Save the Hummer!

The General Motors Corporation is considering the sale of its Hummer brand or shut down of production.

As I had written in a blog-post, earlier, the Hummer is, arguably, the best small general-purpose vehicle available to the civilian population of the world, in terms of off-road driving capabilities (even if it does not look quite as good as, say, the Jeep Wrangler). I am sure that there are many others like me, around the world, who would be saddened immensely, if the Hummer's production were to be shut down. The brand being sold off might offer some hope yet, but it is difficult to anticipate the kind of changes that a purchaser might want to bring about in the vehicle.

One can blame it all on the ever-increasing oil prices, I suppose. However, the prices of oil are expected to stabilise in the long-term and in the short- to the medium-terms, the attempts being made towards increasing fuel-efficiency of the Hummers as well as to run these on alternate fuels should have a positive impact on sales.

Buyers, especially in North America, have been known, in the past, to revert to purchasing Sport Utility/Four-Wheel Drive (4x4) vehicles, as soon as prices of fossil fuels start falling. Besides, not only has a new, all-aluminium engine (which is, obviously, much lighter and, therefore, a vehicle powered by it is likely to be more fuel-efficient than one powered by an engine made of cast-iron) been built for the Hummer H3, but I have also heard that a hybrid version of the Hummer i.e. one powered by a combination of an internal combustion engine and an electric motor that runs on batteries, is already on the drawing board.

Hummers that run on 'greener' fuels like Hydrogen and Bio-Diesel have already been widely reported about, especially because of some famous owners, like body building champion-turned-actor-turned-politician Arnold Schwarznegger, of such vehicles.

I sincerely hope that all these factors will help tilt the scales in the Hummer's favour and that production will not be shut down.