Diesel is our future, says Ford chief

The Australian automotive industry's future is in diesel power, according to Ford Australia president Tom Gorman.

Addressing the Australian British Chamber of Commerce in Melbourne, Mr Gorman said the industry's ever-changing global market was often dictated by emerging technology and better fuels to address climate change.

Mr Gorman, who last week announced the axing of 600 jobs at his company's Geelong plant, said the environment was an obvious challenge and diesel engine development would play a crucial role.

"At the moment, the issue really is around CO2 more than anything and the big opportunity on a CO2 basis is diesel," he said.

"They are looking at a 20 per cent improvement of CO2 emissions but I think this is one of the issues ... that we just need to keep an eye on and see where diesels go from here."

Mr Gorman said the latest diesel technology produced first-rate performance.

"These are not old, industrial, loud and smelly, you're getting incredible low-end torque, there's great performance feel in the cars," Mr Gorman said.

"Plus a lot of people want to adopt the latest technology, so that's where the growth is coming on the car side at the moment."

Mr Gorman said there was the potential for diesel engines to be fitted in all Ford models.

"As we look at these opportunities, I still think diesel is a very real opportunity across the entire range but we haven't committed to doing that yet," he said.

His comments follow Ford's announcement on Monday it would create 300 new jobs at its Campbellfield assembly plant to manufacture 40,000 Focus cars a year.

The Focus range will be exported to New Zealand, South Africa and other markets.

"We'll put our toe in the water in a big way with Focus this month and then Mondeo in the fourth quarter," Mr Gorman said.

"And I think that will really help us get a feeling of where this thing might go. I still think there is a lot of opportunity there."

Mr Gorman also reiterated his assurances of last week that Ford would work hard to redeploy workers affected by the planned closure of the Geelong engine plant.

"Of course, we will work aggressively to find redeployment opportunities wherever possible for our affected employees and we have undertaken to work very closely with our employees and union leadership over the next three years," he said.

"We stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the federal government and the state government to work on retraining initiatives and to decrease the blow that our engine decision will have on the city of Geelong."

Source: AAP 2007

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