Save the environment, leave Hummer owners alone!

Hummer’s H3 Alpha is the top-of-the-line model, with V-8 power, comfortable interior accommodations and serious off-road capability.

Let me say up front that this review is less about the specifics of the 2008 H3 Alpha – a perfectly decent if odd-looking sport-utility vehicle – than the response this Hummer generates in critics and enemies of the car.

Essentially a Hummer-ized exterior on a Chevy pickup platform, the H3 Alpha is the most powerful and well-equipped edition of the second civilian Hummer. Other than the ability to make a visual statement, however, I’ve never understood why GM bought Hummer or why anybody would buy one.

But there are lots of folks who love their Hummers and I believe these people know their transportation needs and economic priorities vastly better than any Member of Congress, federal bureaucrat or environmental activist. That is why niche vehicles like the H3 that appeal to micro-segments of the market are vital symbols.

Last week’s tagline reference to this review inspired Carl Henn, a regular and appreciated Examiner reader correspondent, to encourage me to criticize the H3 as “not something a moral human or patriotic American can purchase.  We face too great of a challenge in declining oil production.”

Henn is an articulate proponent of the Peak Oil school of energy analysis, which essentially argues that there is a finite amount of Texas Tea left in the ground, so government should force automakers to sell Neighborhood Electric Vehicles – glorified golf carts – and punish people who don’t buy them.

The problem with such Nanny State thinking is that freedom is always a better choice for achieving important societal goals than threatening people with jail (the exceptions being in the realm of crimes against persons).

In politics, individual freedom works best to protect liberty and conscience. In economics, freedom works best to insure the widest possible prosperity and empowerment. In the Internet world, freedom is often expressed as the “wisdom of crowds.”

Freedom will also work best in energy and the environment. If Joe and Mary Blow can afford a vehicle like the Hummer H3 Alpha and they need it, then neither the Nanny State nor its environmentalist supporters ought to have a say to the contrary. Americans don’t need a memo from Washington or the Sierra Club to grasp the significance of $3 a gallon gas.

Protecting consumer choice requires that automakers be able to offer vehicles like the Hummer H3 Alpha to those who need or want them because when Leviathan can tell you what kind of car you must buy, sooner or later Leviathan will also tell you how to live the rest of your life.

HUMMER H3 ALPHA in short form:

Price-as-tested: $42,220

Engine information: 5.3 liter OHV V-8, 300 horsepower at 5,200 rpm, torque equals 320 lb-ft at 4,000 rpm

Performance: 0-60 mph in 8.0 seconds (Manufacturer’s estimate)

EPA fuel economy: 13 mpg city/16 mpg highway

Safety equipment: Driver and front passenger front, side curtain air bags, rear passenger head side curtain air bags, Stabilitrak stability control, anti-lock brakes, traction control, tire inflation monitor

Other Voices on the Hummer H3 Alpha:

“The Hummer H3 offers outstanding off-road capabilities and, because of its smaller width, can fit into places where the bigger H2 can’t go. The H3 also is an affordable Hummer. Its base price is less than $30,000. You can equip one with leather, power seats, and automatic transmission and you’re still in the mid-$30,000 range, the heart of the mid-size SUV market. You’re also spending about $7,200 less than you’d pay for the Land Rover LR3, perhaps the only vehicle in the category that might challenge the H3 off pavement.” — Larry Edsall, New Car Test Drive

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