Monday, January 18, 2010

GM wise to drop Hummer, build electric car Volt



DETROIT -- General Motors is smart to be looking to drop the Hummer line of ugly gas-guzzlers, and instead put more attention on fuel efficient cars, including the upcoming Chevy Volt.

While this is good news, GM's move away from Hummers and giant SUVs is long overdue, coming at a time of record high oil prices.

Good luck selling a gas hog Hummer now or in the future

What is sad here is many autoworkers will be hurt by GM management's much too late shift away from gas guzzlers. Workers on the assembly lines at affected plants suffer again from terrible decisions made by GM executives in glass towers, this time the obsession with Hummers and SUVs when GM should have been building more efficient vehicles.

Too bad big oil and GM management killed the electric EV-1 many years ago when, despite big protests, GM hauled all of the groundbreaking electric vehicles to Mesa, Arizona and crushed them. While the EV-1 was far from perfect, the move by GM executives to drop it was a big setback and delay to clean car technology we so badly need now.

Nevertheless, in these tough economic and environmental times, I wish GM well in it's move toward much more efficient vehicles.