Opinion: Bombay Hummer bummer

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The Times was ahead of its time three years ago, when an editorial predicting the imminent demise of the SUV included a list of useful suggestions on what people could do with the gas-guzzling behemoths now that nobody wanted to drive them anymore (sample: Sink them offshore as artificial reefs). Reports of the SUV’s demise were premature, but then gas prices started their astonishing climb. If the SUV hasn’t quite flatlined, it’s got a roomful of worried auto makers gathered around its bed while their stock analysts are calling for a priest. Unfortunately, though, the steel-and-rubber corpses aren’t going to get a decent burial as artificial reefs. They’re going to end up spreading pollution and inflating gasoline prices in the developing world.

Reuters is reporting that General Motors is in talks with Indian auto maker Mahindra & Mahindra, as well as other companies in Russia and China, about unloading its disastrous Hummer brand. In places like China where gasoline is subsidized, it’s not unreasonable to think the nouveau riche might appreciate a tank-sized symbol of excess like the Hummer. But what happens to carbon emissions and oil prices when a big percentage of the 2.45 billion people in China and India start driving? Especially if they’re driving 15-mile-per-gallon monstrosities? It’s little wonder that speculators are excited about oil futures, because even as high prices prompt Americans to conserve gas and reduce demand, newly wealthy populations in Russia and China are shielded from rising prices by the government and have less reason to cut back. Hence GM might find a buyer for a brand that nobody in the industrialized world would touch.

There may have once been a time when what was good for GM was good for the country. But if selling Hummer to China or an Indian manufacturer is good for GM, it’s bad for everybody on Earth. Better to turn those old Hummers into planter boxes, or, as The Times suggested in 2005, make them into ‘hot tubs with comfortable seating.’

*Photo: Carolyn Kaster / Associated Press