GM retired Holden, the maker of Australia's best-selling car for 15 straight years

General Motors announced on February 17, 2020 that it would 'retire' Holden — maker of the Commodore and Barina and once Australia's best-selling car for 15 consecutive years — from sales, design and engineering across Australia and New Zealand by 2021. About 600 of the 800 Holden employees remaining in Australia, including 600 Melbourne workers designing cars for the local market, were set to lose their jobs by the end of June 2020.

GM International Operations senior vice president Julian Blissett called it 'an agonising decision', arguing the brand could not remain competitive in a fragmented right-hand-drive market. The announcement coincided with GM's withdrawal of Chevrolet from the Thai domestic market, and Blissett put the total cost of exiting Thailand, Australia and New Zealand at more than US$1 billion. GM pledged at least 10 more years of customer service for Holden owners.

The politics were immediate. Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he was 'angry' the brand had been allowed to 'wither away', and Federal Industry Minister Karen Andrews called it 'unacceptable' that the decision was made without consulting the government. Holden had already ended Australian manufacturing in October 2017, forcing hundreds of job losses; the 2020 decision removed nearly everything that was left.

The 2017 exit from local manufacturing left Holden selling imported models against stronger-established import brands, eroding the volume the badge needed.

GM judged the right-hand-drive market too fragmented to justify engineering cars for Australia and New Zealand at competitive prices.

The retirement consolidated GM's regional retreat — Chevrolet out of Thailand, Holden out of Australasia — into a single restructuring with a billion-dollar-plus bill.

Brand love does not convert across a product gap: once the local factory closed, an imported badge with no distinct model line was a brand without a reason to exist.

Holden sales, design and engineering wound up across Australia and New Zealand by 2021, with the overwhelming majority of local staff gone by June 2020 and at least a decade of servicing promised to owners. The government's anger — from the prime minister down — marked the end of a 160-year motoring institution.