It is far from clear what the car of the future should be. Perhaps there should be fewer cars or in Australia's case they should be powered by natural gas. Chinese car maker BYD appears to have stolen a march on Detroit with their plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/12/byd-will-push-b.html
However this more expensive and limited electric range type of car may not suit Australia's long commutes or the steady erosion of secure employment. To cap it off crude oil has peaked and the alternatives condensate, ethanol and tar sands will struggle to fill the supply gap. Hence a crude oil price rebound is expected soon.

Moreover I doubt if Australia is ready for a China based car maker just yet. It looks as though some Rio Tinto mines will go China's way but that is less visible than a suburban car plant. In short the future product mix and ownership of the car industry is anybody's guess.

Tas,
Have you seen the new Hydrogen Honda it was on the "Top Gear (UK)" show a few weeks back...I'd buy one. It is equivalent in performance to the average mid class saloon.

Nicholas.
I think the motor vehicle as we know it is or should be a thing of the past. Personally I believe the era of the dirty mega corp. is going/ gone.
They are too slow to respond and are inefficient in their usage of resources. We can no longer afford to look at the likes of Ford/GMH/Sony etc in isolation. All mass production works on the assumptions that ‘someone will buy our products’ (all we need is to manipulate the market/government) and ‘economical runs’. If for example technology/trends/needs change the surplus is ‘dumped’ at a loss corrupting the supply and demand cycle by (consumerism) and more waste. This slows vital change to a crawl (waiting for all those ‘polluting and technically obsolete’ vehicles/products to work their way into the waste cycle. All this hides the real cost of this “over-production” and the magic pudding concept (never ending growth) that underpins our consumer driven society as opposed to need.
Some Mega Corp makes a “profit” there is at least an equalling cost somewhere. Isn’t it time Economists started factoring in the real cost of consumerism and the magic pudding economics to history.…there is no such thing as a free lunch.There must be a reconing some where AGW

Examinator I think you'll find the Honda FCV is far from a practical proposition. Top Gear went to California where several of the vehicles are leased and there are several hydrogen filling stations. You can't buy the cars due to a likely ticket price over half a million dollars and lack of fuelling facilities. Despite the efficient electric motors the overall efficiency of hydrogen fuel cell cars is under 20% in terms of getting power to the road. The membranes inside the cells start to disintegrate after 100 hours or so and cheap liquid fuels like alcohol are currently unsuitable. If such cars ever go commercial it will be plastic surgeons, movie stars and cabinet ministers riding in them, not you or me.