A Wall Street Journal report Friday indicated that General Motors would revive the Hummer name as soon as 2022, but instead use the name for an all-electric pickup in the GMC family.
The report indicated that General Motors recruited basketball star Lebron James to help promote the pickup during next month's Super Bowl. Spokesmen for General Motors and GMC declined to comment.
This is our mixed emotion face.
The Hummer name went away in 2010 after it became a byword for conspicuous consumption during the last boom, pre-2008 economic collapse. The big, Hummer-branded SUVs were unapologetically brash and thirsty—a symbol for excess in an excessive era. Now, the Hummer name will apply to an all-electric pickup aimed at taking the likes of Jeep and Ford on in a marketplace filling up quickly with electric pickups.
Cadillac electric crossover SUV based on GM BEV3 modular platform
The GMC Hummer pickup may ride atop the B1T platform designed for the upcoming Cadillac electric crossover and a forthcoming Chevy electric pickup.
During GM's latest round of negotiations with the United Auto Workers, the automaker earmarked $3 billion to invest at its Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant for upcoming EV vehicles that may now include the GMC Hummer. GM may source batteries for those vehicles from its coming battery plant in Lordstown, Ohio.
The electric GMC Hummer apparently has come full circle, too. In 1999, when the nascent Hummer brand was beginning, GM originally planned on using the name for a GMC product before spinning it out into its own brand completely. That brand lived on until 2010 when it was shuttered with Pontiac and Saturn, post bankruptcy, where it stayed dormant until now.
GM's plans for the Hummer name may include more than just a pickup, too. Media reports indicated that Hamtramck may make performance variants and SUVs based off the electric platform that may use the Hummer name.