Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says he wants to reboot the local car manufacturing industry, and he laments the loss of Australia’s own car brand, Holden.
According to the Herald Sun newspaper, when asked about car making at a News Corp event to promote local industry during Australia Made Week on Monday (May 18) in Melbourne, Victoria , Mr Albanese said there was “no reason why we can’t make [electric] vehicles” in Australia.
Australia has not produced a complete vehicle since Holden closed its local manufacturing operations in late 2017, within weeks of Toyota doing the same, and after Ford ended local production in October 2016.
The end of full vehicle manufacturing not only impacted the automakers that produced them, but also the hundreds of local businesses which formed the supply chain for the final three auto brands making cars here.
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“At the very least, we can make parts and components including batteries here,” said the PM, according to the Herald Sun. “Indeed, there are companies looking at doing just that.”
Australian companies still operating successfully post-Holden include PWR, a world leader in cooling technology whose products are seen in Formula 1 racing.
Other examples include Redarc, which makes vehicle integration systems; ARB, which makes bull-bars and off-road equipment; and Newcastle based suspension brand Lovells.
There’s also Melbourne-based Applied EV, which produces its Blanc Robot ‘skateboards’ for autonomous electric vehicles, however, it has had to look beyond Australia for a partner in Suzuki, which recently overtook Honda as Japan’s second-largest auto brand.
Then there are the recent struggles of Carbon Revolution, which lost hundreds of millions following cancelled contracts to supply its world-leading wheels to automakers, forcing it into receivership in March 2026.
Administrator McGrathNicol blamed Australia’s “high cost of manufacturing” for the wheel maker’s woes, a factor also blamed for the demise of local car manufacturing, but Mr Albanese said “new technology” opens the door for Australia to step back into the manufacturing arena.
“We saw a decline of manufacturing in Australia because of differential labour costs. New technology means that labour is less important than transport costs.
“Because technology is ubiquitous, it’s available everywhere,” said Mr Albanese.
“We stepped back, the United States did as well, and we saw manufacturing go largely to China and Asia. That creates a vulnerability, and we need to use the capacity that we have to make more things here.”
The managing director of Australia’s Advanced Manufacturing Growth Centre (AMGC), Dr Jens Goennemann, said the PM is on the right track.
“The bitter truth is that Australia’s car industry declined because our finished vehicles were not globally competitive, and we lacked the scale and depth in local value chains to produce significant automotive sub-components,” he told CarExpert.
“In that context, the Prime Minister is right to focus first on building globally competitive component manufacturers – this is where economies like Australia can succeed.”
Dr Goennemann suggested the approach should “do what successful economies do: back capable yet small companies and help them scale.
“A sustainable automotive industry must be export-focused, technology-led and globally competitive. This combination creates durability, not protectionism or nostalgia.”
Mr Albanese’s comments come days after Ford’s Broadmeadows factory, which built the Falcon, Fairlane and Territory among many other models between 1959 and its 2016 closure, was confirmed as the site for a new data centre.
Shadow industry minister Andrew Hastie criticised the Albanese government, pointing to the amount of federal funding for electric vehicles made overseas, and calling for it to be directed to local production instead.
“The Albanese government plans on spending even more taxpayer money than we spent on Aussie car makers subsidising electric vehicles that are made in China,” he said in a speech in March 2026, referring to the Fringe Benefits Tax concessions on EVs, which the government has since announced it will gradually wind back .
“In the current financial year, Treasury estimates $1.35 billion will be spent to subsidise the purchase of electric vehicles… in a single year.
“In contrast, in [the] 2010-11 financial year, total budgetary assistance for our Aussie car industry was $519 million, or $770 million in today’s dollars – just over half as much as EV subsidies cost today.”
Australian manufacturing can succeed, says Bernie Quinn, a former Ford executive who is now the boss of Melbourne-based engineering firm Premcar, which has developed showroom models for brands including Nissan and Mitsubishi.
“We’re doing it through secondary manufacturing at the moment, but this could be expanded to build cars in Australia for Australians,” Mr Quinn told CarExpert in a wide-ranging Expert Insights interview last year.
“We’d have to invest a lot of money. We’d have to build all that capital equipment again and all that infrastructure again.
“It wouldn’t be easy. But is it possible? A hundred per cent, yes. Would it be successful? 110 per cent. With the right attitude and the right amount of commitment it could be very, very successful.”
Australian Made Week runs from May 18 to 24, 2026.
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