GM To Retire Holden In Australia, New Zealand: Breaking
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General Motors has just announced plans to retire the Holden brand in Australia and New Zealand by 2021, while also winding down sales, design and engineering operations in both countries. Instead, GM will focus its strategies for the market on the GM specialty vehicle business.
The Detroit-based automaker painted the move as being a “decisive action to transform its international operations, building on the comprehensive strategy it laid out in 2015 to strengthen its core business, drive significant cost efficiencies and take action in markets that cannot earn an adequate return for its shareholders.”
It’s worth noting that GM Authority recommended GM replace Holden with Chevrolet in Australia and New Zealand almost a decade ago.
“I’ve often said that we will do the right thing, even when it’s hard, and this is one of those times,” said GM Chairman and CEO Mary Barra. “We are restructuring our international operations, focusing on markets where we have the right strategies to drive robust returns, and prioritizing global investments that will drive growth in the future of mobility, especially in the areas of EVs and AVs.
“While these actions support our global strategy, we understand that they impact people who have contributed so much to our company. We will support our people, our customers and our partners, to ensure an orderly and respectful transition in the impacted markets.”
GM President Mark Reuss added that the company explored various options to continue Holden operations, but could not find options that would overcome “the challenges of the investments needed for the highly fragmented right-hand-drive market, the economics to support growing the brand, and delivering an appropriate return on investment.”
“At the highest levels of our company we have the deepest respect for Holden’s heritage and contribution to our company and to the countries of Australia and New Zealand,” said Reuss.
“After considering many possible options – and putting aside our personal desires to accommodate the people and the market – we came to the conclusion that we could not prioritize further investment over all other considerations we have in a rapidly changing global industry.
“We do believe we have an opportunity to profitably grow the specialty vehicle business and plan to work with our partner to do that,” he concluded.
Holden ZB Commodore
GM says that in Australia and New Zealand plus related export markets, customers can be assured that GM will honor all warranties and continue to provide servicing and spare parts. Local operations will also continue to handle all recall and any safety-related issues, working with the appropriate governmental agencies.
GM also announced plans to shutter its Rayong plant in Thailand, which would result in the automaker discontinuing new vehicle sales operations in Thailand.
As part of these actions, GM expects to incur net cash charges of approximately $300 million and total cash and non-cash charges of $1.1 billion. These charges will primarily be incurred in the first quarter and continuing through the fourth quarter of 2020. In addition, these charges will be considered special for EBIT-adjusted, EPS diluted-adjusted and adjusted automotive free cash flow purposes.
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This is devastating news to Australia and New Zealand workers and they have my sympathy.I am a little surprised due to an article on this blog not too long ago that the Camaro ZL1 and the new C8 Corvette would be built in RHD by Holden to compete in the supercar market overseas.I have to say that Mary Barra has done a great job at GM since day one,She inherited a financial mess from before and has turned things around.Quality is up and the awards keep coming in from JD Power.I bought a then new 2010 Silverado 1500 4WD and have since bought a then new 2017 Camaro SS and a 2019 Silverado Custom Trail Boss Z71 last year.All of those purchases have been fantastic.I am a lifelong GM fan so they never lost me but I can definitely say the quality is up.Unfortunately we live in a global economy now,where labor costs and bottom line still rule the day.If you live in a state or a country that has expensive unionized labor-you will eventually be out of a job.This is not right but if you make $45 per hour in the US or Canada making cars and the persons in Mexico and South Korea for example make $5-10 the brand follows the profitability.Richer countries have higher costs of living henceforth you need a good paying job,the poorer countries have less EPA type regulations and they generally don’t give a crap about their people so they get the companies flocking to them.In the US you can thank Reagan and NAFTA for the union shutdowns.After the majority of unions fell in the US as a result of the ATC strike in the 1980’s companies got their get out of jail free coupons and cashed them in.Unions held the jobs here was there wasn’t another option but evaporized when one presented itself.Amazon, Walmart and others would not have boomed in that structure because labor was too expensive.Even now the US still makes the best steel but we are the most expensive,thus China fills that gap with cheap steel and low quality.Trump’s buildings were built with Chinese steel and he has the gumption to tout American manufacturing.Wow.
