
like. :-p

> No wait that would decrease sales it would be like calling Dame Edna a
> real woman.

I doubt that a Peter Wherrett edition of the 380 would make much
difference to sales, even though the age demographic for potential
private buyers of the 380 would mean that some of them would remember his
name...

Building a Dame Edna Edition would have more chance of increasing sales.
The target market are the sort of people who think that DE is funny...

--
Athol
<http://cust.idl.com.au/athol> Linux Registered User # 254000
I'm a Libran Engineer. I don't argue, I discuss.

[Ext User(Noddy)]

"Marco" <ignition.vess@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1184222031.732334.151900@g4g2000hsf.googlegro ups.com...

> Correct me if I'm wrong, but does this mean the only reason MMAL is
> not in a worse financial position than it appears is that it has
> written off the development and tooling cost of the 380? In other
> words, if you were to take the 'big picture' in terms of what they
> spent on the 380 compared to what they've made from selling it, then
> there's a huge loss of money involved.

It would appear to you & me, but not to "accounting experts" like Oz who
seem to think that if you write off a cost for an item then any money you
make after that is pure profit.

Sorry, nit just Oz. MMAL as well it seems :)

> 10,000 cars a year is only sustainable if your development costs are
> low or your prices are high, because that's well and truly a niche
> market volume.

It is indeed.

> So it may be that they can keep going on 10,000 cars a
> year if they take the next model that Tokyo designs for them and make
> no changes whatsoever before putting it into production.

Possibly, but it'd need to be something popular, and that gives them a fair
chunk of profit per unit sold.

Currently they're not doing either, and I expect that they won't in the
future unless they go into the low volume exotic segment of the market.

> A better plan would be to build a car that could be exported, even if
> that means fewer local sales. It seems to be working for Holden and
> Toyota.

Toyota definitely, but Holden's export fortunes are somewhat mixed.

The VE's proving to be a pretty popular car (and deservedly so in my
opinion), and even though they've done the deal on it being the '08 Pontiac
G8 in the US it's been confirmed that production will move to a plant in
Canada after a small amount of Australian made models have been exported.

I expect it's for no reason other than keeping shipping costs down, but I
also think Holden would prefer to make the things themselves rather than
have some plant in Ontario doing it.

> I was only thinking last night that I suspect in ten years time the
> Australian car industry will consist of General Motors and Toyota -
> and I hope that I'm wrong.

Toyota's probably the only certainty :)

--
Regards,
Noddy.

[Ext User(Daryl Walford)]

Noddy wrote:

>> I was only thinking last night that I suspect in ten years time the
>> Australian car industry will consist of General Motors and Toyota -
>> and I hope that I'm wrong.
>
> Toyota's probably the only certainty :)

Agreed and I think thats because Toyota don't make a model just for
Australia, the locally built Camry does vary from Camry's built in other
places but its basically the same car world wide.
IMO Holden and Ford would need to do something similar to survive and
Holden may have already started on that path if the Commodore based
Pontiac is a success.


Daryl

[Ext User(Noddy)]

"Daryl Walford" <dwalford@internode.on.net> wrote in message
news:139c2u52j6n7c8e@corp.supernews.com...

> Agreed and I think thats because Toyota don't make a model just for
> Australia, the locally built Camry does vary from Camry's built in other
> places but its basically the same car world wide.
> IMO Holden and Ford would need to do something similar to survive and
> Holden may have already started on that path if the Commodore based
> Pontiac is a success.

Holden has had a fairly successful export side to it's business for quite a
while, with cars going to a lot of countries in Asia and other places like
South Africa & the Middle East. The Pontiac deal is a good one, but
unfortunately for them they won't be reaping all the benefits.

Bob Lutz, the head of GM's product development department in the US was
commenting on the G8 deal, and one of the things he said was "There is no
way we could have spent 500-600 million for a rear wheel drive sedan
exclusive for Pontiac".

This was something I found very interesting given the fact that the '09
Comaro and next generation Impala are going to be based on the VE's "Zeta"
platform, and I would presume they expect to sell maybe 100,000 or more
units of the same basic car with different badging.

The interesting part such thinking made Mitsubishi's 500 million rehash of
the 380 look like an appallingly bad business decision.

--
Regards,
Noddy.

[Ext User()]

> Agreed and I think thats because Toyota don't make a model just for
> Australia, the locally built Camry does vary from Camry's built in other
> places but its basically the same car world wide.
> IMO Holden and Ford would need to do something similar to survive and
> Holden may have already started on that path if the Commodore based
> Pontiac is a success.


