Holden sales and marketing chief John Elsworth today briefed the media concerning the locally-manufactured Cruze small car and hinted it might one day supplant Commodore as the company's biggest seller.
"Essentially what we will build is what the market wants. That's the flexibility we've got, in making large cars and small cars, we can react to what the market is doing. The small-car market is now the biggest market segment in the nation — and as that market continues to grow we can move more of our production capability and capacity into Cruze."
It's a refinement of Toyota's strategy, with four-cylinder Camry and V6 Aurion built on the same production line at Altona, but cost efficiencies Toyota can leverage are offset by Holden's broader market penetration with two distinct models.
Just last week Holden was fending off accusations from the union representing the company's automotive engineers that Commodore design and engineering would move off shore. Some took that to mean the manufacture of the large car would also head overseas. Elsworth's detailed explanation of the changes Cruze has brought to the Elizabeth plant strongly suggests otherwise.
"Cruze has absolutely been the right strategy for us — and, we think, the local industry," he said.
Sales for the year to date, according to VFACTS, show the Cruze already ahead of last year's total, still two months of sales short of the full year for 2011. And of the 25,803 cars sold to the end of September this year, 15,142 were to private buyers. Of those, most (9138) were locally-built.
Holden's small car thus looks set to soak up excess production capacity if Commodore sales begin to slide, but during a Q&A session Elsworth hosed down any speculation concerning the Commodore's future.
"We don't see any downsizing at all and I've got nothing to add from what Mike [Devereux] covered last week..." Elsworth answered in response to one question broaching the subject of GM's claimed surfeit of engineering resource around the world. The Holden exec also said that options for the 2017/18 Commodore were "still on the table".
Elsworth would not discuss sales and production forecasts for either Cruze or Commodore, but did allow that volumes would likely end up around the same figure for each car.
"Our hope, actually, would be one day we're making the number one and number selling cars in Australia."
Cruze production facts
Line rate at Elizabeth increased to 430 cars a day in March when Cruze sedan production commenced,
Line rate is now 480 cars a day, with 185 units of Cruze throughput,
Holden production staff numbers have been raised by 300 new employees over the past 12 months,
Cruze has also created 200 new jobs for local supply chain in northern suburbs of Adelaide,
Holden is spending $100 million more on components from local suppliers, including MHG Glass and Futuris
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