Aussie Motoring

Hyundai will soon be recalling around 65,000 Elantra’s sold in the United States due to a fuel pump defect. The recall relates to Elantras built in South Korea between November 2007 and June 2008.

There is no word yet on whether the defect is also found in Hyundai Elantra models sold in Australia.

It now looks as though the Federal Government’s luxury car tax won’t make it through the Senate unless there are some amendments made to it.

The Greens have announced that they won’t be supporting the bill because it unfairly targets vehicles that are among the world’s most fuel efficient. The Greens will support the tax if the Government amends it to only target those luxury cars that are not fuel-efficient.

They say that a week in Australian politics is a long time and that’s something that could also be said about the Australian car manufacturing industry. Last week we had the bad news of the Bracks Report into Australia’s car industry and this week we’ve begun to see and feel the pain.

Ford have announced that they’ll be cutting 350 jobs due to the sluggish sales of its new Falcon and the weak outlook for the vehicle industry and the former chariman of Toyota says that the move by Ford to reduce the workforce is just the beginning.

So which company i going to be next to shed jobs? I expect we’ll soon see an announcement from Holden although it could be Toyota.

Oh wait … I’ve just named the two remaining players in the Australian car industry haven’t I?

Perhaps the real concern isn’t going to be which company will be the next to shed jobs but rather whether or not we’ll still have three players in the industry by mid 2010.

… the sale of SUVs goes up.

Australian new vehicle sales softened in July, reflecting broader economic conditions and the impact of the proposed luxury car tax increase.

Official VFACTS figures released today by the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI) show that 83,976 cars, trucks and buses were sold in July - down 2,315 vehicles (2.7%) compared to the same month last year.

Year-to-date the car market is up 2.6 per cent on the same time last year, which was an all-time record year.

“Higher fuel prices, interest rates and the wider economic uncertainty have resulted in a slowing of people heading to showrooms,” FCAI chief executive Andrew McKellar said.

The figures also show that sales of so-called ‘luxury’ cars fell by 33 per cent in July, compared to the previous month.

“The proposed tax hike has had a devastating impact on new car sales,” Mr McKellar said.

“It is clear that the downturn has been exacerbated by the impact of this unfair tax hike, and the industry has significant concerns that orders will continue to be affected in coming months,” he said.

“If this situation continues, the government will not receive the additional revenue it had projected and there is a real risk that it will cost jobs,” Mr McKellar said.

“In these circumstances, one would have to question why the government would pursue this tax increase,” he said.

Sales in most of the passenger car and Sports Utility Vehicle segments (SUV) were down except for light cars (up 1.0%), SUV medium (up 8.1%) and SUV large (up 7.4%).

Light commercial vehicle sales held up well in July, with an increase of 897 vehicles or 6.3 per compared to the same month last year.

Toyota remained the top selling marque in July with 24.4 per cent of the market, followed by Holden with 13.3 per cent and Ford with 11.3 per cent.

Year-to-date, Toyota leads the sales race with 147,961 vehicles sold, followed by Holden with 78,271 and Ford with 63,933 vehicles.