Well instead of today's Proton, Daewoo & Hyundai we will have Mahindra,
Geely & Chery.
The names & faces of the vehicles change, the basic premise behind them does
not.

Holden seem to be set, the Americans, British & Arabs love the Commy no
matter what badge is on it. Along with Daewoo making the rest of their cars
on the cheap, no real issue there.

Ford have Orion in the works but that remains to be seen. If they had a
decent V8 on the menu, they'd be pretty set. No point buying the 8 when the
xr6t well and truly outdoes it with an exhaust & chip.

The Americans love driving disposable sofas on wheels that can do 0-60 in 3
seconds, so GM won't be going anywhere.

In 10 years, I'll look back and laugh at my outrageous ideals, but hey.
Hopefully we don't lose the good ones to the cheap & nasties.

-mark

[Ext User(David Z)]

"Marco" <ignition.vess@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1184222031.732334.151900@g4g2000hsf.googlegro ups.com...
> On Jul 12, 2:20 pm, Dan--- <nos...@nospam.com> wrote:
>>
>> Mr McEniry said the current production level of 10,000 380s a year was
>> sustainable.
>>
>> Financial results due in two months would show an improvement on last
>> year's $226 million loss, although the company was not yet in the black.
>> Write-offs over the past couple of years meant it was possible to sustain
>> 380 production at 50 cars a day. "Effectively, we wrote off all the
>> investment in the plant and in the car, which then results in production
>> at variable cost," he said.
>
> Correct me if I'm wrong, but does this mean the only reason MMAL is
> not in a worse financial position than it appears is that it has
> written off the development and tooling cost of the 380? In other
> words, if you were to take the 'big picture' in terms of what they
> spent on the 380 compared to what they've made from selling it, then
> there's a huge loss of money involved.
>
> 10,000 cars a year is only sustainable if your development costs are
> low or your prices are high, because that's well and truly a niche
> market volume. So it may be that they can keep going on 10,000 cars a
> year if they take the next model that Tokyo designs for them and make
> no changes whatsoever before putting it into production.
>
> A better plan would be to build a car that could be exported, even if
> that means fewer local sales. It seems to be working for Holden and
> Toyota.
>
> I was only thinking last night that I suspect in ten years time the
> Australian car industry will consist of General Motors and Toyota -
> and I hope that I'm wrong.

Well, in the long run, all four local manufacturers are doomed, but for a
different reason. The rising cost of fuel will mean it will no longer be
practical to use a car for most things. In 10 years time I can easily see
fuel being 5 times the cost it is now, if not more. Would you pay $75 to
commute to work each day?? New car sales will plummet, spelling the end for
the locals.

[Ext User(Klokmeester)]

"David Z" <dave@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:S3sli.6297$4A1.3436@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
> "Marco" <ignition.vess@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1184222031.732334.151900@g4g2000hsf.googlegro ups.com...
>> On Jul 12, 2:20 pm, Dan--- <nos...@nospam.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Mr McEniry said the current production level of 10,000 380s a year was
>>> sustainable.
>>>
>>> Financial results due in two months would show an improvement on last
>>> year's $226 million loss, although the company was not yet in the black.
>>> Write-offs over the past couple of years meant it was possible to
>>> sustain
>>> 380 production at 50 cars a day. "Effectively, we wrote off all the
>>> investment in the plant and in the car, which then results in production
>>> at variable cost," he said.
>>
>> Correct me if I'm wrong, but does this mean the only reason MMAL is
>> not in a worse financial position than it appears is that it has
>> written off the development and tooling cost of the 380? In other
>> words, if you were to take the 'big picture' in terms of what they
>> spent on the 380 compared to what they've made from selling it, then
>> there's a huge loss of money involved.
>>
>> 10,000 cars a year is only sustainable if your development costs are
>> low or your prices are high, because that's well and truly a niche
>> market volume. So it may be that they can keep going on 10,000 cars a
>> year if they take the next model that Tokyo designs for them and make
>> no changes whatsoever before putting it into production.
>>
>> A better plan would be to build a car that could be exported, even if
>> that means fewer local sales. It seems to be working for Holden and
>> Toyota.
>>
>> I was only thinking last night that I suspect in ten years time the
>> Australian car industry will consist of General Motors and Toyota -
>> and I hope that I'm wrong.
>
> Well, in the long run, all four local manufacturers are doomed, but for a
> different reason. The rising cost of fuel will mean it will no longer be
> practical to use a car for most things. In 10 years time I can easily see
> fuel being 5 times the cost it is now, if not more. Would you pay $75 to
> commute to work each day?? New car sales will plummet, spelling the end
> for the locals.

Not if they adapt to a changing market obviously.

