HUMMER FINALLY SOLD! BUT TO WHO?

General Motors has entered into what is called a memorandum of understanding or MoU with an unidentified party to buy its HUMMER brand. No more details regarding the proposed transaction and how much this mystery buyer is paying were forthcoming.





What is understood though is that the HUMMER H3, many of which are built in South Africa, will cease production in Mzansi and move back to the US. I don’t know what will happen to the people who work on the H3 line or that part of the plant itself. GMSA CEO Steve Koch says his company had already factored in this relocation of H3 assembly and therefore there will be very minimal changes as a result.





Current owners of the H3 and those wishing to purchase in future have been assured that this transaction will not affect their warranties, service levels and other benefits attached to their H3 SUVs.





UPDATE: A Chinese company called Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Company is the mystery HUMMER buyer. GM expects the transaction to be finalised by the beginning of October 2009.

FIRST VOLVO HYBRIDS FOR SALE IN 2012

Volvo’s first hybrid vehicles will be sold on the streets, at least on the streets of Sweden, from 2012. This announcement by the CEO of the Volvo Car Corporation Mr Stephen Odell means Volvo will become the first Swedish automaker to use hybrid technology in its cars. Others like SAAB and Koenigsegg might follow later.





The hybrid system will be developed in partnership with the Swedish power company Vattenfall. The cars will be able to recharge from a home electric plug.





“We are investing in an industrial joint venture to series-produce plug-in hybrid cars in Sweden in 2012,” said Odell, “cars that can be powered by both electricity and diesel. This is an important business development for us and our partnership with Vattenfall allows us to take a giant step toward offering our customers cars with an even smaller environmental footprint.”





These plug-in Volvo hybrid cars will be driven by a powerful electric motor fuelled by a lithium-ion battery. The battery takes about 5 hours to charge from a normal wall socket, and the battery is also charged every time the car's brakes are applied. That system is called brake energy regeneration and is also used in Formula One where it’s called KERS.

CHRYSLER SALE TO FIAT APPROVED

A US judge has approved the sale of Chrysler to Fiat. Judge Arthur Gonzalez said that Chrysler only had one alternative, which was to sell off its best assets to Fiat, reorganise itself during a bankruptcy filing and come out a better company as a result.

Some of the stuff that Judge Gonzalez wrote in his statement include saying:





"The whole enterprise may be worth more than the sum of its parts because of the synergy between Chrysler, which provides its network of dealerships, its production of larger cars, and Fiat, which provides the smaller car technology, and the access to certain international markets..” and “Indeed, because of the overriding concern of the U.S. and Canadian governments to protect the public interest, the terms of the Fiat Transaction present an opportunity that the marketplace alone could not offer, and that certainly exceeds the liquidation value.”