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© Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.GM plans to pull out of Australia, New Zealand and Thailand
By TOM KRISHER DETROIT©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.
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sf2k
Best to directly use the plants for windmills (huge lots of engineering), electric cars (middle, still lots of engineering), and solar production( smaller, lots of engineering).
Green energy means skills put to use
funkseoul
Thailand is a stronghold for Japanese Automakers, & also a major base of trans-factories for their market in Southeast Asia.
Indeed, GM's global sales is in decline for the past 5 years. Sensible decisions when your volume go down by 25% for that period.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/225326/amount-of-cars-sold-by-general-motors-worldwide/
Andrew Crisp
Not surprising GM don't have a good car line up,
Kaerimashita
Holden iconic but not profitable. GM cars generally not that great. This is no surprise in the face of strong Japanese, Korean and Chinese competition in Asia./
browny1
And in addition to the logistics of the limited RH drive market, economy of scale / sales, models for the future, perception of quality, global competition and rationalization etc was the fact that it simp@ly was too expensive to produce a car in Australia. The biggest factor being wages. A ¥4000 / hr salary for a basic, experienced assembly line worker was never, ever going to cut it.
That's even way, way above Japanese workers who have a reputation for putting out quality.
oyatoi
“A ¥4000 / hr salary for a basic, experienced assembly line worker was never, ever going to cut it.”
LOL. That figure is at the low end of what the Australian economic model is predicated upon. The assumption of endless upward growth in house prices and salaries.
browny1
Thanks oyatoi -
I didn't want to "overly emphasize" the reality of spiralling costs in Australia.
oyatoi
Spiralling costs only rarely justified by improved quality for nine out of ten things there you could care to name.
Too many there have had it too good for too long and harder times, sad to say, is just what some of them need.