I hope that means the ZL1 and C8.I could care less about electric cars,they won’t be reliable for a long time.Fire is still the major safety concern and the energy grid is still set up for gas powered cars.Only a small percentage of stations have electric hook-ups available.
ZL1 (camaro) will continue to be converted L to RHD by Walkinshaw in Australia, only the corvette will be built RHD, until further notice.
»Instead, GM will focus its strategies for the market on the GM specialty vehicle business.«
What does that mean?
Have you tried “Googling” the subject?
Lots of info on GM’s current SV program and how it’ll likely extend to these Regions / Markets.
…which means after-market or after assembly-line bespoke modifications, which are expensive.
I think that the Warren development center is gripped by a provincial outlook, and is not able to conceive developing a new car with the position of the driver being left or right is just a the flip of the mirror.
It means that they will be selling extremely niche products only, and at high prices.
General Electric is being run and has been for years solely for profit and nothing but profit. How are they doing? GM is eating itself to make a profit. At GM there is always talk of a great shiny future. That future never comes. They start down the dark tunnel towards the light, then boldy decide to turn off the light and stumble in the darkness till the next bold idea hits them… Moral of the story GM is NEVER coming out of the tunnel!
General Electric sold its home appliances division to Chinese company Haier in June 2016.
Heier has the right to use the GE brand name until 2056.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GE_Appliances
Haier considers itself as the world’s largest maker of home and kitchen appliances.
Sadly now GE taking steps for the chinese to make GE jet engines in china. The first step to selling that division off to china. GE will soon be a forgotten shell of a once great iconic company that sold its self off into oblivion because there bad management!
Holden will be missed
Man, the G8 is a real hoot to drive. Thanks you Australia.
Shame on you GM for neutering Holden. Should have given it the Alpha platform with a 3.0 TT V6 rather than a Blah FWD Buick :(.
GM is the most poorly managed car company, may be company of any kind, ever. They’ve just created a right-hand drive version of new Corvette, and spent billions of dollar and reorganized their platforms to accord with global market demands. Now, just after did that, they pull out of three of the biggest right-hand drive countries. They already pulled out of Europe, and never been Africa and Central and South Asia. They dwindling down year over year, become almost a local company.
So if this was your plan all along what in the world you dissipated most needed limited resources on a dead duck.
They clearly don’t know what they’re doing. The fist sign of this was pulling out of Europe, just a couple months after paying European soccer team Manchester United $559 frickin million dollar for Chevrolet jersey sponsorship!!!! and didn’t even try to cancel the deal, kept paying for it, in a continent they don’t sell anything under that brand.
Marry Barra is one of the worst CEOs ever, up there with Carly Fiorina, her only concern is looking good at next quarterly earning report with fictitious numbers, satisfy WallStreet Hedge Fon leechers also inflate her bonuses. Instead playing long game and trying to turn business around they are slashing, cutting, shutting down, lay-off; brands, factories, workers… anything seems bad at balance sheet. They don’t even try, their mindset going through the motions, zero enthusiasm, no working up to find means to an end.
GM brands’ names day by day are getting erased from people minds, even if current disgraceful regime go away and a new idealist hardworking people come it will be so much harder to reinstate the brand, because of they will be out of sight of all that time, and largely out of people’s mind.
This move by General Motors to finally retire its Holden brand is not for a second, ‘surprising’ and should have happen at least 20 years back. There is also a sound argument that the brand should not have been introduced in the first place, back late 1948!
Many Australians wrongly see this latest move as GM leaving Australia which of course is completely incorrect. GM is simply returning to the days (prior to 1948) when it sold Chevrolet, Buick, Cadillac and GMC trucks in Australia.
At least 3 years ago I was writing on this forum about the need for GM to restructure itself around just three brands, those being Cadillac, Chevrolet and GMC. For GMs survival in a 2020 world the Holden brand simply had to join other retired or sold off GM brands such as Pontiac, Oldsmobile, La Salle, Vauxhall, Opel and Bedford.
Many will disagree, but I look forward to the new Australian branch of GM and seeing its dealerships proudly display the internationally know Chevrolet and Cadillac emblems.
