This is interesting. As opposed to the talk of an all new design, this is the first time I've read a statement from the DOD calling for a re-tool. Although the details are slim, it appears that a re-tool with carbon fiber and titanium components is more likely. This should also help the main reason why Humvee was approved in the first place. It's a safer vehicle for our troops because it is more resistant to tipping over. The lighter materials and armour should also help lower the center of gravity too.

Looks like I finally have a real reason to go out and install a carbon fiber dash kit in my H3!

Miltary wants refined Humvee

Pentagon seeks a more fuel-efficient and lighter armored vehicle to save soldiers' lives and money.

John Donnelly / Boston Globe

WASHINGTON -- The Defense Department wants a new Humvee. One of its complaints: The Humvee eats too much fuel.

The vehicle, an icon of the military for about two decades since it replaced the World War II-era Jeep, gets as few as 4 miles per gallon in city driving and 8 miles per gallon on the highway.

The Pentagon wants a Humvee replacement that weighs 30 percent to 40 percent less and uses proportionately less fuel.

Some armored Humvees weigh 5 tons.

"It's what we must do," John Young, director of the department's defense research and engineering, said last week outside a congressional hearing. "We're looking at a design with lighter materials -- titanium and carbon deposits -- while still having armor protection," he said.

A retooled Humvee is part of the Defense Department's push to save energy costs through alternative fuels, conservation, and more efficient vehicles, aircraft, ships and submarines.

The Defense Department is the world's largest energy consumer.

The department spends $10.6 billion annually on fuel, or 97 percent of the federal government's use, and almost 2 percent of the entire country's use.

Some in Congress say the department's reliance on foreign oil poses a major security risk.

Representative Steve Israel, a New York Democrat and a member of the Armed Services Committee, said he had asked the department recently to document its strategy for using less oil. He received a flow chart that showed $500 million in annual expenditures overseen by more than a dozen agencies.

"If we tried to do that to land a man on the moon, we'd be lucky to get a bus to Des Moines," Israel said.

But Representative Roscoe G. Bartlett, a Maryland Republican, said that while the military could be more aggressive, "they are doing more than anyone else -- in the government or around the country. ... I don't think the country as a whole has any perception of the danger" of U.S. reliance on foreign oil.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, in a three-paragraph memo dated Dec. 14, 2005, to his deputy, Gordon England, said the department "should be doing all it can" to save energy.

 

thats really interesting.

is there any rumors on the street about AMG bringing back a hummer or GM re-releasing something special for the top of the line?

 

Well, that Hybrid electric Humvee that was just developed would solve one problem of efficiency, but the maintenance would probably be bad. They are going to have to implement different prototypes and test them in the real world to see how they act.