GM boss: We are committed to Holden

General Motors president Dan Ammann has reaffirmed the company’s commitment to Holden in the wake of the automotive conglomerate’s decision to sell its European businesses Opel and Vauxhall to the French PSA Group.

While Ammann refused to go into substantial detail especially future model plans, he confirmed the deal would not affect supply of the Astra small car (pictured) and the Insignia large car, which will be rebadged as a Commodore in Australia in 2018.

Both Opel-developed vehicles are a critical part of Holden’s plan for regeneration as an importer once production of the locally-developed Commodore ceases and the Elizabeth plant shuts down in October.

“We are 100 per cent committed to the business in Australia and New Zealand. We have a lot of exciting things in the pipeline and it’s going to be a really good period of time for the business down there,” New Zealand-born Ammann told Australian media at the Geneva motor show today.

“There is nothing we want to see more than for the business to be totally successful and we are totally committed to making that happen.

“We are absolutely committed to filling the pipeline with product in the way we are doing right now and the way we are doing going forward for the business down there [in Australia],” Ammann stated.

Once due diligence is complete, PSA Group (which owns Peugeot, Citroen and DS), will take control of the Opel and Vauxhall brands and virtually all their engineering and manufacturing sites.

PSA has committed to supplying the Astra and Insignia/Commodore to Holden (and Buick) for as long as they are built on GM architectures. But once these vehicles transfer to PSA platforms, at least five years from now, the supply question is unresolved.

“No specific decision have been taken on that front,” said Ammann.

“Clearly the current models that are just launching will run through their full life cycles but what happens beyond that is yet to be determined,” he said.

Future models such as a three-door Astra or a future Insignia-based large crossover (due 2019) still appear to be part of Opel’s product plan and therefore will be available to Holden.

“For the overall Opel-Vauxhall product plan, it will either stay intact or actually expand. That is the premise of what we are doing here,” Ammann told motoring.com.au.

Ammann was somewhat confusing when it came to the question of the Astra nameplate. Holden has dumped the Cruze badge in favour of Astra, but PSA Group will take ownership of the name when it acquires Opel.

That suggests that Holden might be hunting for a new name for its small car once the current supply deal ends, especially if it takes its next-gen small car from GM rather than PSA, which surely a likely a scenario.

But Ammann suggested Holden might be able to hang on to the Astra name in Australia even if it doesn’t take the PSA small car, suggesting a licensing deal might be arrived at.

“We are going to continue with the Astra nameplate,” he said.

“I am not going to get into future naming strategy, but we are going to stick with what’s working.”

Complicating that plan is the fact PSA Group is free to take the Opel brand global once its cars are no longer based on GM architectures. In the future it could end up with a PSA-owned Opel wanting to bring its Astra to Australia in competition with the Holden Astra.

“You’re over-thinking this a little bit at this point in time,” cautioned Ammann.

Ammann also played down the impact Vauxhall dropping out of the group would have on RHD supply for Holden.

“As we have been developing all of our architecture globally we have increased and not decreased the flexibility for right-hand drive and made that a much easier thing to do, so we are totally committed to that.”

He flatly rejected any consideration of replacing Holden with Chevrolet in Australia or selling the Holden brand off.

“We have a strong brand and a lot of history [in Holden],” he said.

“We have a lot of work to do. I think my perspective is we are doing all the work we need to and we are starting to see some of the early results of that.

“We just got to stick to it and get to where we need to go,” Ammann stated.