Gulf Arab Investors Interested in GM's Hummer Brand 7 comments
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Over at GM, two Gulf Arab investors seem to have expressed their interest in buying General Motors’ (GM) Hummer brand:
“For sure, there has been interest from various parties within the Gulf … there is a precedent in the cases of Aston Martin, Ferrari or Daimler, and those kinds of solutions could be very realistic solutions,” GM Middle East Managing Director Terry Johnsson said on Tuesday in a telephone interview with Reuters.
GM Chief Executive Rick Wagoner said on Aug. 21 that the automaker had in fact received initial expressions of interest from potential buyers of its Hummer brand, and it was preparing data and other materials to open formal talks.
Whether GM gets to sell or simply kill the Hummer brand, business/wise - it won’t make or break the company. In fact, the Hummer brand has never been a big contributer in terms of numbers to GM’s U.S. sales. Out of GM’s total sales of 3.8 million cars and trucks during fiscal ‘07, the entire brand sold only 56,000 trucks in the U.S.
A couple of months ago, with drivers in the U.S. opting for fuel-efficient vehicles in the face of $4 a gallon gasoline, and as Hummer sales kept deteriorating, GM announced that it was considering its Hummer brand for sale. The company also announced that it was stopping production at its four plants that build gasoline-guzzling pickup trucks and SUVs. Unfortunately, and almost in a melancholic way, big trucks and SUVs won’t dominate the U.S. highways and the U.S market anymore, which at the very least, suggests an energy policy incompetently designed and executed.
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This article has 7 comments:
How does an "incompetently designed and executed" U.S. energy policy have anything to do with your melancholy over automakers no longer selling "gas-guzzling" (your words) SUV's and pickup trucks?
Last I checked they were still for sale, and you could walk in the door and buy one. Hell, they'll GIVE you one if you're not careful. It seems consumers are voting with their feet, however, and "Big" is done.
If by "incompetent design and execution," you are referring to our Congress, no kidding. But its this very "incompetence" that allowed these vehicles to survive as long as they did. Had they imposed higher CAFE standards or gas taxes earlier (which I'm NOT advocating), the "Bigs" would have been long gone years ago.
If by "incompetence" you are referring to the various energy exploration bans and ridiculous regulatory regimes the Congress HAS enacted, I agree with you completely. Indeed, it was automaker (NOT oil company) lobbying that allowed the "Bigs" to slip through existing CAFE requirements, which led to their popularity in the first place.
The simple facts are the unintended consequences of U.S. military supremacy and resulting global trade and economic growth has created a brave new world for us, where we have to compete for increasingly scarce affordable energy. We simply have to get over what once was and deal with it!
On Sep 02 06:31 PM sreynolds1977 wrote:
> So, depending on where the Arabs put the Hummer plant, it's entirely
> possible that our military Hummer might be built by terrorists...to
> fight the war on terror?