GM could resurrect iconic brand Hummer - Report

GM could be planning to reintroduce Hummer, its iconic brand for pickup trucks and SUVs, reports Reuters. This could happen sometime in 2022, suggests the business news publication in its report.

Back in May 2010, GM rolled out the last Hummer for sale to a private customer - an H3 - at the Shreveport, Louisiana plant. Now, as early as early next decade, the company may revive the legendary off-roader marque, albeit with vehicles of completely different genes. It plans to build a new range of premium electric pickup trucks and SUV at its Detroit-Hamtramck plant beginning in late 2021, and it could revive Hummer with some of them, people with the know-how of its plans have said.

This electric truck/SUV program is said to be called ‘BT1’ and is the most important part of the planned $3 billion investment in the Detroit-Hamtramck plant for manufacturing electric trucks and vans. In a broader view, this program falls under the $7.7 billion investment planned in the U.S. plants over the next four years. All this is according to a proposed labour deal between GM and UAW.

UAW made the aforementioned investments of GM public on Friday, but not any of its details. Having achieved little success with the lower-priced and higher volume model Chevrolet Bolt, GM is taking things the Tesla way - a top-down approach. It will launch expensive models with very advanced technologies first, and then move to lower-priced models.

Low-volume production of the first BT1 model, a pickup truck (codename: Project O), is scheduled to commence in late 2021. A performance variant of the same will be launched in 2022, followed by an electric SUV in 2023. According to an undisclosed source, the Hummer name is “under consideration”. GM will use a new dedicated electric vehicle architecture, including a “skateboard” chassis that combines electric motor and batteries.

[Source: reuters.com]