For a locally compact metrizable group G, we consider the action of Aut(G) on Sub G , the space of all closed subgroups of G endowed with the Chabauty topology. We study the structure of groups G admitting automorphisms T which act expansively on Sub G . We show that such a group G is necessarily totally disconnected, T is expansive and that the contraction groups of T and T −1 are closed and their product is open in G; moreover, if G is compact, then G is finite. We also obtain the structure of the contraction group of such T . For the class of groups G which are finite direct products of Q p for distinct primes p, we show that T ∈ Aut(G) acts expansively on Sub G if and only if T is expansive. However, any higher dimensional p-adic vector space Q n p , (n ≥ 2), does not admit any automorphism which acts expansively on Sub G .