Today, General Motors announced that it will be closing four truck and SUV plants in North America and may discontinue its Hummer line, citing the slumping sales of large vehicles brought on by high oil prices. Sales of the Hummer were down 61 percent last month, and May was also the first month in which cars outsold the Ford F-series truck since 1992. In place of the Hummer, GM CEO Rick Wagoner announced that the GM board has approved production of a new small automobile and a new electric car. As CBS reported, Wagoner “said the change in the U.S. market to smaller vehicles likely is permanent.”
No one could have anticipated this!
Two of the plants that GM is closing are foreign: one in Canada and one in Mexico. Production of the new automobiles will be U.S.-based, in a plant to open in Ohio in 2010. As long as GM lives up to its promises, this looks like good news all around.
