General Motors Co showed its much-anticipated battery-powered Hummer pickup in an online video, spearheading the automaker’s renewed push into the electric-vehicle market.
The 2022 model-year truck will have a starting price of $80,000 and a range of 350 miles when fully charged.
GM will sell it at GMC brand dealerships once production starts in the fall of 2021, the automaker said late on Tuesday.
The GMC Hummer’s driving range is about the same as Tesla Inc’s Model 3, and the truck’s zero-to-60 miles per hour acceleration in three seconds is equivalent to a gasoline-powered sports car.
Witth the new truck, GM is seeking to retain its traditional strength in pickups.
To help recover the extra costs of making the EV Hummer, GM will initially focus on top-of-the-line models that sell for more than $112,000.
The company plans to bring 20 plug-in models to market globally by 2023 using its new Ultium battery pack.
“The GMC Hummer EV is revolutionary, defying what the industry thinks of as a pickup truck,” Duncan Aldred, vice president of Global Buick and GMC, said in a statement.
While Tesla has taken a commanding lead in electric sedans and crossovers, GM is hoping to capture demand for EV pickups ahead of the competition.
The Detroit automaker is reinventing the Hummer brand, which garnered a reputation as a gas-guzzling SUV at its peak more than a decade ago.
“It’s mind-blowing and exciting that you take what was the symbol of internal-combustion consumption and transform it into an EV,” Mike Jackson, chairman and chief executive officer of retailer AutoNation Inc, said in an interview. “I think it’s going to do great.”
GM will offer the fully loaded Edition 1 Hummer truck only in white, and it will come with GM’s SuperCruise system, which allows drivers to take their hands off the steering wheel and change lanes while coasting on the highway. Its so-called UltraVision feature provides increased visibility from 18 cameras, some of which can see under the vehicle.
The electric pickup will have off-road capability including a novelty that turns all four wheels sideways for improved manoeuvrability.
GM will have plenty of competition in the electric-pickup market, including from rival Ford Motor Co, which is planning on an electric F-150 truck.
Rivian Automotive Inc, a startup backed by Ford and Amazon.com Inc, plans to begin selling its R1T EV pickup in 2022.
The Hummer’s revival, which Bloomberg first reported more than a year go, was officially announced in February when GM ran a teaser ad during the Super Bowl featuring basketball star LeBron James.
General Motors is investing more than $2bn in six US plants, including a makeover of a former Saturn plant in Tennessee into its third factory to produce electric models.
The automaker said on Tuesday that it will build the first fully electric Cadillac – the Lyriq crossover sport-utility vehicle – in Spring Hill, Tennessee.
As part of the decision, GM will move the Acadia SUV in the future to a plant in Lansing, Michigan.
The investment won’t include adding new jobs, but it is significant because it accelerates GM’s shift to battery-powered models.
GM shares rose 5.8% to an eight-month high of $35.28 as of noon in New York.
It’s part of a previously announced plan to produce 20 electric vehicles globally by 2023.
The company has said its Ultium battery pack will provide at least 300 miles of range, which is competitive with Tesla Inc.’s plug-in cars and SUVs.
“GM’s plans to convert idled or underutilised factories for electric-vehicle production underscore the automaker’s flexibility to move from inactive to competitor on electrification once EV profitability improves enough to warrant a committed effort. Rivals have to acquire abandoned factories (Lordstown Motors), greenfield them (Tesla, Lucid, Nikola) or pay another manufacturer to build for them (NIO) at significantly higher investment,” Bloomberg Intelligence said.
GM’s plant in Lake Orion, Michigan, assembles the Chevrolet Bolt and will make a larger version of the same vehicle starting next year.
The automaker said last week its factory straddling Detroit and the city of Hamtramck will make the electric GMC Hummer SUV that it will introduce on television October 20.
With Spring Hill added to the mix to make the Lyriq, it also could also be in line to produce other electric models alongside the Cadillac XT5 and XT6 SUVs, GM said.
GM also said that moving the Acadia to its plant near Lansing will cost $100mn.
Other parts of the plan include a $32mn investment at its Flint Assembly for future production of heavy-duty Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra pickups, $17mn in changes at a factory in Romulus, Michigan, to increase capacity for 10-speed truck transmissions, which are used in full-size pickups and other key products.
GM will also make $3.5mn in upgrades at Orion Assembly.

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