What Should GM Do With Hummer?
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23,308 Posts
Keep it, but drop it in all markets but Australia. Holden starts with an 'H' and has 6 letters... Hummer starts with an 'H' and has 6 letters... think of the cost savings on H's for the badges!
Sorry, to be serious, sell it if possible. If not, flat-out can it.
Sorry, to be serious, sell it if possible. If not, flat-out can it.
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7,422 Posts
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1,039 Posts
I say to keep the Hummer brand, but keep it as a niche...which it should have been all along. Keep the H2, dump the H3 onto GMC, bring the H4. Now is not the time to squander resources on your gas-guzzler brand. It will probably be more of an asset in the future to keep Hummer, but stop dumping resources into it.
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441 Posts
I love Hummer, but to many they have a bad environmental reputation. The best way to revamp the brand would be to make it all electric or all fuel cell or something totally unorthodox like that. Anything else would be miniscule and would not change the Hummer brand perception of "ultimate gas guzzler".
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11 Posts
Selling Hummer is nothing more than some half-assed knee-jerk "solution." GM should turn Hummer into their Jeep® competitor, primarily a Wrangler competitor. Kill the H2 and H3 and concentrate on the upcoming H4. Build a short-wheelbase version with 2 removable doors to compete with the 2-dr Wrangler, a long-wheelbase 4-dr version to compete with the 4-dr Wrangler, and a pickup version built on the 4-dr's long wheelbase but with the 2-dr's cab plus 2 rear suicide doors. 3 light-weight, honest-to-God 4x4 off-roaders with a choice of a DOHC V6, V8 (both with Active Fuel Management) or diesel engines, with either a 6 spd manual or 6 spd automatic and a full-line of accessories.
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1,286 Posts
This might not be a bad option, I personally think that GMC should go before Hummer because GMC has nothing different. If GMC gets some good off roading machines like that then it would have a better reason to stay.
Hybrids would be a good idea and if the just did powertrain mods, it would not lose an ounce of off road ability. To bad to many people now equate hybrids with pansy small fuel economic cars with no power. A hybrid done like that could acually have more off road ability because of the added low end torque.
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2,190 Posts
First thought here is: who'd buy it? Hummer should become like Jeep, and should supplant some of GM's other SUV efforts. Both the H3 and H4 are good ideas, but the H2 needed to go away, as it encroaches on the Suburban/Tahoe.
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12,770 Posts
Get rid of it, but don't think GM can just keep cutting its way to sales and profitability. GM should replace the iconic HUMMER brand with a clear, loud and public commitment to making not just a few $35,000 electric cars or $50,000 hybrid full size SUVs, but class leading small cars built here. The next Aveo / Wave that are to be built in the U.S. need to be no-compromise "Japan-Killer" cars (that are frequently updated, not left to rot for 7 or 8 years), bringing the small-car know how of Opel together with the low-cost, high impact design (take the "jewel like taillights", for example) of GM Daewoo, and finishing it with what was learned from designing the last Cobalt here.
No 20+ year-old Opel hand-me-down-to-Daewoo engines, but the best in cost effective small-engines that the Opel of today can offer.
GM can cut brands all day long, but they need much more than a car here or there to make up for all they are losing in sales and profitability. The focus now, at long last, needs to be on making profitable small cars, and making a lot of them -- something GM has put off for too long.
No 20+ year-old Opel hand-me-down-to-Daewoo engines, but the best in cost effective small-engines that the Opel of today can offer.
GM can cut brands all day long, but they need much more than a car here or there to make up for all they are losing in sales and profitability. The focus now, at long last, needs to be on making profitable small cars, and making a lot of them -- something GM has put off for too long.
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21,466 Posts
Either keep Hummer or revise it, or take the H3 and H3T and use them to replace the Envoy/Trailblazer/Canyon/Colorado.
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4,031 Posts
I say kill it, it's an albatross. But, the business side says to combine it with SAAB; the H2 has been dropped already hasn't it? If not, kill it and keep the H3/H3T and make a Wrangler sized H4. The days of the H1 and H2 are over and GM needs to play smart. The 'product for every pocketbook' mentality should have been left in the 50's, it's not that kind of market anymore. GM needs to learn to play lean or it's doomed. Get rid of the fat and a monster SUV that weighs so much it doesn't have to post fuel economy numbers in the days of $4 a gallon gas is just outright stupid, shortsighted and dangerous. While the Japanese Big 2 are gaining market share due them selling what the average consumer wants, GM is sitting on the fence.
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536 Posts
Yup. Make it a premium only brand with a Lexus-like dealership experience.
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186 Posts
Since it's a niche market anyways, I say move it to diesel power combined w/ 2-mode. This may be enough to get the mileage up there that people still want it. I know Lutz has said the diesel hybrid is VERY costly. Well... So is a hummer in general, it's the perfect brand to do this to.
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