General Motors swaps Hummers for mini-cars as fuel prices soar in the US

I assume all the numbers given are for the UK.
Not surprisingly, the US is a distinctly different market.

However, sales in the US probably mirror this trend close enough as to not matter.
In the case of GM, their is a systemic problem that simply won't go away:

From one end of the spectrum, the $2500 Tata (India) to the other ($26,000) Toyota Prius, there is a lot of room discuss, and GM can't evade the reality that its pricing starts off in the hole. No truly economical high mileage car is likely to come out of GM:

As I undestand it, GM owes the Autoworkers union at least $1200 per new car before the first bolt and nut are connected, just to satisfy future unfunded contract promises... So good luck competing.

That's the car that was the predecessor to Lee's Dream...the K car. Don't know what a Romney Bumper strip has to do with that car...the Romneys were strictly involved with American Motors in the early sixties...Chrysler assimilated AMC into its Borg sometime in the 1980s. Then Chrysler was assimilated into the Daimler-Benz Borg in the 1990s, but was expelled in the 00s. The German's got sick and tired of carrying Detroit around on their shoulders. The same is happening with the captive brands that GM and in particular Ford assimilated into their Borg's back out into the free world. Its only a mater of time before Ford and GM either become marketing arms for their foreign manufacturing operations or they go under. No one can continue to produce automobiles in the United States with the tyranny of the United Auto Workers (UAW) in place. Alabama and Georgia have so many foreign automobile manufacturers because they have Right To Work Laws and the gangster laborities cannot force people to join their mobs. Automobile manufacturing may not be dead in the U.S., but it sure is in Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, California and any other state that does not have Right To Work legislation. For conservatism to truly prevail in the U.S. we must have a national Right To Work Law that gives workers the freedom to join or not join a labor union in their workplace. FREEDOM!

Gasoline is more highly volatile than propane or natural gas. Most NYC Transit Buses in Brooklyn, Queens, and Nassau Counties have operated on compressed natural gas for over ten years. The CNG tanks are made to withstand tremendous pressure from both outside and inside. Forklift trucks like those used in Home Depot are powered by propane as are most floor waxers in office buildings. Ever heard of a fire being caused by a forklift truck or a floor waxer? Propane and CNG will quickly dissipates into the atmosphere if the tanks are punctured. Should a flame occur it will be controlled, unlike gasoline which spreads out from its source destroying everything in its path, staying at the tank, line, mixer, or carburetor/injector where it occurred. When the gas is consumed by the flame the fire will stop unless there is another combustible material around to ignite. Therefore don't route your tank near upholstery in the vehicle. I've seen a neighbor's propane tank on a backyard barbecue grill catch fire. Another neighbor put a garden hose on the flame with a spray as opposed to flood. By the time NYFD got there with a four alarm response the fire was out. Please remember also that pure hydrogen powered autos like the BMW7 are about as safe as the Hindenburg was! I prefer my hydrogen mixed with carbon...that is why they call it hydrocarbon fuel. While propane and natural gas vehicles have an advantage, like the ability to run while their engines are underwater or turned upside down the infrastructure to support them is highly cost prohibitive which is why they have had limited commercial adoption. The best current solution, outside of drilling for more oil in the US or coal conversion into oil with power generate from nuclear power plants, is to convert the natural gas we have, and we have about a 600 year supply of the stuff here in North America, into Methanol and mix it with gasoline in either a 50/50 mixture for non-"flex fuel" vehicles and an 85/15 mixture for "flex fuel" vehicles (internal combustion engines designed to sense if they are running on either gasoline or gasoline mixed with alcohol in a proportion in excess of 10%). Ethanol remember is made from either taking oil and producing Ethylene or else from corn or other food stocks. Either way were screwed! Unless the recent Japanese pronouncements that they actually have achieve cold fusion, which would make electric power vehicles a reality, we have to find a means to extend existing fuel stocks for use with existing vehicles. Thats why M50 and M85 make cents! Please keep in mind that it would take approximately 14 years to recycle the US vehicle fleet at current rates of replacement. So even if we do have cold fusion source for electric motors it would take about a generation before we'd see any benefit.

But if it is true that the Germans want food relief from the US then we may see an end to the oil cost spiral. If the EU is forced to devalue the Euro € (remember when it was half the value of the US$ instead of being 2.5 X the value of the US$???). If the Euro €, British Pound £, Cdn $, and US$ are all equivalent in value (eg 1 € = $1 US) then oil prices will plummet. Right now I suspect that speculation is largely being fueled by Euro € holders who are buying oil cheap at US$ that is why the price of oil continues upward in value because the producers are US$ based and are seeking to compensate for the Euro(€)/US$ disparity by raising the US$ marked to market of US$ denominated oil. In other words, if the Euro € gains 10% in value to the US $ the price of oil automatically rises 10% because the producers cannot accept Euros € in payment, they are committed to the US$, but yet they do not want to be holding dollars that are worth less than the Euro € so to compensate they raise the price of the commodity to prevent Euro € holders from buying oil at “cheap” prices. Once the US $ is no longer worth less than the Euro € then the price of oil will return to a more normal US $ price. The alternative is to allow oil to be bought and sold using the Euro € or to simply convert oil purchases to Euros € or Gold.

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