General Motors is dumping Hummer as part of its efforts to restructure into a leaner, greener company. The company has issued a press release announcing a preliminary agreement to sell Hummer, a brand that has come to symbolize the obsession with oversized gas guzzlers that many believe helped to bring down America’s top auto manufacturers. Statements made by President Barack Obama and a GM President and CEO Fritz Henderson indicate that the company will focus on building more fuel-efficient vehicles in the future.
“Today marks the beginning of what will be a new company, a New GM dedicated to building the very best cars and trucks, highly fuel efficient, world class quality, green technology development, and with truly outstanding design,” Henderson stated at a recent press conference. He later explained to Caroline Hepker of the BBC that the company expects consumer demand for fuel efficient vehicles to remain strong in the future, particularly once the economic situation improves and gas prices start to rise again.
“So I'm confident that the steps I'm announcing today will mark the end of an old GM, and the beginning of a new GM; a new GM that can produce the high-quality, safe, and fuel-efficient cars of tomorrow; that can lead America towards an energy independent future; and that is once more a symbol of America's success,”Obama said in speech delivered earlier this week. The President also urged Congress work to jumpstart demand by passing legislation designed to provide a credit to consumers who trade in older, less efficient models for new, more efficient ones.
David Anderson is the author of the blog The Green Jobs Report
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Comments: 13
ive alwayys wondered why these were put on the road anyways?
Simple. They made more profit per unit sold - or at least that was the plan. They even arranged, during the Bush administration, that businesses could deduct the entire cost of the gas-guzzler on their taxes.
interesting
GM is selling it for a song to some Chinese joint.
Hey, if they get ANYTHING for Hummer, it's money they don't deserve.
interesting
I wrote once to GM re: an ad, depicting an engineer throwing away "bad ideas" in a trash can. Surreally, those "bad ideas" were shown as wreckage being "thrown" away in the desert. I complained to the company re: the environmental message that sent - discarding auto waste in the desert. I got an email back that my complaint was passed onto the PR office. I replied that I owned a Honda Insight, a hybrid that got 62.2 mpg, and would be happy to consider GM, if they had such an efficient car. The email I received was telling. It arrogantly informed me that GM had no such car, and that the great thing about America is that everyone can buy whatever they can afford.
These guys learned the hard way that "unsustainable" means "unsustainable". The problem is that we are all paying for their stubborn intransigence.
Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Company Ltd. bought the horrid, tacky monstrosity. China and Russia actually have the boulevards that can avail these eyesores. Their' autocrats and mafiosos will love them.
Yes, GM will become the new Folks Car...or as they were called in the Reich...Volkswagens...only, forget GM approaching the efficiency and craftmanship of VW.
See: http://money.cnn.com/2009/06/02/news/companies/gm_hummer/?postversion=2009060216
GM will fail again and again....
I have deplored GM's monstrosities for years, but don't count them out. They have a fine engineering group, capable of building the best cars in the world. Will they get the chance to prove that?
Time will tell. It's way too soon to say. We the People now own 60% or so of the company, but that doesn't mean that they will build what we want or need. Many of the same upper management players are still there...chastened a bit, one would hope.
I am not a GM hater. A lot of people, especially in the midwest, really need for them to succeed and prosper. I wish them well.
"...particularly once the economic situation improves and gas prices start to rise again." In other words, GM will continue to build gasoline engines, maintain its partnership with Big Oil and neglect the development of alternate energy sources. And we continue to throw money at them?! What's wrong with this picture?
Let's hope not! That comment was actually aimed at addressing criticism that new lines of fuel efficient cars would flop because gas prices are relatively low right now. Henderson was explaining that gas prices will likely rise again in the near future, meaning that the demand for fuel efficient cars will only increase as time goes by.
But he's still just talking about more miles per gallon of gasoline. I want to see an entirely new kind of engine that doesn't depend on oil at all, not just smaller versions of the same old same old. If we're giving tax dollars to these manufacturers, I want them spent on research and development of new ways to move people around, not just ways to reduce gas consumption, which is a losing proposition in the long run since there is, after all, a finite amount of oil to drain from the planet.