The next Holden and Ford: More game-changing brands bringing auto manufacturing back to Australia - and there's not a Commodore or Falcon in sight

Australian manufacturing is poised for something of a comeback in Australia, with a handful of brave home-grown brands keen to put the skills of our auto-trained workforce to good use on a range of small-volume new electric vehicles.

It's a topic we touched on recently, and the response to that article has encouraged to take another look at what's happening on the homegrown auto front in Australia.

And in doing so, we've got another list of companies set to reignite Australia's auto manufacturing industry.

Atlis and AusMV

Queensland-based Australian Manufactured Vehicles (AusMV) has its sights firmly set on re-engineering (much like Walkinshaw do in Victoria) the tough-as-nails XT 4x4 full-size pick-up Down Under, with the brand targeting a 2023 launch date for the epic-looking EV.

And not only are we talking big numbers (like 19000 units in the first two years of production), but also – incredibly – opening up an export market that would see Aussie-fettled vehicles exported to markets in Southeast Asia.

“Many traditional automakers have overlooked Australia when launching new EVs for a variety of reasons, but we see things differently. Our long-range, fast-charging electric work trucks are ideal for this market," says Atlis founder and CEO Mark Hanchett.

“We don't need legislative imperatives and other incentives to ship vehicles to Australia and AusMV knows how to get them into owners’ hands.”

The three- or six-seat Atlis XT is a serious bit of kit, with a quad-motor powertrain producing around 450kW, with maximum torque (albeit calculated with the wizardry applied to EVs) of more than 16,000Nm.

The brand says you'll clip 100km/h in 5.0 seconds, and push on to 193km/h –all with a mega braked towing capacity and a 250kWh battery that will carry you around 644km between charges.

Australian Manufactured Vehicles (AusMV) already work on Ram and Ford trucks, as well as Dodge muscle cars, in Australia, with the Atlis XT listed as "coming soon" on its website.

ACE EV GROUP

As we mentioned in our last article, the South Australia-based ACE EV Group has the commercial vehicle market in its sights, having already begun taking orders for its clever X1 Transformer, a van built on a modular architecture that will serve up the traditional short and long wheelbase, and high and low roof, and can even spawn a ute. The fascinating part, is that it can become any one of the vehicles above in just 15 minutes, thanks to its quick-change modular platform.

We caught up with ACE EV chief to see how his plans were progressing, and learned that the X1 Transformer has already attracted plenty of attention

"We've got reservations for three-million-dollars worth of vehicles," says ACE EV's Greg McGarvie.

"The X1 will be quickest to market. Optimistically, we’re looking at building 10 Transformers for the trial, and then with the funding in place, we’d plan to do 300 in our first year. Then ramping up to 24000 units by 2025 or 2026.

"We're still settling on Queensland, South Australia, Victoria or NSW for our production facility, and we're hoping to employ 500 people at 24000 units."

The brand will launch with the X1, before turning its attention to its Yewt and Cargo models. It's also about a month away from launching its own V2G bi-directional charging technology, as well as working on a plan to export its vehicles in a flat-pack state to give other countries a "pop-up auto industry".

Asked whether Australia was too expensive to really launch vehicle manufacturing, Mr McGarvie was quick to rebut.

"We think that’s rubbish," he says. "Look at Elon Musk, he started his business in the middle of the USA. We think Australia is prime for this kind of thing."

The X1 Transformer will go into pre-production in November, with full testing to occur in April 2021, according to the company. Though it will also likely have a new name by then, with BMW likely to be none-to-happy with the current nameplate.

Walkinshaw Group

We touched on Walkinshaw Group last time – they have been on fire over the past few years, reengineering a host of GM models for the Australian market (think Camaro and Silverado), partnering with RAM Trucks Australia for their 1500, and most recently forming the new GMSV from the ashes of Holden and HSV in our market.

But this time around we thought we'd focus on something a little less likely, but still incredibly exciting.

Our own Stephen Ottley recently caught up with some of Walkinshaw's heaviest hitters, who told him they were dreaming of producing a new homegrown hero that would not only shade the HSVs of old, but would also take a run at everything from the Porsche 911 to the Audi R8.

That's from Walkinshaw designer Julian Quincey (he of GTSR W1 and Amarok W580 fame) who told CarsGuide he believes the company has all the facilities in place to create a bespoke sports car.

“That would be my dream,” Mr Quincey said. “Obviously, we have a design facility, we’ve got an engineering facility, we’ve got the people, we’ve got the skills. Basically, this could open up the doors to work with anyone that has a dream - we could deliver [it].”

And so says chief engineer David Kermond, who says Walkinshaw is set-up to design, engineer and produce a low-volume performance car.

“It’s almost a turn-key facility,” Mr Kermond says. “You say, ‘we want this’, and we can turn this on, create a prototype and develop it and sell it.

“Our test facility is one of the best in the southern hemisphere when it comes to testing labs, rig testing. We can do anything in that regard; seat belt pull tests, cab pull tests, durability tests. We can scan road surfaces and play that back into the car in the workshop and make changes on-the-fly in the workshop before we head out to real-world testing.”

Unlikely? Sure. But cross your fingers.