Hummer may announce electric revival

Rumours of an electric revival of the post-military brand have been fed by information from two insiders. According to them, the Hummer revival is to be announced at the beginning of February during the Super Bowl by a commercial featuring basketball star LeBron James.

According to the latest news, the electrically driven pickups and SUVs are to be offered under the brand name “Hummer by GMC”. Among other things, General Motors sells large pickup trucks under the GMC brand in the USA. The docking for Hummer to the GMC brand is also likely to have consequences for future sales of the new E-models: Apparently there will be no car dealerships of their own. Bloomberg, Reuters and Automotive News, among others, had reported on the insider information, GM declined to comment.

In 2010 GM had liquidated the Hummer brand because the loss-making business could no longer be continued in times of financial crisis. The extreme off-road models, which are based on US military vehicles, were considered fuel guzzlers because of their heavyweight and large combustion engines. High fuel consumption combined with rising fuel prices also contributed to the brand’s exit from the market in 2010.

Rumours of a revival of Hummer were last heard in October 2019, when Reuters reported details of GM’s so-called BT1 program. Even before an electric pickup for GMC and an electric SUV for Cadillac (both planned for 2023), production of an electric pickup for “another brand” is to begin in small quantities from the end of 2021. Already at that time, there was speculation about Hummer, but this was not yet decided. If we believe the current rumors, we will see whether the decision for Hummer has been made at the Super Bowl in early February.

With an electric pickup, Hummer would enter a segment that is growing, at least in the USA. At the supposedly planned production start at the end of 2021, Tesla with the Cybertruck and Rivian with the R1T already want to be on the market. In addition, GM’s main competitor Ford is working on an E-version of the US bestseller F-150. The new generation of the F-150 is to be presented together with a hybrid version in 2020, the purely electric version will follow “shortly after” according to Ford.

autonews.com, reuters.com, cnbc.com

1 Comment

about „Hummer may announce electric revival“

Pat

14.01.2020 um 02:55

The real reason for this has less to do with saving an old brand. It has to do with the US Tax Rebate program. GM has reached the 200,000 limit on this rebate and it is being phases out this year. However there is a loophole that was discovered by Geely with their Volvo and Polestar brands. Although the Polestar2 and Volvo XC40BEV are built on the same platform and sold through the same dealerships Polestar and Volvo qualify for a separate allotment of $7500 tax credits. GM will launch Hummer as a separate brand even though the SUVs and Trucks will be built on a Chevy/GMC truck platform. This will give it a $7500 advantage against the Cybertruck since Tesla ran out of tax credits last year. Ford will likely use up the rest of their credits on their Mustang MachE before the F150EV launches so it will also have that advantage over Ford.