GM not so sure Hummer is “all that”

This blog title could have been a headline for The Onion not so long ago. And yet now, it’s all in earnest. With oil topping $130 per barrel, a vehicle that gets somewhere around 10mpg suddenly seems like a burden rather than an asset. Remember when every new year seemed to bring another, bigger version of a GM SUV? Well, right now, “Eighteen of 19 planned new GM products will be cars or crossovers, and extra shifts will be added at plants that build some of its best selling compact cars, such as the Chevy Malibu and Pontiac G6.” (GreenBiz)

This graphic, from Wednesday’s Los Angeles Times, pits Hummer sales against Toyota Corolla sales:

The drama of the Hummer’s rise to gangsta popularity makes for a good story, but of course the story doesn’t actually end there: heavy vehicles, market-wide, are losing out to smaller, more efficient ones. Last month, for the first time in over fifteen years, Ford’s reliable pickup workhouse, the F-150, was not the best-selling vehicle in America. The Honda Civic was.

I was just in London, where gas topped $11/gallon. Here in Boston, it’s over $4, for the first time in history. Ridership on public transit is up, SUVs stagnate unsold in dealerships across America, there’s a waiting list for hybrid vehicles despite stepped-up production, and owning a truck or SUV can be a bit like owning a house in this market: many people are finding they owe more on their vehicle than the vehicle is actually worth, due to rapid depreciation.

GM has the go-ahead for its all-electric-capable Volt, which may hit the streets as early as 2010 (where you’ll plug it in at work, no one knows yet…). Fuel efficiency and alternative energy sources are the new driving forces behind automobile conceptualizing. If those forces can bring us as far forward in 50 years as the driving forces of greater speed and power brought us over the last 50, the days of the gas-fueled internal combustion engine may truly be over.