– By David Brown –
With the ceasing of production of Australian built cars in October 2017, fleets and novated leases will no longer have any “Australian made” options, but automotive services remain a key factor in the on-going viability and competitiveness of much of our economic activities and businesses have a vested interest in ensuring the automotive industry is encouraged to be efficient and adapting new technologies.
Governments have to lead in promoting new technologies for motor vehicles but in Australia they are being slow to get off the mark.
These are the thoughts of the Victorian Automotive Chamber of Commerce, the VACC, who have just produced a report to show how big the automotive industry remains in Australia, even without original manufacturing.
The report is titled Directions in Australia’s Automotive Industry. They say that it is the first comprehensive coverage of the industry in three years and includes the size, scope, economic contribution, key trends and challenges that are shaping the direction of Australia’s automotive industry over the next few years.
The VACC has always been a strong flag-waver for the automotive industry, not only in their home state but across the whole country, and they recognise how important fleet novated sales and operating activities are to the health of the industry.
Business purchases account for nearly 43% of new car sales in Australia.
Passenger vehicles comprise just over 75% of the national fleet, followed by light commercial vehicles (16.2%), motorcycles (4.5%), heavy rigid trucks (1.8%), light rigid trucks (0.8%) and other vehicle types (1.5%).
Businesses can add their voice to the need for constructive policies and conditions for the automotive industry.
Geoff Gwilym the VACC Executive director said “Australia doesn’t have a national policy for the introduction of electric vehicles. There’s no incentivisation past very small benefits in some states around stamp duty on electric vehicles, but we don’t have a national policy that it’s going to incentivise people to get into cleaner cars or more autonomous cars even though those cars have the capacity to lift productivity significantly in our community”.
The advent of autonomous cars and the productivity gains they could achieve include the need for regulation for the “driver” to be able to efficiently use their time when being transported by the vehicle.
And the need for national policies also extends to energy supply, which will have an increasing role with electric vehicles.
“The industry isn’t convinced at the moment that the government has got those settings right and we need those settings to be right in order for the industry to be confident about its future in order for people to come and invest in Australia around our vehicle fleet and around our road system and around the technologies that will help us use vehicles that raise productivity in our community”, Mr Gwilym said.
Working with motor vehicles is no longer just being a “grease monkey”. The grimy working conditions of a typical garage, in the past, have given way to a more sophisticated model. But the image is lagging behind the reality and the number of apprentices is not meeting the demand.
Steve Bletsos, a co-author of the report, said “We need approximately 14,000 apprentices a year. And now it’s around 11,000 per annum. So we’ve got a deficit of 3,000 apprentices and that’s been ongoing since 2012. We currently have a shortage of over 20,000 to 27,000 skilled positions in the industry”.
Mr Gwilym believes that the development of electric vehicles will make manufacturing easier and cheaper and that Australia might again manufacture vehicles, even if we have to import the electric motors. And modern manufacturing will increasingly be more flexible and will be able to produce vehicles more specifically designed for customer needs.
Steve Bletsos sees a great advantage in businesses being able to tailor vehicles to their required specifications, and they are seeing this amongst dealership already.
Businesses must let their voice be heard to get the right policies for the automotive industry if we are to achieve a competitive advantage.
