Do Australians care about where their next new car is made?
The series two Cruze has been a shining light for the local industry.
If the answer is yes, statistics show car buyers here aren’t anywhere near as patriotic as in the U.S.
New data released by AutoTrader.com in the U.S. has found 41% of car buyers there thought it was important to purchase a vehicle built in the U.S. by U.S. workers.
A further 28% of those surveyed said they felt it was important to purchase a vehicle made at least by a U.S. automaker.
Not surprisingly a desire to keep Americans employed was the number one reason why U.S. car buyers felt so strongly about supporting their home grown products.
It also won’t come as a surprise that the participants were generally also more inclined to buy a car built in the U.S. by an overseas owned company than a model actually built in another country.
For the record some of the most popular U.S. built cars in America include the Ford Escape, Dodge Dart, Kia Optima and Honda Odyssey.
Here at home the Australian car manufacturing industry has had a chequered recent history with Mitsubishi’s decision to close its local plants probably the biggest blow.
In all the total number of cars built in Australia dropped from 388,985 in 2005 (when 1 in 4 new cars sold here was locally built) to just 221,500 in 2011.
About 73,000 of those vehicles built in Australia last year were exported and in all local sales accounted for about 10% of the entire Australian market.
2012 is looking a little brighter however with 70,000 local sales achieved in the first six months of the year, that’s compared to 63,000 for the same period last year.
For the record Australian built cars currently available here include – Holden Cruze, Holden Commodore, Ford Falcon, Ford Territory and Toyota Camry.
So let us know, do you to take into consideration where a car is produced before choosing whether to buy it or not?
Should Australians take a little more pride in the local industry and support our own product?
Let us know what you think either below or on Facebook.
