The technology that will help Ford (and others) avoid Holden's fate

The demise of Holden can be blamed on multiple factors but high amongst them is Australia’s status as a right-hand-drive market. As General Motors itself admitted when it shuttered the brand, the “highly fragmented right-hand-drive markets” made it increasingly difficult to justify building cars with the steering wheel on the right side.

But technology is coming to save the day for right-hand-drive cars and it could ultimately lead to more makes and models filtering their way into our market.

For many, the rise of electric vehicles was seen as the potential catalyst for change, because often it was the internal combustion engine and its ancillary components that made it difficult to switch the steering column from one side to the other. Smaller electric motors were seen as removing one of those barriers, but according to Ford’s electric vehicle program director, Darren Palmer, that’s not the case. 

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“Not particularly, not yet,” he said. “You’ve got to do the dashboard the other way around, [plus] the brakes and the accelerator system and the steering system. And sometimes you’ve got a particular clash requirement for that market… But you’ve tooled up the parts the other way around.

“When you design the car, you’ve got to make sure it can work both ways. Otherwise, I’ve got to change loads of parts. The fact that right-hand drive exists means you can’t use that space most effectively and you’ve got to move stuff around, so it’s not particularly easy.”

Fortunately, Mr Palmer - and the wider car industry - has a solution.

“One day, with drive-by-wire and brake-by-wire, those things [will] become easier,” he explained.

So-called ‘fly-by-wire’ technology removes the mechanical link between, for example, the brake pedal and the braking hardware and instead uses a digital signal to activate the brakes. It is already widely used in the aviation industry to reduce weight and has already begun to be rolled out in selected vehicles.

For example, the Chevrolet Corvette C8 uses brake-by-wire, while the Infiniti Q50 and Q60 were the first production cars to use steer-by-wire. While not widely available in the automotive space yet, the technology could prove a game-changing moment for right-hand-drive markets like Australia.

With EVs, it's easier to switch the steering column from one side to the other.

However, with mixed reviews for the Infiniti models and the way they handled, there is still some development work to be done before this technology is ready for wider application across the automotive industry.

Removing the mechanical linkages between the steering wheel, accelerator and brakes will make right-hand-drive vehicles easier to use, as Mr Palmer explained. It will also dramatically cut down the amount of engineering work needed and could eventually mean more models are made available to our market and in a timelier fashion.

It’s a particularly pertinent topic for Ford Australia, as the brand was so confident of the potential for the F-150 pick-up in our market it convinced management in Detroit to allow it to convert it from left- to right-hand drive locally. 

As Ford International Market Groups president Dianne Craig, told CarsGuide in Detroit recently, the success of the F-150 project could lead to more locally converted right-hand-drive models - and not just for the Australian market.

The F-150 project could lead to more locally converted right-hand-drive models.

“That is what this opportunity and working with [conversion partner] RMA [Group] can really provide an opportunity for us, not just in Australia but other right-hand drive markets,” Ms Craig said. “It’s all about scale, with Ranger and Everest we’re hitting the scale. But, yeah, we’ll see, we think the F-150 right-hand drive conversion is a great example of what we can do.”

Ford isn’t alone either, with Walkinshaw Automotive Group growing to larger than its Holden Special Vehicles days as it now converts Chevrolet and Ram pick-ups for local buyers, and will soon help Toyota to RHD remanufacture its Tundra too.

But relatively low-volume right-hand-drive conversion is likely to be a short-term solution for Ford, with the fly-by-wire technology the key breakthrough for more mainstream models to ultimately find their way to local roads. 

In theory, this could eventually mean car makers could offer any model fitted with fly-by-wire technology in both left- and right-hand drive without the significant challenges that face it today - which ultimately, cost Holden dearly.