Schwarzenegger isn't mourning the loss of Hummer

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who helped popularize the Hummer almost two decades ago, didn’t shed any tears today about the gas-guzzling brand being sold to a Chinese firm.

Rather, he said the car had become a symptom of Detroit’s failure to keep up with the times.

 “I’ve always been a big fan of the Hummer, but … we know we’ve got to get rid of the big polluting vehicles and cars that drive with very low mileage,” he said. “You know the Hummer gets maybe 14 miles per gallonand that is not enough.” Schwarzenegger, who has taken to helping market cars that run on cleaner and more fuel efficient technology, had just finished inspecting a Volkswagen Passat with a hydrogen-powered engine.

Last week in the same spot, he looked at an electric Hummer made not by GM but by another company, Raser Technologies.

 The governor himself owns a Hummer retrofitted to run on vegetable oil. Schwarzenegger said he would “guarantee” that innovative Chinese automakers would double the Hummer’s gas mileage, or perhaps even make one that runs 100 miles on a gallon.

 “I feel saddened about the fact that America has so far fallen behind and that Detroit, the big automakers, that make spectacular cars …. somehow have not kept up in the technology,” Schwarzenegger said. “And I think it is largely because they have been protected by the federal government for too long, rather than the federal government saying, ‘Here are the new standards -- 10 years from now, those are the cars that you have to produce.’ ”

--Michael Rothfeld in Sacramento

Photo: Schwarzenegger's fondness for Hummers goes way back: In 2001, in New York, he poses to give thumbs up at the world premiere of the H2 Sport Utility Truck. Credit: Peter Morgan / Reuters

Comments

[James Andrews]

It will be so much nicer having Hummers sold here that are built by a company owned by the Chinese Government. That changes a lot??? Someone must have spiked the Kool Aid.