My garage contains an example of the final long wheel base WM “Holden” Caprice or is this car more correctly a Chevrolet Caprice which was badged a Holden for the Australian market?
So GM kept the holden alive from 1948 until 2021. Full marks to them for having done this, but in an Internet driven world today a local brand that serves just one country can not survive. As an Australian GM enthusiast I can clearly see this, and many other fellow Australians should also be able see the need for retiring the Holden brand.
It’s good news even though many at the present can not see this.
Yeah, people are gonna be lining up to buy an overpriced vehicle from the US, secure in the knowledge that if anything goes wrong with it they can simply return it to an abandoned car yard strewn with “final demand” notices….
A simple question is how do corporations like Toyota, Mercedes Benz Daimler and Volkswagen do it??? They build full lines of automobiles with many body styles and engines, small, medium, and big trucks as well as buses, industrial and agriculture equipment and appear to make money in global markets. Yet they are not shedding any business centers. Better management maybe?????
Daimler just cut 15 jobs and 3 Benz models on top of the 10k jobs in November.
Machete Mary hacking away continues. GM won’t be around in 50 years. Maybe less at this rate.
How many people really think that GM is run by only one person. Even if Mary Barra had the launch codes it would need to be a joint decision before using them.
The last real Holden was a great car,(think Chevy SS) and we will still get the great GM cars in RHD. Camaro and the new C8.
But not everyone wants a Holden or a Falcon. A lot of people have used the demise of car manufacturing of both Holden and Ford in Australia as an excuse to buy what they really want.
On the other hand there is no country in the world where the Government does not subsidise their car industry. It is an investment with great returns on many fronts. To just say we gave the industry $2 Billion and this is how you repay us is politicians trying to shift the blame.
GM had some excellent long-range plans for Australia but could not get the Australian government to listen. GM had spent many millions expecting some government recognition but none happened. This and other factors made it essentially imperative that GM gave up on Australia as a place GM could have a profitable business. Very sad for both GM and Australia, especially Australia. Once again, the Australian government kicks an own goal.
It’s all about the bottom line. No loyalty, no relationship, no marketing strategy, only thanks but no thanks.
If you disagree with GM shuttering Holden and many of their other “decisions” , stop buying their vehicles! When others ask you about what vehicle to get? Steer them away from GM and their very average at best, overpriced vehicles.
Eoc’s right in the observation that General Motors Holden manufacturing standards where excellent and this certainly shows in GM-H built Pontiac GTO, G8 and the Chevrolet SS, however, as much as GM’s Holden Division can take great pride in these cars, it’s important to remember the role played by the parent GM company in the USA.
Back in the late 1960s GM-H did develop its own ‘home grown’ V8 engine. Specifically a 253 cubic inch and a 308 cubic inch V8. As good as this engine was it did not progress as far as the Chevrolet V8 engines have and the vast majority of Holdens have been powered not by Holden V8s, but by V6 and V8 engines designed in the United States.
GM-H sold a long wheel base passenger car which GM-H sold in Australia as a high end luxury car. GM-H badged this car a Holden Caprice. The same car sold in China as Buick Park Avenue, in Germany as a Bitter and a ‘plain Jane’ version in the USA as a Chevrolet Caprice police car. Only a small percentage were sold badged as Holdens. Most were exported as Chevrolets or Buicks. Accordingly its not unreasonable to question which badge describes this model. Certainly Australia would not have been offered this long wheel base sedan had it not been for the export market.
The point I am trying to make, is that the US parent GM company played a big part in many of the successful Holden designs. In fact the very first 1948 48/215 ‘FX’ Holden was largely an American GM design.
Okay…we all understand the economic rationalism which arrived at the decision but, for the sake of the American readers here let me tell you a bit of history that GM US may not. Holden was a successful motor body builder at the beginning of the 20th Century and they were profitable on their own. GM came along in 1930, saw they could make a buck in the country by owning Holden and bought the company (our mistake…this should never have happened but, sadly, Aussie CEOs always dream about dollars so many of our manufacturers have ended up in foreign hands). Along comes WWII. Holden factories helped a great deal in the war effort and following the war our government decided we should have our “own car”, developed and manufactured locally.
