GM Wins LA Design Challenge with HUMMER O2
01 December 2006
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| HUMMER O2. |
GM Advanced Design has won the Los Angeles Auto Show’s Design Challenge for the second year in a row. This year’s winning entry is a two-dimensional rendering of a 2015 Blue Sky Concept that addresses environmental sustainability, called the HUMMER O2. (Earlier post.)
The 2006 Design Challenge theme is Environmental Sustainability, a challenge for design studios to transform the future of driving into an environmental experience. Contest guidelines also required that vehicle entries be 100-percent recyclable and have a maximum lifespan of just 60 months. GM presented its entry—a fuel-cell powered vehicles with hydraulic drive and algae-filled body panels that convert CO2 to oxygen—as a series of two-dimensional images, not as a 3D model.
The panels essentially function as the “leaves” of the HUMMER O2 and effectively clean the air in the surrounding environment. Used algae are recycled as biomass for the further production of energy.
—Frank Saucedo, director, GM Advanced Design
The HUMMER O2 uses four fuel-cell stacks, each associated with a hydraulic motor in each wheel.
GM used the Los Angeles Auto Show as the venue to unveil an expansion of its hybrid drive efforts, including the introduction of the Aura Green Line sedan and the announcement that the Saturn VUE Green Line would feature an application of the advanced two-mode hybrid drivetrain in 2008 with a plug-in hybrid configuration coming in 2009. (Earlier post.)
The GM West Coast Advanced Design Studio won the 2005 Design Challenge competition with its GMC PAD Concept, a mobile urban loft designed for the LA environment.
Very cute and also very useless.
Posted by: Didi | 01 December 2006 at 08:32 AM
Contest guidelines also required that vehicle entries be 100-percent recyclable and have a maximum lifespan of just 60 months.
And the Japanese thought they were being slick with the whole shaken deal... We'll build our vehicles with predetermined lifetimes! ;)
Posted by: yesplease | 01 December 2006 at 08:57 AM
Kudos to GM, this is better than any JDPower award, Kirk Kerkorian should have held on to his GM stock for another day...
Posted by: fyi CO2 | 01 December 2006 at 09:34 AM
fyi CO2
Do you expect GM to pull out of their precarious position with a simple announcement like this one.
Don't you think that Toyota and Honda (+ many others) can come up with better plug-in vehicles much faster and probably cheaper than GM?
If GM USA can't compete in the ICE field, how will it compete better in the plug-in field?
GM China may be able to do it? This may be the way GM plans to go with plug-in production. I doubt that GM USA could do it unless the current UAW contracts are completely re-written.
Posted by: Harvey D. | 01 December 2006 at 10:35 AM
I was hoping Kerkorian pulling out would bring the prices down lower on GMs stock. Makes it more affordable for me that way.
Posted by: Patrick | 01 December 2006 at 12:18 PM
I was hoping Kerkorian pulling out would bring the prices down lower on GMs stock. Makes it more affordable for me that way.
Kerkorian's large position long predates the historical lows in GM share prices ($19-20) that were still around just 8 months ago. Inflation-adjusted, the shares are very low by historical standards.
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