There is really nothing much more to say than those Hummer sales were so low in 2009 that GM has decided to discontinue the line. With the rising cost of gas, and Hummers being far from the most fuel-efficient vehicles, one need not be a Jean Dixon to have predicted the tumultuous decline in sales.
The hopes that many held that Hummer would produce a more fuel-efficient model were dashed, and this was pretty predictable as well, since the 2009 release of the model was preceded by the summer of 2008 seeing some of the highest oil prices of the year. By that time, production of the 2009 model was well underway without accounting for fuel efficiency considerations. When the sales for Hummers in 2008 fell over 50% from its sales in 2007, it could only follow that the decline would continue without changing its fuel-efficiency factor.
Perhaps the false hopes that GM had to sell its Hummer line to the Chinese led them to relax when they should have been proactive in the manufacture of a less gas guzzling tank. Although the transfer had been announced as a done deal when it was really only a preliminary deal, leaving devout Hummer fans humming a happy tune, when the Chinese regulatory body decided this was not going to happen, it didn’t.
One of the reasons Hummer is not being saved by the Chinese is that the Chinese government does not wish to take on the manufacture of a vehicle that is not in line with its newest policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This makes one wonder whether it would be possible to even produce a model that would be as powerful as Hummer with stringent restrictions on emissions. So how did Hummer do in 2009? The tank tanked.
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