ST. PETERSBURG – General Motors will relaunch a battery-electric GMC Hummer in Russia, with the automaker banking on big SUVs’ longstanding popularity in the country and the government hoping to promote consumer interest in electric vehicles.
The Hummer, due in the U.S. market next year, will be built alongside the Cadillac Lyriq at GM’s Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly Plant, making it the first GM facility dedicated solely to EV production.
GM has copyrighted the Hummer brand for use in Russia and will have exclusive rights to the name for five years.
Hummer H2 (below) and H3 models were built previously at contract assembler Avtovor’s Kaliningrad plant, which has built various Chevrolet, Cadillac and Opel models for GM in addition to BMW, Hyundai, Kia and Chery vehicles. GM discontinued the original Hummer brand in 2010 after proposed sales to Indian automaker Mahindra and a Chinese manufacturer fell through.
GM confirms the revived Hummer’s importance as it seeks to grow its share of the premium segment in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States, an organization of post-Soviet countries.
“The market of Russia and CIS states remains very important for us… and we do believe that it has high growth prospects, although there is obvious pressure from external factors (such as the economy, politics and the COVID-19 pandemic) that we have to overcome,” Olga Burlakova, public relations and marketing director-GM Russia, says in an interview.
“We also would like to note that Russia has probably one of the most progressive consumers among all markets. They have a good knowledge and deep understanding of technologies and innovations.”
The Hummer relaunch represents another step in GM’s efforts to regain a foothold in Russia. Combined Chevrolet and Cadillac sales were down 92.9% year-on-year through July, according to Wards Intelligence data, but the automaker reportedly has reached an agreement to sell its St. Petersburg assembly plant, shuttered since 2015, to Hyundai.
The Russian government hopes the Hummer BEV will help popularize electric vehicles. The state has set a target of 200,000 EVs, representing 8%-10% of the market, by 2025. There were between 10,000 and 11,000 EVs in the country at the end of 2019.
The government’s EV strategy includes providing R&D funding, promoting domestic production, developing charging infrastructure and offering consumer incentives such as free parking. Moscow and St. Petersburg already allow free parking for EVs.
