Australia: Mitsubishi confirms closure of Tonsley Park plant

Wednesday, February 06, 2008,

Tags: Mitsubishi Motors Corporation, OEM Strategy.

AutomotiveWorld.com

Mitsubishi Motors has confirmed that it plans to shutter its Australian production plant, with the loss of 930 jobs.

The Tokyo-based OEM says it will take a ¥22bn (US$194.7m) charge for the closure but that this will not affect its projected profits for fiscal 2007-08.

Mitsubishi Motors Australia Limited (MMAL) expects to maintain its recent run of success with its imported models in the booming Australian market. It notes that in 2007, it sold 66,000 vehicles locally thanks to strong demand for the Lancer sedan, Pajero SUV and Outlander crossover. Its 6.2% market share, combined with the slow-selling 380 sedan had made its status as a local producer increasingly untenable.

MMAL's president, Rob McEniry, says the decision to end production of the 3.8-litre V6-engined Mitsubishi 380 was partly due to the "inescapable fact that there is now a deepening trend away from large cars."

While the locally-built Holden Commodore, Ford Falcon and Toyota Aurion, all V6-powered large sedans, are still regular top-ten best sellers, imported four-cylinder cars such as the Toyota Corolla, Mazda3 and Hyundai Getz have become increasingly popular with buyers since the global spike in the price of oil during the last southern hemisphere winter.

The Mitsubishi 380 was a derivative of the Galant that has been built in the US (Normal, Illinois) since 2003. It is also assembled in Beijing from kits. These are sourced from Taiwan (Yang Mei), where the car is also built and sold under the Mitsubishi Grunder name. Like the North American car, the models for Asia are available with a 2.4-litre I4 engine that was never offered in Australia's V6-only 380. This generation Galant has never been sold in Japan. The US-built model is also sold in the Middle East and the CIS markets in four-cylinder form only.

Published on Wednesday, February 06, 2008