GM is rescheduling its reveal of the GMC Hummer EV, an electric version of “super truck.”
The debut, originally scheduled for May 20, was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic, the company announced Wednesday, April 29.
GM hasn’t said when the reveal of the GMC-branded EV will now take place. The Hummer’s delay is the latest hit electric vehicles have taken as the coronavirus pandemic upends the industry. On Tuesday, Ford announced it wasn’t going forward with its plan to add an all-electric SUV, powered by Rivan, to its Lincoln model lineup.
Rumors about GM’s electric Hummer circulated for months, before the company announced the truck with a Super Bowl ad in February of this year.
The vehicle will have 1,000 horsepower and 11,500 pound-feet of torque. The company has been coy about exactly how the vehicle will look; the May event was supposed to be the big reveal.
Commercials, including one featuring LeBron James, have touted the new Hummer as a “quiet revolution.” The original Hummers were infamous gas-guzzlers. While we know the new version will go from 0 to 60 in three seconds, we don’t yet know how efficient it will be.
GM’s Detroit-Hamtramck factory will build the GMC Hummer EV, and the company has planned to invest $2.2 billion to upgrade it to become the first GM factory dedicated to electric vehicles.
The debut of the Hummer, as well as Rivian’s electric pickup truck and SUV, Ford’s F-150, and the Tesla Cybertruck seemed to hint that EVs were poised to appeal to a wider demographic. But fears of a recession, low oil prices, social distancing measures, and a mixture of other factors have driven speculation that electric vehicles’ breakthrough could be postponed.
