REPORT: Independent Hummer sees alt-fuel model within five years, still looking at H4
Hummer HX Concept - Click above for a high-res image gallery
Now that General Motors has officially offloaded the HUMMER brand to Chinese machinery and equipment manufacturer Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Company Ltd., the next logical question is where does the brand go from here? Perhaps the best person to answer that question would be Jim Taylor, the man who was put in charge of the brand to get it ready for sale and who will reportedly stay on to lead HUMMER under its new ownership.
Speaking in an interview with Paul Eisenstein from The Detroit Bureau, Taylor had plenty of interesting things to say about HUMMER's future. For instance, he said, "We need to head towards CAFE compliance - which means smaller and more fuel efficient, or we're dialed out. Think of the smaller H4 we were showing at the auto show and it could safely conjectured we would enter into that space."
He further suggests that "a ground-up hybrid or electric vehicle, [would] make a lot of sense for the Hummer brand" since it "would help us change our image." What are the chances we'll see an electric, hybrid or otherwise alternatively-fueled HUMMER within the next five years? "I think five years out, excellent, assured. It's 100%," says Taylor. (Maybe he should call these guys).
Admittedly, that's a lot to chew on. A more environmentally-friendly HUMMER would surely be a tough nut to crack, especially since the brand's followers will understandably expect future HUMMER models to uphold the rough-and-tumble, go-anywhere nature of the breed. It should prove very interesting to see how this all proceeds, and Taylor certainly has our interest piqued.
Gallery: Detroit 2008: HUMMER HX Concept
[Source: The Detroit Bureau]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
tonyp 11:56AM (6/04/2009)
I wonder how the hard core flag waving set will receive a Chinese owned Hummer? Looks like they don't have a choice. Plus, it probably wont matter with good marketing and if they're built in a-merrica'.
Heck, Hummer probably has a better chance at success than GM. Now that would be a kick in the pants!
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Dan 12:54PM (6/04/2009)
I think a series-hybrid (non plugin) could make tremendous sense for a go-anywhere Hummer. Using separate traction motors for each wheel would lower and widen its weight distribution, and give it perfect traction control. With a simplified engine, reliability would go way up.
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Spence 3:33PM (6/04/2009)
If Hummer would simply build us a real Jeep again, they could sell a ton of them. Stick a small diesel motor in a light, tough platform with excellent ground clearance and few luxury items, sell it for under twenty grand, you'd have a market again. The whole idea behind the original H1 was a barely civilized work truck. Instead we got a blinged-out Suburban that was crap off road.
Build the actual vehicle GM has spent millions marketing, but never delivered!
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Sam 5:58PM (6/04/2009)
I'm not sure a hybrid Hummer would be well recieved, the tow ability and offroad ability would be impeaded by this, Spence has it right, a small diesel would allow it to keep it's (or increase) tow compacity and reduce fuel consumption and the low end torque would be great for offroading.
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Luke 12:26AM (6/05/2009)
Electric motors have good low end torque. Actually, that's all they really have. Consider, as a naive model of electric motor performance:
Power = torque * RPM
You determine power by controlling how much electricity you dump into the motor, and if you're at a standstill, RPM is 0. A little high school algebra will suggest that the torque is infinite which is, of course, absurd -- but you'll get an awful lot of torque out of it, and the amount of torque is reduced not quite linearly as RPM increases. Yes, I've just argued a point using an invalid model, but if you look at the torque curve for an electric motor, you'll see what I'm talking about.
I've driven 20k miles in a Jetta TDI and also in a Prius. They're both great cars that are totally unsuitable for off-roading (also an invalid model). But the Prius has great control on the low end, and the difference in the low end power isn't as much as you'd expect. Based on these two apparently-invalid models, though, I bet that a hybrid system that was optimized for off-road controllability would provide excellent off-roading performance. The electric motor on the Prius is too small to do this, but if you had a different balance of electric motor and ICE along with a modern traction control system, I bet someone could build a hybrid off-roading machine that would beat a clutch-jockey in every situation. It would take a lot of the fun out of it, though,
Joe 9:13PM (6/04/2009)
I think you underestimate electric motors. I think a diesel engine paired with a series electric drivetrain could work very well on a hummer. Monster torque for crawling over anything.
Sam 9:17PM (6/04/2009)
perhaps diesel/electric...gas/electric not so much...there arn't many hybrids out there that can tow much.. GMC improved that with their sierra hybrid but it's not nearly up to diesel standards.
Sam 12:42AM (6/05/2009)
The Scangauge ( http://scangauge.com/ ) has clearly identified that engine LOAD goes to 99% and requires electric motor assist with any kind of torque demand at low RPM's. This occurs without towing any weight, so we must conclude it is very hard to tow any additional weight without constantly calling on electric motor assist.
I can see this constant assist if not controlled by the driver or driving in the mountains, could overheat the electric motors, electric components and the HV battery. The systems have built in safety measures to shut these components down when they get to hot, but your left with a gas engine with very little torque at low RPM's.
The electrical assist will allow the HV battery State of Charge (SoC) to drop below the normal lower limits on acceleration demands and provide needed temporary electric motor torque. However, there is a point the electronic control module can't allow the battery SoC to drop to a point the gas engine does not have enough battery Soc to restart the engine. This would put electric motor assist at a point where it is no longer available and all acceleration would be at a dangerous level with the low RPM torque of the Atkinson Cycle gas engine in our FEH/MMH. There would be no way for the engine to get to the higher RPM and higher torque range quick enough for fast acceleration if needed. Remember, the electric torque allows the Atkinson engine to increase RPM's to a point it has the torque to no longer need electric motor assist.