[Ext User(Marco)]

On Jul 12, 9:08 pm, Daryl Walford <dwalf...@internode.on.net> wrote:
>
> Agreed and I think thats because Toyota don't make a model just for
> Australia, the locally built Camry does vary from Camry's built in other
> places but its basically the same car world wide.

Having said that, that also means that Toyota Japan could decide
tomorrow that all of the Middle East's Camrys will come from China
rather than Australia and Toyota Australia will be stuffed. There's
pros and cons to not building a unique product. (Not that the same
thing couldn't happen to Holden, just not as quickly or easily).

> IMO Holden and Ford would need to do something similar to survive and
> Holden may have already started on that path if the Commodore based
> Pontiac is a success.

As I said, Holden is already well down this path and has been for
years - first with the VT based exports to the Middle East (which
these days sees more Statesmans exported than sold locally, for
example) and now with the G8 deal. The real risk for Holden would be
GM deciding to build Commodore-based products overseas which would
again lower the output of the Elizabeth plant - but that's no
different to the risk that Toyota faces.

The saving grace may be that the local market may not like the idea of
an imported Commodore - but then, you never know. The average
Australian consumer no longer seems to care where any of the products
they buy are made. I'll leave it up to you to decide whether that's a
good or a bad thing.

Marco

[Ext User(Marco)]

On Jul 13, 1:49 am, "David Z" <d...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Well, in the long run, all four local manufacturers are doomed, but for a
> different reason. The rising cost of fuel will mean it will no longer be
> practical to use a car for most things. In 10 years time I can easily see
> fuel being 5 times the cost it is now, if not more. Would you pay $75 to
> commute to work each day?? New car sales will plummet, spelling the end for
> the locals.

Your basic premise assumes the car industry will simply sit there and
do nothign while fuel prices go through the roof, which is unlikely -
they are in business to make money, after all, and will respond to
changing market trends.

I can see fuel costing more in five years, but not 5 times as much -
if for no other reason than that would totally kill demand for fuel,
and then it would have to become cheaper as nobody would be buying it
anymore.

Marco

[Ext User(Marco)]

On Jul 12, 10:48 pm, "Noddy" <dg4163@(nospam)dodo.com.au> wrote:
>
> Holden has had a fairly successful export side to it's business for quite a
> while, with cars going to a lot of countries in Asia and other places like
> South Africa & the Middle East. The Pontiac deal is a good one, but
> unfortunately for them they won't be reaping all the benefits.

Not if they end up building the G8 in Canada or somewhere, no - but
the design and development work for a new Commodore is easier to
justify if there is a greater number of total worldwide sales, no
matter where it's built.

> Bob Lutz, the head of GM's product development department in the US was
> commenting on the G8 deal, and one of the things he said was "There is no
> way we could have spent 500-600 million for a rear wheel drive sedan
> exclusive for Pontiac".

I suppose it depends on how many G8s Pontiac is expecting to sell - it
was something like 30,000 a year or so, wasn't it? You wouldn't spend
$500m on that sort of volume.

> This was something I found very interesting given the fact that the '09
> Comaro and next generation Impala are going to be based on the VE's "Zeta"
> platform, and I would presume they expect to sell maybe 100,000 or more
> units of the same basic car with different badging.

But again, you wouldn't spend $500m to create a new Impala or Camaro
if there aren't that many sales in it. When those models are part of
a bigger global investment it makes a lot more sense, because you
share all of the under-the-skin parts and save money that way.

I think maybe what Lutz meant is that you wouldn't spend $500m just to
create a Pontiac G8 from the ground up, but if that $500m also bought
you a new Camaro and Impala at the same time then the sums start to
add up.

I wonder what the total cost of the GM Zeta programme and all of the
cars coming off it is? $1bn for Commodore and maybe another $500m for
the Impala, Camaro and whatever else comes out of it?

> The interesting part such thinking made Mitsubishi's 500 million rehash of
> the 380 look like an appallingly bad business decision.

Absolutely. And I still can't see how they spent $500m and came up
with a slightly different front end design and some local suspension
tuning. I'm pretty sure Ford spent less than that on turning the AU
into the BA and they changed nearly everything other than the basic
bodyshell design!

Marco

[Ext User(Noddy)]

"David Z" <dave@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:S3sli.6297$4A1.3436@news-server.bigpond.net.au...

> Well, in the long run, all four local manufacturers are doomed, but for a
> different reason. The rising cost of fuel will mean it will no longer be
> practical to use a car for most things. In 10 years time I can easily see
> fuel being 5 times the cost it is now, if not more. Would you pay $75 to
> commute to work each day?? New car sales will plummet, spelling the end
> for the locals.

