WASHINGTON: General Motors will revive the Hummer name to sell a new family of electric pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles and will tout the return with a Super Bowl advert featuring NBA star LeBron James, sources said yesterday.

The vehicles will be sold under the GMC nameplate. Reuters reported in October that GM planned to build a new family of premium electric pickup trucks at its Detroit-Hamtramck plant beginning in late 2021 and was considering reviving the Hummer name.

The Wall Street Journal reported GM’s decision to move forward earlier on Friday.

The electric truck and SUV programme is the centrepiece of a planned $3 billion investment in the Detroit-Hamtramck plant to make electric trucks and vans, and part of a broader $7.7bn investment in GM’s US plants over the next four years that was part of a new contract signed with the United Auto Workers union last year.

The investment moves the carmaker into a part of the EV market that is largely untested and where GM has a higher likelihood of turning a profit, analysts said.

Reuters reported GM plans to first build EV pickups in late 2021 and then an electric SUV in 2023.

Tesla chief executive Elon Musk in November unveiled an electric pickup called “Cybertruck” it plans to build starting in late 2021.

Rivian, a start-up electric company backed by Amazon.com, will begin building 100,000 electric delivery vans for Amazon starting in 2021.

Hummers were rugged civilian utility vehicles with low gas mileage that were inspired by military vehicles and were popular with such celebrities as actor Arnold Schwarzenegger but derided by environmentalists as gas-guzzlers.

GM shut down its Hummer brand after a deal to sell the SUV-line to an obscure Chinese machinery maker was blocked by Chinese regulators in 2010.

Electric pickups and SUVs – the heart of the US market – could help Ford Motor and GM generate significant sales of EVs needed to meet tougher California emission standards and electric vehicle mandates.