Aussie Motoring

At last there’s some good news for Holden and the motor industry in South Australia. Holden has announced that it will soon be exporting two new cars for the American market from their plant in Adelaide.

Both vehicles will be marketed in America under the Pontiac brand and one of the two will be an Americanised Aussie sports ute. It seems that our poor American cousins have never really been exposed to anything quite like our Aussie sports utes so Pontiac sees it as a “niche” market.

Pontiac will be displaying both vehicles on their stand at the New York International Auto Show that starts next Wednesday.

You can read more about these two vehicles here

The head of Nissan has announced that the company will be launching an electric car into the US market place by 2010.

Nissan and Renault will work together on the required technology and by 2012 will have the vehicle available outside of the United States. Nissan will focus on marketing the vehicle in Asia … especially China … while Renault will sell the vehicle into the European market.

Sales in both January and February have set records for those months, building on a record annual total of more than one million new cars in 2007.

“The February sales result is very pleasing for the automotive industry and shows that underlying demand from private buyers and business remains very robust, reflecting continued outstanding levels of vehicle affordability,” said FCAI Chief Executive Andrew McKellar.

The diversity of market trends was shown by the fact that small cars and large Sports Utility Vehicles (SUVs) were once again the main drivers of market growth in February.

Light car sales rose by 2,236 or 22.5 per cent, the Small car segment rose by 1,645 or 8.6 per cent and the SUV market grew by 3,365 vehicles or 22.6 per cent.

These gains were partially countered by declines in the Large car (down 2,488 or 19.9 per cent) and Medium car (down 383 or 5.1 per cent) segments.

“The volumes in the Large and Medium segments have been affected by the run-out of several key models. As new models become available in the coming months we would expect to see some turn-around,” said Andrew McKellar.

Mr McKellar said a notable facet of the motor vehicle market last month was the large volume of vehicles being bought by businesses.

Sales of tool-of-trade Pick-up/cab-chassis 4×2 utilities rose by 1,184 or 22.0 per cent, while the Van segment rose by 602 or 39.1 per cent.

Toyota was the top-selling brand in February with 23.0 per cent of the market, ahead of Holden with 13.8 per cent and Ford with 10.5 per cent.

Year-to-date Toyota now leads Holden by 15,916 sales.