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NEWS
Holden rules out local SUV
Prospect of SUV manufacture at Elizabeth sunk by Holden MDHolden managing director Mike Devereux has put to bed any notion that the Australian car manufacturer will build an SUV in Australia, despite the technical ability to do so.
The second generation Holden Cruze is certain to be locally manufactured at Holden's Elizabeth plant here in Australia from 2015, and the small car's new D2XX underpinnings will form the basis of the next-generation Captiva SUV.
Despite the platform sharing and the huge popularity of SUVs in Australia – the segment grew by 25.3 per cent last year – the GM Holden boss put the kybosh on a locally-made Holden SUV.
"We don't have a plan to build SUVs in this country. We have no plan to do that," stated Mr Devereux.
The Holden Captiva 7 was the highest selling large SUV for the month of January with 1337 sales and 14.9 per cent market share. The second highest selling model in that segment was the only locally-built large SUV, the Ford Territory, which recorded 1161 sales.
It is believed that Holden was seriously considering building an SUV in Australia, largely expected to be a new generation Captiva that will share its D2XX-based architecture with the next gen Cruze being built here. It now seems certain we'll continue to import the Captiva from Korea, a face-lifted version of which is being unveiled at the Geneva motor show this week.
Mr Devereux said Holden was a "niche opportunistic exporter" not a mainstream exporter due to the high cost of building cars locally, and that the only way for an SUV to make business sense would be if an export deal was done.
"Our stated goal for Holden is not [to] be a mainstream high volume exporter from one of the higher cost automotive production sources on the planet.
"This is a relatively high cost place to do business so we have a niche export profile here for our operations," said Mr Devereux.
The GM Holden chief says the company's focus is small and large cars, with the next generation Commodore confirmed for 2017 likely to be based on the Epsilon II platform that underpins Chevrolet and Buick mid-sized and large cars.
"Our stated plan is to build small cars and large cars in this country, same plan as we've got today. And we're going to execute as well as we can, as seen in the new Cruze."
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Written byFeann Torr
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