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Ronnyboy

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    Reduced demand for Aurion and Camry

    in General Toyota & Other Car Discussions

    Posted

    More news on Toyota;

    One day after sacking 350 workers, Toyota seeks to clarify its position on the redundancies and says the sackings won’t cause a backlash in sales

    Toyota Australia has just launched its new second-generation Aurion, a car that is built in Australia and designed for Australian conditions. But the timing couldn't be worse.

    The launch of Toyota's locally-made flagship, and rival to the Ford Falcon and Holden Commodore, was overshadowed by the sacking of 350 Toyota employees at its Altona plant in Melbourne the day before, accounting for roughly 10 per cent of that manufacturing plant's workforce.

    The news made national headlines, and a heavy security presence didn't paint Toyota in a positive light. Neither did the fact that some employees who had been there almost thirty years came to work expecting to go home with their jobs.

    Toyota insists that the recent redundancies will not affect morale at the Altona plant, where the Aurion is built, nor production quality of the new car.

    "We have an excellent workforce so we're confident the quality levels on this car will be outstanding as per the first generation [Aurion]," said Toyota's executive director of sales and marketing, Matthew Callachor.

    Queried on the issue of the sackings, Callachor stated it was "...an unfortunate circumstance combined with the situation [of] the [strong Australian] currency and [falling] export market levels of demand."

    "We've got to keep it in perspective," he continued. "The cutbacks we had are in line with the volumes [of car production] that are planned moving ahead."

    The Toyota Australia executive implied that there were no regrets, claiming that the workforce cut backs were handled with care.

    "The process we went through was that we had a selection of criteria for each of the 350 [employees] that were actually chosen. So we don't believe that there is anything we would have done differently at this juncture.

    "We had consultations with the union ... we adhered rigidly to the WBA (workplace bargaining agreement) conditions, so at this juncture we believe that

    we've done everything in accordance with the labour plans in terms of trying to consult and work with people. Obviously it's always regrettable to have to let people go."

    While Toyota wanted to talk about the new Aurion, the topic of redundancies and the state of car manufacturing in Australia continued to dominate the conversation. In response to a question posed by motoring.com.au, Toyota wouldn't rule out more cutbacks.

    "Look, the way we scale the workforce at the present time, it's in light of our forecast moving into the future in the sales race."

    Though Callachor insisted "...the workforce is now at a level which we believe is in accordance with our planned volumes into the future," he also suggested the Altona jobs would not last forever: "No one can ever give you a [job] guarantee in terms of overall ad infinitum."

    The response from readers in regards to how they view the new Aurion has been mixed, with plenty of talk about job losses, but Toyota doesn't expect a customer backlash from the recent sackings.

    "If you're talking about particular vehicles and people's reasons for selecting our vehicles ... I believe that people will evaluate vehicles on the basis of what suits their requirements moving forward into the future.

    "Basically this process has been in accordance with everything we laid out to start with, and we wanted to show the utmost respect to the people involved. And so, from my viewpoint I think that people, in terms of buying vehicles from Toyota, will evaluate the requirements of the particular vehicle they want."

    Holden and Ford secured financial support from the government to ensure their local manufacturing operations continue, as do future updates of their large cars. Will the Toyota Aurion survive alongside?

    "We believe so," states Toyota's executive director of sales and marketing. "That's what we've planned for."

    Despite commanding just 12 per cent of the shrinking large car market, Toyota is talking up the car's future: "This segment may have come down but it's still nearly 80,000 vehicles; that's hardly a niche segment. That's a substantial volume in the Australian marketplace.

    "Our plan is that we'll sell more Aurions this year than we have in the last two years," concluded Callachor.

    2012 Camry

    in Camry Club

    Posted

    I tried out a 2012 Camry for size. Drivers legroom is less than gen 6 (by about 5cm) as is headroom (by about 1cm).

    Fixed rear seat headrests look super cheap.

    Alloy wheels look like something from 1988.

    Great driving car, but probably best to wait for the facelifted model late next year.

    Which model did you test drive? Altise or Atara range?

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