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GM's Hummer Brand To Be Sold To a Chinese Company
An anonymous reader writes in to note that GM will sell its Hummer brand to Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Co. of China, a little-known industrial firm. For now, the deal will save 3,000 jobs in the US. (The military HumVees are made by a separate company and are not involved in this deal.) "As part of the deal, some GM plants will continue to build the Hummer brand for the new owner, at least for awhile. The company said its Shreveport, La., plant will keep building Hummers for the new owner until at least 2010. ... GM said it sold 5,013 Hummers worldwide in the first quarter, down 62% from the 13,050 that it sold in the same period the prior year." AP coverage has more details on GM's planned divestitures, including the shedding of Pontiac, Saturn, and Saab.
Are they simply licensing the brand and making completely different vehicles to Military Specs?
"When the only tool you own is a hammer, every problem begins to resemble a nail." - Abraham Maslow (1908-1970)
That's worldwide. They're popular in the middle east and africa for sheiks and dictators.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
I wonder if anyone will buy Saab now, it has had worse sales than Hummer for a long time.
http://www.autoblog.com/2009/06/02/by-the-numbers-may-2009-gm-and-ford-surprise-edition/
The above link has some sales data.
The real problem isn't that Hummer is sold, it is that the bankruptcy of GM and Chrysler have both been shoved down the companies and investor's throats. So they will trot out that they saved 3,000 or so jobs. What about the 100,000 plus jobs lost when all the dealerships are being forced to close, even ones who make a profit? A considerable number, if not the majority, of dealerships being punted are profitable.
This is all about Wall Street and not Main Street. The people tasked with doing these close outs and sales are all Wall Street regulars. If Wall Street had been held to the same standards as Detroit the change might have been something I could believe in. Instead communities are going to face real problems when dealerships close. Yeah, 3000 jobs is nice but it is a nickle on a Cadillac in terms of loss/gain. In other words, who the flip cares?
Hummer. Funny thing is they will survive in the real world and not the alternate reality world the US has become.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Guess that decision to produce the Hummer over the EV-1 has come back to bite GM in the ASS big time!
"I bow to no man" - Riddick
As the original Anoymous poster of the entry, I must obligate to point out the important part of my post was DELETED by the editor:
Before you worry about soldiers of US army and marines riding on Chinese made jeeps, you should also note that GM China has made recorded sales in China, despite of its parent's woe in the US. I personally did notice quite a lot more Buick's running in the city of Shenzhen than on the streets of California. When I was over there, I owned a Buick myself which was made in China but with US-made engines and transmissions; whereas i own a Japanese car here in California. Strange world.
GM's cars are among the top seller over there.
Maybe you don't like to hear US company ``succeed'' in China, but don't censor our posts!
Some people actually need a vehicle with more than 12 " ground clearance. Hopefully the H2 delivers this. The H3, OTOH, is a completely inappropriate tool for most anything. For status, get an Escalade. For function, get an H2. For panache, get a Caterpillar.
Mind you, my wife would buy an H1 if she could afford it. And she thinks a Core 2 Duo with a 20" monitor is excessive...
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
The original post has
Before you worry about soldiers of US army and marines riding on Chinese made jeeps, you should also note that GM China has made recorded sales in China, despite of its parent's woe in the US. I personally did notice quite a lot more Buick's running in the city of Shenzhen than on the streets of California. When I was over there, I owned a Buick myself which was made in China but with US-made engines and transmissions; whereas i own a Japanese car here in California. Strange world.
Why is it edited away? Is / . censoring our post, because the news of american company doing well in China does not fit the site's editorial agenda?
The American economy recovered from the great depression by draining UK's coffers via the lend-lease act. That recovery turned into a boom which lasted nearly 50 years.
The current Chinese boom is a result of draining America's coffers. Its only a matter of time before the Chinese economy becomes self sustaining and they won't need us anymore. I'm afraid of what will happen when China becomes the new superpower and America takes up France's position of Ex-Superpower Turned Whiney Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys...
Is it sad that I am more likely to recognize you and your posts by your sig than your name or UID?