Local engineering outfits bid for the government subsidy to start a car company and GM also entered the fray bidding to build an “Australian car” from the ground up. Now because our nation felt we had a special debt to the US for helping us in WWII and because GM had a good manufacturing reputation, the company was awarded the right to make an Aussie car and given 90 MILLION Australian pounds (not repayable) to start the factories up. In today’s money in AUD that would be $5,632,489,249.88 !!! Every year after that the company received special supplementation to help it grow…Aussie taxpayer money! That money continued to flow right up until, I believe, 2014 (the exact date escapes me). With the last tranche of money GM assured the Australian government that they would develop a new Australian model (or probably engineer a new Commodore most likely) but that never happened. The money went straight back to the US.
So can you Americans now understand why Aussies are more than a bit p’d off? GMH made GM a bucket of money and, and during the GFC it was one of the company’s most profitable divisions. Now, leaving aside the argument about whether or not we should have had a locally-owned car company, GM US did not listen to the their Holden Australia staff who warned them that sticking with a one model strategy and banking everything on the Commodore was a bad idea. There were designs and prototypes for a new line of SUVs on the ZETA platform that GM US decided not to proceed with and, really, this might have saved the company. So, my US cousins, we are not only sad about Holden being killed off we are downright angry at GM US. I own a late model Commodore. I love my car and I look at the proud Holden Lion badge…the proud lion with its paw resting on the “rolling ball of progress” and it hurts me to the core. I will NEVER but a GM product again.
When Holden factory was going to close there were a couple serious attempts to purchase and keep it running but GM seemed to want to euthanize it. Maybe it was scared to compete with a former product that was a decade old but still felt fresh. Just sad to have a business with nearly 165 years of history being erased. I still have a bit of a feeling it’s a sales gimmick to get the name changed to GM or Chev or GMC etc, like ripping a band aid off quickly. Apparently the Corvette and some trucks are going to continue….
GM is the most poorly managed car company, may be company of any kind, ever. They’ve just created a right-hand drive version of new Corvette, and spent billions of dollar and reorganized their platforms to accord with global market demands. Now, just after did that, they pull out of three of the biggest right-hand drive countries. They already pulled out of Europe, and never been Africa and Central and South Asia. They dwindling down year over year, become almost a local company.
So if this was your plan all along what in the world you dissipated most needed limited resources on a dead duck.
They clearly don’t know what they’re doing. The fist sign of this was pulling out of Europe, just a couple months after paying European soccer team Manchester United $559 frickin million dollar for Chevrolet jersey sponsorship!!!! and didn’t even try to cancel the deal, kept paying for it, in a continent they don’t sell anything under that brand.
Marry Barra is one of the worst CEOs ever, up there with Carly Fiorina, her only concern is looking good at next quarterly earning report with fictitious numbers, satisfy WallStreet Hedge Fon leechers also inflate her bonuses. Instead playing long game and trying to turn business around they are slashing, cutting, shutting down, lay-off; brands, factories, workers… anything seems bad at balance sheet. They don’t even try, their mindset going through the motions, zero enthusiasm, no working up to find means to an end.
GM brands’ names day by day are getting erased from people minds, even if current disgraceful regime go away and a new idealist hardworking people come it will be so much harder to reinstate the brand, because of they will be out of sight of all that time, and largely out of people’s mind.
General Motors continual worldwide downsizing is in reality nothing new. General Motors used to be a major company and at one point in addition to cars manufactured aircraft engines and also a full range of household white goods such as refrigerators, washing machines and more.
While most major automotive manufactures have no difficulty in producing both LHD and RHD versions of the cars they make. General Motors appears to see this as a real barrier? Incredible to think that during the 1950s and 1960s GMs Tarrytown plant produced thousands of ‘factory RHD’ Chevrolet Impalas that GM’s Chevrolet Division then exported all over the world to various RHD markets.
But of course, the United States during the 1950s and 1960s was at that time the most powerful country in the world. By contrast, in 2020 United States today faces record levels of homeless Americans, an unpredictable President and is fast sadly loosing its position as ‘the most powerful country in the world’. I say ‘sadly’ as with power comes responsibility and the USA for most part, over the past 100 years has handled its former ‘power’ responsibility.
