Aussie Motoring

It’s hard to believe but that headline is closer to fact than fiction. As reported on August 8 in More Supply Problems for Holden and Ford the industry is in dire trouble as another parts supplier is on the brink of closure.

Ajax Engineering Fasteneters, a company that supplies fasteners and bolts for Holden, Ford, Toyota, Mitsubishi and PBR Australia, is in voluntary administration and now cannot afford to pay it’s workers. Union spokesperson, Bill Shorten, claims the company needs $450,000 by Monday to pay workers and a further $2 million by the end of next week.

Unless the money is forthcoming the Administrator will have no choice but to close the plant. If that happens 200 people will be out of work immediately but that’s just the start. It’s estimated that PBR will run out of stock in less than 24 hours, Holden will be out of stock on Monday and Ford may just last till later in the week.

Re-supply is not just a matter of ducking down to the nearest Bunnings store and picking up a few packets of screws either. While fastemers and bolts may not sound very high tech what we’re talking about here are specialty products designed and produced for particular applications. Finding a new supplier will take months.

Talks aimed at providing a rescue package have been taking place between the Administrator and the stake-holders but one stake-holder has been unable to agree to the terms of a funding package.

You can read more about this looming disaster in the Australian car industry here

Yet another supplier of parts for the Australian automotive industry is in trouble and the supply of bolts and screws for Holden and Ford are threatened.

Ajax Engineering Fasteners has gone into voluntary administration and the administrator has warned both Holden and Ford that they will have to start paying more for the goods Ajax supplies. The administrator believes that Ajax is the sole supplier in Australia and production could stop if the Holden and Ford are not prepared to pay more.

The administrator admits that if he stops supply parts to Holden and Ford the big two will be forced to cease production and could stay out of production for as long as nine months until they source an alternate supply.

BP announced today that it would be closing down production at its Alaskan oilfields due to production problems and of course that is going to affect the price of fuel in Australia.

The NRMA is predicting that Australian motorists could be paying up to $1.80 a litre within months.

The closure of the Alaskan fields means that 8% of total US production is now gone and the closure is indefinite. The closure became necessary when BP discovered that much of the pipeline that is used to transport crude oil from the field is damaged and as much as 73% of it will need to be replaced.

After yet another dismal failure beyond his control it’s no wonder that Mark Webber is leaving Williams. Actually reaching the chequered flag has almost become distant memory for him during this Formula 1 season.

Williams would have loved him to stay but there was really very little chance of that happening and finally they were forced to announce the signing of his replacement last week. From then on it was only a matter of time before his next F1 seat was confirmed.

Both Renault and Red Bull were said to be in the running but little was being said until just a few hours ago. It has now been announced that Mark Webber will be driving for Red Bull next year where he will be partnering David Coulthard.

In many ways the move to Red Bull will be a return to an old team because the Red Bull team was originally the Jaguar team that Webber left in 2004.

Are you one of those really advanced techno-geek revheads that would love to be able to intergrate your iPod into the dash of your car? Well you’re not alone, it seems that there are many people around the world who would love to be able to do that and dispense with the current non-tech plug-in-cigarette lighter solution.

Ford, GM and Mazda are all working with Apple on ways to intergrate the iPod into their vehicles’ audio systems. Initially Ford is looking at simply plugging the iPod into the face plate of the radio but further down the track there will be an interface in the glove box that will allow the iPod to be operated from the audio controls on the dash.

GM will be starting with a similar system to Ford and once again it will require the iPod to be placed in the glove box.

Mazda is not saying much at all except to say that it will offering an iPod interface on all its vehicles worldwide.At the moment Ford and GM are only looking at offering the interface on US vehicles from the 2007 model onwards.

Somehow shoving the iPod in the glove box seems like a rather clumsy way of doing things to me - surely there’s a more elegant and geeky alternative they could have used.

Who am I kidding, I don’t even own an iPod or any other sort of MP3 player and even the TivX controls leave me confused

You can read the full story here

The Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries announced today new car sales continue to lag behind sales for the same time last year. 1079 fewer new vehicles were sold during July than for July 2005. That monthly drop now means that 3.1% fewer new cars have been sold so far this year compared to the same period last year.

Toyota sold the most number of new vehicles with 16,977; Holden came second with 11,129 new vehicles sold and Ford could only manage third with 9,627.

The top selling car was the Toyota Corolla with 4711 units sold during July. Holden sold 4022 Commodores and Ford sold 3951 Falcons.

Kia

On a worldwide basis Kia reported a 2.3% decrease in overseas sales despite recording 1.8% increase in US sales. In Europe, where Kia is in the midst of bringing a new plant online, sales were down 1.4% although that drop in sales may turn around when they release their new European built small car code named the ED in December.

The new European built Kia will only be sold in Europe