Editorial: Beijing Tells Hummer to Buzz Off

Bertel Schmitt
by Bertel Schmitt

China’s central government clearly isn’t enthralled with Tengzhong getting intimate with Hummer. If you want to get a feel for how they really feel, all you need to do is read Xinhua, their official news agency. Xinhua speaks for China’s government—with plausible deniability if something goes wrong. As far as Hummer goes, every single day Xinhua has sown FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) about the marriage.

Today’s Hummer Deathwatch, Xinhua style, opens as follows:

“General Motor’s Hummer is considered as an exaggerated and extreme example of a disregard for the environment and there are significant brand negatives for the Chinese company Tengzhong to buy it.”

Xinhua carefully selected “a U.S. financial expert” to say that: one Richard L. Wottrich, managing director, international, at Dresner Partners, an investment banking firm based in Chicago.

In case you’ve never heard of Wottrich (neither have I), Xinhua furnishes a flattering feature list of his achievements: “Wottrich has initiated merger and acquisition transactions in China and has delivered speeches at several influential events such as “2005 Summit of CEOs and Career Managers of Chinese and Foreign Enterprises” in Beijing and the Greater China Business Conference at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, in 2008.”

After establishing his bonafides, they let Wottrich go postal on the presumptuous planned amalgamation:

“The vehicle is too big, uses too much gas, and is viewed as a toy for the rich. These are rather significant brand negatives for the Chinese company Tengzhong to consider.”

“Hummer is a difficult brand name to reconcile with current global conditions and political thought.”

“The brand is based upon the High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV or Humvee), a military 4WD motor vehicle manufactured by AM General. It is an essential part of the landscape of war in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

“The final consideration is brand name development and new products. What market will Tengzhong focus on? The mature and stable Western markets have the negative views of Hummer mentioned. If they target developing countries, this becomes a symbol of wealth obtainable by few.”

In other words: Bu hao, no good. Give up, already.

Just in case someone hasn’t received the message, Xinhua reminds its readers: “The Hummer and other large vehicles have been a drag on the U.S. auto industry since fuel prices spiked in 2008 and the recession deepened. GM said it sold 5,013 Hummers worldwide in the first quarter, down 62 percent from the 13,050 that it sold in the same period of the previous year.”

What if someone doesn’t put credence in Wottrich? In a separate article, the second so far today on a quiet Saturday morning in Beijing, Xinhua presents an array of Chinese experts who say the deal is a dumb idea. Their crown witness: The Hummer dealer in Tengzhong’s hometown Chengdu.

“I had never heard of the company and was surprised at the news,” said Yang Cheng, general manager of Sanhe Hummer Sales Center, one of the two branches that sold Hummer in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan Province.

“Producing gas-guzzling brands is against the current trend toward energy-saving and emission-reduction,” Zuo Xiaolei, an economist with China Galaxy Securities told Xinhua Saturday. “Meanwhile, the company has no experience in producing passenger vehicles, adding difficulties for the company to manage the brand.”

“Wang Yukun, a researcher with the Yangtze River Delta Research Institute under Beijing-based Tsinghua University, said it would be hard for the buyer to “digest” Hummer.”

“Tengzhong plans to maintain the current management team for Hummer and develop more energy-efficient models, but it is just their fantasies. If the current team could prevent the brand from slumping in any way, they would have done so before,” Wang told Xinhua.

“It’s difficult for a company to digest something dumped by others,” Wang said.

That’s as close to “Tengzhong eats what GM secrets” as you will ever get in the officious Xinhua. Someone—or many—in Beijing are clearly displeased with Tengzhong. My prediction: The formerly unknown Tengzhong company managed to receive buzz from Hummer and can now go back to making cement mixers and bridge pontoons. With so much flak from Beijing, this deal will go down in flames.

Bertel Schmitt
Bertel Schmitt

Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.

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  • Shaker Shaker on Jun 07, 2009

    John Horner : "The Onion had a great take on what Carter might have said last year if he were a lot more profane than he really is..." A great read -- I think that Jimmy may have had thoughts like that, but had to pray to clear those evil "I told you so" thoughts from his mind. He was truly ahead of his time, but there wasn't anybody in Washington that would stick with him when the going got tough; i.e., his ideas smacked of (gasp!) socialism! That's what you get from someone who focuses on the New Testament rather than the Old.

  • BDB BDB on Jun 07, 2009

    "Show me one country which built a strong industrial base while adhering to “traditional free trade ideas”." Great Britain in the earl to mid 1800s, though that only worked because they were the ONLY industrial power for a few decades. As soon as they got competition from Germany and especially the United States, the tariff barriers went up. The United States industrialized thanks in large part to high protective tariffs in the late 1800s.

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
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