20200202

Hummer is coming back as a GMC EV!

Hummer - GM's iconic and controversial brand - known for it's boxy, go-anywhere civilian SUVs that trace their roots to hardcore military vehicles, is coming back. This time, as an 'Electric Vehicle' wearing a GMC badge.


Are you surprised? I'm not, one bit! At a time when SUVs and high-riding crossovers of all shapes and sizes are the rage worldwide, the fact Hummer wasn't brought back already was the bigger surprise. Now that the inevitable has happened, GM is just making sure Hummer comes prepared for the future. And that future, as the bosses at GM themselves declared, is electric!


The sole teaser image released by GM shows the GMC Hummer EV sports familiar design cues. The seven vertical slats, for instance, is a Hummer trademark. While they usually form a chrome-plated radiator grille, the space between those slats are back-lit this time with H.U.M.M.E.R proudly written on them. Don't miss the small 'EV' suffix at the end and the GMC moniker that's placed further down the bumper. Linking this to the silhouette GM released a week back, it's clear GM isn't heading the Tesla route and the Hummer EV will look like pick-ups of today.

While details on the power-pack aren't available as yet, GM released a trio of stats to keep our interests piqued. And yes, with claims of up to 1000 horsepower,  15590 Nm of torque (presumably at the wheels) and a 0 to 100 km/h sprint in 3 seconds, they've done that successfully!

All set for an unveil May 2020, the GMC Hummer EV will be made at GM's Detroit-Hamtramck plant that recently saw investments to the tune of over $2 billion to exclusively build a slew of electric and autonomous vehicles. 

While there are no EV pick-up trucks on sale right now, the Hummer will have lots to tackle when it goes on sale towards the end of next year. Rivals include Rivian's R1T, Ford's F150 Electric, Tesla's Cybertruck and Bollinger's EV amongst others.


At it's peak, Hummer's portfolio included the monstrous H1, the slightly-smaller H2, the even-smaller H3 and a pick-up spun off the latter dubbed the H3T. Imagining these gas-guzzlers as non-polluting EVs might be sacrilege to aficionados of the brand but that's probably the only way the business case to bring back Hummer could work for GM.

No comments:

Post a Comment