... at least for a while.
That's really the most important part of the summary.
Moderators: Before moderating a comment Insightful/Informative, check to see if a child post has already refuted it.
Keep plowing ahead ignoring your customers.
After all, they'll buy what you damn well want them to buy, right? Wrong. GM had piss-poor leadership, management with no vision. They kept making product that no one wanted to buy. The market handled GM alright.
Now, just think if GM had treated every potential customer that entered a dealership as a criminal.
Watch out RIAA/MPAA your industries are next. The market will handle you as well.
They're using their grammar skills there.
We drained the UK's coffers by giving them hundreds of ships, thousands of planes and tanks, and megatons of food, fuel and ammunition?!
Somehow, I think not.
Though building them certainly got Americans employed again, the stuff the Brits got through lend-lease were paid for by US taxpayers, not by the British.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
FYI France is the 3rd largest weapons manufacturer in the world and are essentially tied with the UK for 2nd. Not quite the "whiney cheese eating surrender monkeys" the american press makes them out to be.
They're welcome to it, as far as I'm concerned. Anyway, this is nothing new.
America's indigenous art forms have always had to go overseas in order to survive. Why do you think all the jazz musicians in the 40's and 50's had to move to Paris, or why Hendrix and The Ramones had to go to England to break out. Muddy Waters and Willie Dixon were practically destitute until the Rolling Stones took them on a European tour and exposed their music widely (to American audiences).
It's shocking how much of the greatest American artists have had to leave the country in order to find artistic and financial success.
As far as the Hummer goes, I'm not sure this is a great loss. The notion that personal automobiles ought to look like (and be as big as) diesel locomotives is one that I will not miss. And I don't think I'm the only one. I've noticed, in fact, that people who are still driving behemoths like the Lincoln Navigator or Chevy Tahoe or GMC or the bloated Nissan Armada look a wee bit sheepish lately when I see them at the gas pumps, sort of like a guy with a fat girlfriend who tries to pretend she's not with him when he runs into someone he knows. In fact, it's exactly like that.
To think that when the Lincoln Continental was first introduced it was a two-seat roadster built on a Thunderbird chassis and was rather small and graceful and drop-dead gorgeous and with the overblown 80's became as big as an aircraft carrier (and about as graceful) and today looks like a Ford police sedan with edema (and a little extra chrome bolted on).
The US auto industry, which once made iconic and stunning (if somewhat baroque) masterpieces, now couldn't design their way out of a brown paper bag. Think about it: the biggest hits for the US automakers since the 90s (besides the aforementioned personal sport locomotives) are campy, overpriced, faux-retro clunkers like the recent Mustangs, Dodge Chargers, Camaros and Thunderbirds, designed to make fifty-something baby boomers relive their miserable adolescent gropings in their progenitors' back seats.
Put a 1955 Corvette next to any Corvette since 2000 to see what I mean. Remember, that '55 Vette cost about $2800 so you didn't have to be a partner in a law firm or a crooked derivatives trader to afford one.
Anyway, fuck alla that fossil fuel bullshit. I ride a bike. I don't have to make payments, ransom my daughter's college fund to fill the gas tank and when I get to work, my blood pressure is lower.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Sorry, could you specify whether you're referring to China, or the US. Hard to differentiate on those criteria. If you'd said "invades or bombs foreign countries on a whim", "kidnaps, imprisons and tortures nationals of any country without due process", I might have guessed.
Sorry, couldn't resist that straight line.
The UK made its last repayment at the end of 2006. This is an article from the Beeb about it. Interestingly, there are still WW1 debts still outstanding, which "Adjusted by the Retail Price Index, a typical measure of inflation, £866m would equate to £40bn now, and if adjusted by the growth of GDP, to about £225bn."
You can compare this with 1805 when the Battle of Trafalgar occurred. British government debt then equated 30 times their annual revenue. By winning that battle though, Britain become the dominant power, and presumably paid of the debts of all the wars by plundering the rest of the world.
Quibble: it was the UK, not England, that received the loans from the US.