GM is canceling the gas-guzzling Hummer, according to an Reuters news report cited by CNN this week.
In GM Hummer H1 reaches end of the road - May 12, CNN.com says:
The last H1s, which get about 10 miles per gallon [emphasis added by me], will roll out in June, the automaker said. The H1 is the foundation for GM’s Hummer brand.
I am in awe of the intelligence of anyone who could buy a personal vehicle that costs them $90, in gas alone - every 300 miles.
Some people do 30 miles each way to/from work every day. So, they would burn the whole $90 of gas every week - just on their commuting.
And if gas rises from $3 to $5 per gallon, then they will be shelling out $150 at the pump each week.
That is hilarious. A person does not need to spend even close to that much on food.
Seems crazy to literally send it up in smoke.
Even at $3 a gallon, that is $14 per day. They probably spend more feeding their car each day than their children.
What does it take to get more than 20K people a month to buy a hybrid car, instead of SUVs, minivans, and pickups?
Now, if someone is using it for business and their business it to drive it back and forth across a construction site - that might be money well spent. Assuming they are hauling construction materials, sheet rock, two-by-fours - that kind of stuff.
Hummer has a cargo area that is low to the ground, and the thing is wide. Intuition says it is not going to flip over unless you are driving it sideways on a really steep grade - or have something piled pretty high on it. Probably only crazy people do that.
Now, an SUV - with a really high center of gravity, high cargo area, and a pretty average (relatively narrow) width - well, do I have to draw you a picture?
This SUV obsession thing reminds of the late 1970s. Gas prices were soaring.
What were Americans buying? The huge american cars that US auto makers blithely kept churning out.
These cars got terrible mileage. Much like Hummers and some SUVs today.
Gas stations were running out of gas. People waited in line for an hour to buy gas. Sometimes they would get close to the front of the line, finally - and the pumps would close.
No more. Ran out. Go somewhere else. Wait in line and try again.
And the gas was costing around a buck a gallon, which was higher than it had ever been before.
What did the Japanese automakers do? They used modernized, automated factories - and cranked out tons of low cost, low fuel consumption, small autos.
What did Americans do? A lot of them switched to buying Japanese cars.
They did not need a car that seated more than 5 people, they were not running a construction company, and they were not getting ready to drive off an live in an isolated mountain village for four weeks.
The Japanese cars had what they wanted, at a price that was nice, and would not make them bring brown bag lunches to the gas pump lines a couple times per week.
Detroit was hit hard by the sudden drop in demand for their cars. They chalked it up to what they called unfair Japanese competition. But what was unfair about it?
Smaller cars had fewer big parts, less material, lower parts costs. Automation, via robots that worked three shifts a day, all through the week - was far less expensive than skilled human trade labor. And humans had to be paid for every shift a factory operated.
By contrast, robots which needed just a little energy and occasional maintenance to operate - made Japanese car-making plants less expensive to keep going all the time. So, they produced a higher volume for less labor costs.
How is that unfair?
US car makers had the ability to do the same thing in the US before the Japanese got their chance to do it in Japan. In fact, they got their ideas from American experts whose suggestions were rejected or ignored in Detroit.
So anyway, now it looks like it is going to be the battle between gas-guzzling SUVs and energy efficient hybrids that go up to five times as far on the same amount of gas. Considering, we are all in the midst of growing competition/strife over fuel - the battle is going to wind up going to the hybrids.
The better alternatives are too far off, and the time of the sluggish old dinosaurs is way far past. A lot of people do not believe in evolution. But when gas prices break $4.50 per gallon, they will quickly see and feel it in action.
On a sad, and somewhat related note, in its Nigeria pipeline blast kills up to 200 people story, Reuters reports:
Up to 200 people were burnt to death on Friday when an oil pipeline exploded on the outskirts of Lagos after thieves tapped into it to steal fuel.
Highlights of the accident:
- Everything in a 120 foot diameter circle around the blast was burned up.
- Nothing remained but bones, almost reduced to ash, of the 5 closest people to the last.
- The people killed were trying to steal the oil escaping from the ruptured pipeline.
- Thieves had ruptured the pipeline in order to steal the fuel, and sell it on the black market.
- This happens a lot in Nigeria. It has happened a lot of times since the year 2000.
- A hundred or so bodies were left near the scene.
- Fifty to a hundred more bodies floated down the nearby river, some up to about a mile away from the accident site.
That is how over-valued fuel is becoming.
And how under-valued lives are.
Cut your energy consumption. You might wind up conserving something more valuable than oil.
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