YOUR NEXT TRUCK WILL BE A VOLT:

Such is the power of the Hummer nameplate. What was a stand-alone GM division in 2008, the result of GM buying the moniker from AM General Corp. in 1999 (AM General had created the US military's HUMVEE), is now a sub-brand of GMC, akin to the luxurious Denali and off-road AT4 designations.

The move was brilliant. Hummer had a basically terrible reputation among the environmentally-conscious crowd, and that was more than a decade before the Green New Deal and Tesla's takeover of the EV market.

The reputation wasn't entirely deserved. Yes, the Hummer was a rolling ad for American exceptionalism and chugged fuel like a thirsty bull in the desert. But in its more hardcore trim levels, it was an absurdly robust and well-built vehicle.

One could buy an H1 as a zombie-apocalypse conveyance and feel pretty confident that the money was well spent. A Hummer was possibly the last vehicle anyone would have to buy: Amortize the environmental impact over a few decades, maybe a century, and you could come out way ahead of a Prius. [...]

The rumors about an electric Hummer only started percolating about a year ago, but once the mill started churning, it started to look very good for Hummer 2.0. Why? Because GM had an utterly unique opportunity: revive a great brand that people were still interested in, but without the baggage of macho preening and sordid plumes of tailpipe emissions.

It worked like a charm. As soon as the GMC Hummer was teased, enthusiasm exploded. It helped that GM also saw the brand as a way to support, in dramatic fashion, the Ultium battery technology is unveiled in early 2020, not to mention beat the Tesla Cybertruck to market by years. 

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