Your crystal ball needs new batteries.

--
Regards,
Noddy.

[Ext User(Noddy)]

"Marco" <ignition.vess@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1184277803.524672.148670@w3g2000hsg.googlegro ups.com...

> Not if they end up building the G8 in Canada or somewhere, no - but
> the design and development work for a new Commodore is easier to
> justify if there is a greater number of total worldwide sales, no
> matter where it's built.

Provided those costs are to be shared amongst the various GM departments of
course.

I'm sure they are to a degree, as it would be a little unfair for Holden to
bear the almost one billion development cost of the VE to have GM in the US
grab the design for nothing.

> I suppose it depends on how many G8s Pontiac is expecting to sell - it
> was something like 30,000 a year or so, wasn't it? You wouldn't spend
> $500m on that sort of volume.

Of course not, which only serves to make MMAL's plan of spending half a
billion on a rehash seem even more bizarre given the appalling numbers.

> But again, you wouldn't spend $500m to create a new Impala or Camaro
> if there aren't that many sales in it. When those models are part of
> a bigger global investment it makes a lot more sense, because you
> share all of the under-the-skin parts and save money that way.

Indeed.

> I think maybe what Lutz meant is that you wouldn't spend $500m just to
> create a Pontiac G8 from the ground up, but if that $500m also bought
> you a new Camaro and Impala at the same time then the sums start to
> add up.

Agreed.

> I wonder what the total cost of the GM Zeta programme and all of the
> cars coming off it is? $1bn for Commodore and maybe another $500m for
> the Impala, Camaro and whatever else comes out of it?

I have no idea, but you can bet it wouldn't be cheap. Your guess is probably
pretty close to the mark.

> Absolutely. And I still can't see how they spent $500m and came up
> with a slightly different front end design and some local suspension
> tuning.

Yeah, that's got me as well.

If that figure *is* accurate, and I think there's a lot of "cheast beating
in it myself but anyway, they must have been ripped of blind by Mitsubishi
in the US.

> I'm pretty sure Ford spent less than that on turning the AU
> into the BA and they changed nearly everything other than the basic
> bodyshell design!

And I thought *that* was a hell of a lot of money :)

--
Regards,
Noddy.

[Ext User(Patrick)]

Just JT wrote:
> "David Z" <dave@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> In 10 years time I can easily see fuel being 5 times the cost it is
>> now, if not more.
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Did you know that fuel is cheaper today than it was in 1980-85?
>
> (http://www.shell.com/home/content/au-en/shell_for_motorists/petrol_pricing/trends/long_term_trends_0116.html)
>
>
> --
> If.adjusted.for.inflation.
>

I can see fuel being more expensive in 1 year's time (maybe), but not in 10.

Right now we are going through one of those regular "oil crisis" things
that happen every 20 years or so ever since about 1900.

The price is high now, so lots of people will be trading V8s in on Prii,
(plural of Prius) and investing money in looking for more oil and
drilling wells etc.

In about 5 years the results of all that will start to flow in, oil
consumption will drop, and the price will start to decline.

It happens every time.

[Ext User(John Hudson)]

"Just JT" <Johnnythor@Hotmale.com> wrote in message
news:4696b4b6$0$12450$9a6e19ea@unlimited.newshosti ng.com...
> "David Z" <dave@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> In 10 years time I can easily see fuel being 5 times the cost it is now,
>> if not more.
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Did you know that fuel is cheaper today than it was in 1980-85?
>
> (http://www.shell.com/home/content/au-en/shell_for_motorists/petrol_pricing/trends/long_term_trends_0116.html)
>
> --
> If.adjusted.for.inflation.


And double what it was 10 years ago, by the same graph.

[Ext User(Athol)]

Noddy <dg4163@(nospam)dodo.com.au> wrote:
> "David Z" <dave@hotmail.com> wrote:

>> Well, in the long run, all four local manufacturers are doomed, but for a
>> different reason. The rising cost of fuel will mean it will no longer be
>> practical to use a car for most things. In 10 years time I can easily see
>> fuel being 5 times the cost it is now, if not more. Would you pay $75 to
>> commute to work each day?? New car sales will plummet, spelling the end
>> for the locals.

> Your crystal ball needs new batteries.

You mean the little princess's vibrator needs new batteries? :-)

To come up with a prediction like the one above, one has to assume that
both anthropogenic global warming and peak oil are fact, and that none of
the currently available and viable alternate fuels will be increasingly
adopted... Pretty poor looking set of assumptions if you ask me.

--
Athol
<http://cust.idl.com.au/athol> Linux Registered User # 254000
I'm a Libran Engineer. I don't argue, I discuss.