Perhaps the fact that GM is falling apart and get smaller as a company, simply reflects whats happening to the United States generally. Time will answer that one, but it certainly appears to be the case.
There is a strong argument that Australia and other RHD countries should become LHD and I would support such a change. I am certain that Americans would think that the world should be totally LHD and that makes sense, but equally the United States needs to become METRIC like the rest of the world.
Its simply unacceptable that in 2020 the USA still uses outdated Imperial (American?) measurement such as Miles Per Hour , Feet, Inches and Pounds for weight measure.
I have been a life long supporter of all things associated with General Motors, agree totally that GMs ‘Holden’ brand had to be retired but don’t expect that this is the end of GM in Australia at all. In fact it might be be the beginning of the real return of Cadillac and Chevrolet brands down under.
Certainly Buick has to be the next brand on the chopping block.
Everybody bashes the US until the next Saddam Hussein comes along and begs the US to help them.
GM could easily make RHD vehicles, but if they think they can be a leader in electric vehicles it’s going to take all that they have. Unlike Tesla, GM can not run in the red making vehicles. So what do they do, they get rid of less/unprofitable vehicles to make run for a less profitable business (EVs). But EVs are at least a growth area whereas RHD vehicles were stuck in the mud.
What does have the position of the steering wheel have to do with the engine being Internal Combustion or electric?
Why should the one exlude the other?
On the contrary, methinks, powering propulstion by an electric motor instead of an ICE makes constructing cars for both LHD and RHD production much easier.
All you armchair experts talking about shoulda, woulda, coulda.. It’s gone mate, there’s nothing left to discuss. GM Authority.. Please shutdown this page.
This is GM making a difficult but necessary decision.
This will get the armchair CEOs all riled up, but its the right call. There hasn’t been any vehicle manufacturing in Australia since 2017, and it was on the decline for years before that. GM came in and “rescued” Holden a long time ago, but it was never guaranteed they would float them forever. If Australians can’t or don’t want to manufacture their own vehicles, they have to import them from somewhere. If GM feels that the market there is not large enough to justify the cost, it makes sense to get out.
The bottom line is that if Australia was right-hand drive, there would be no problem. The entire world is left hand drive except for british colonial nations, there are plenty of manufacturers that specialize in RHD and Australia can get their vehicles from those manufacturers.
It is perfectly reasonable for GM to be a left hand drive company.
100% correct Brian.
oops, meant to say
“The bottom line is that if Australia was LEFT-hand drive, there would be no problem. “
»The entire world is left hand drive except for british colonial nations,«
not correct. Japan has never been a British colony, neither has Thailand, Indonesia was not a British, but Netherland’s colony and Mozambique a Portuguese colony. OTOH, former British colonies in West Africa drive on the right (Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, The Gambia). Then there is the strange case of Myanmar, the former British colony Birma, which kept driving on the left side of the road after gaining independence; but in late 1970, the then ruler of Myanmar issued a decree that from December 6, 1970, all cars have to drive on the right hand side, which was followed. But still most cars have their driving wheel on the right, large part because a very large part of the automobiles are imported as used cars from neighboring countries.
»there are plenty of manufacturers that specialize in RHD and Australia can get their vehicles from those manufacturers.«
I don’t know of any manufacturer which “specializes in RHD”. I only know of automobile manufacturers who conceive of an automobile to have its steering wheel either on the left or right and let RHD and LHD cars run off the same assembly line without any problem.
»
It is perfectly reasonable for GM to be a left hand drive company.
«
This is a very peculiar position in today’s world.
This is like designing electrical appliances only for 50 Hertz or 60 Hertz.
Or to put it more drastically:
conceiving cars for exclusively RHD or LHD is like building computers and mobile phones which get their electrical current exclusively from either only 110 Volt @60 Hz or only 240 Volt @ 50 Hz. Any manufacturer who is trying this will go under.
all fair points, except that the majority of roads in the world are right handed so that puts an impetus on manufacturers to prefer one or the other. It costs more to make both, so it makes sense that companies would specialize in one or the other.
Why should a manufacturer make a preference?
Why do you think that is more expensive to produce the same car with LHD and RHD. Why should anybody specialize only in one?