GM to resurrect Hummer in EV form

General Motors is set to bring back the Hummer nameplate it axed in 2010, when it also killed off the Pontiac, Saturn and Saab brands following its 2009 bankruptcy amid the global financial crisis.

According to US reports, while there are no plans to reinvent those brands, the Hummer name will be applied to a new range of all-electric SUVs and utes to be sold under the ‘near premium’ GMC brand from 2022.

GM’s Hummer EV strategy, which will be launched via a TV commercial featuring NBA star LeBron James at next month’s Super Bowl football final, will negate the need for a costly dedicated retail network – one of the reasons cited for Hummer’s demise a decade ago.

Matching Ford, Tesla, Rivian, Fisker and Bollinger, the company had already committed to releasing a full-size battery-electric pick-up, which was expected to be based on the Silverado.

But the resurrection of Hummer, a brand perhaps best known for its lack of fuel and space efficiency, could GM a number of EV entries in North America’s biggest single automotive segment.

While the upcoming Super Bowl launch plan was reported by Automotive News, according to a report by Reuters in October, GM was considering reviving the Hummer name for a new family of premium electric pick-ups to be built at its Detroit-Hamtramck plant in Michigan from late 2021.

AN sources said EV versions of the GMC Sierra and Cadillac Escalade SUVs will also be produced at the plant, in which GM has invested $US3 billion, from 2023.

The Wall Street Journal reported late last week that GM has now approved that plan and, while GM is yet to comment publicly, Bloomberg says the ute will be joined by a large SUV and both EVs will be sold via existing dealerships under the marketing name ‘Hummer by GMC’.

After purchasing the Hummer brand in 1999, GM produced a trio of SUV models led by the hulking H1 – a civilian version of the US military’s High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV or Humvee).

Sales peaked a year after the launch of the H3 in 2005, but GM’s plan to produce a ute version of the smallest Hummer model, the H3, were scuppered by rising fuel prices and falling sales, before the Chinese government blocked GM’s plan to sell Hummer to a Chinese company in 2010 and the brand was retired instead.

Right-hand drive versions of the Hummer H3, which rode on the same ladder frame as the GM Colorado/Canyon/Rodeo, were made in GM’s Port Elizabeth plant in South Africa and sold in other RHD markets including Australia and Japan from late 2007.

However, less than 2000 Hummer H3s were officially sold here before the brand was axed in mid-2010.