2006 Hummer H2 on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Texas sues GM, saying it tricked customers into sharing driving data sold to insurers

Texas filed a lawsuit Tuesday against GM over years of alleged abuse of customers' data and trust. New car owners were presented with a "confusing and highly misleading" process that was implied to be for their safety, but "was no more than a deceptively designed sales flow" that surrendered their data for GM to sell. The suit contends that at no point was selling driving data ever even suggested as a possibility, putting GM in violation of the state's consumer protection laws. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is seeking a jury trial and at least $10,000 per offense (every GM car sold in the state since 2015) and a hefty add-on of $250,000 in cases where the victim was over 65. Texas seems to be flying high after a recent $1.4 billion settlement from Meta over other privacy concerns. This may well be a way to solve any pending budgetary issues in the Lone Star State.

Junkyard Gem: 2006 Hummer H3 SUV

After General Motors bought the rights to the Hummer brand from AM General in 1999, it continued to sell the civilianized versions of the military HMMWV that was made famous after appearing in the heavily televised Operation Desert Storm. The Hummer H1 (as it became known) never sold in large numbers, but The General decided to make everyman Hummers based on existing GM truck platforms. The Silverado-based H2 came first, debuting as a 2003 model, followed by the Colorado-based H3 as a 2006 model. Here's one of those first-year H3s, found in a Denver self-service car graveyard recently. Now it's time for some Hummer brand history. After the American Motors Corporation bought Kaiser Jeep in 1970, it spun off the fleet and military parts of that operation into a new company called AM General. The best-known AM General products for many years were the Jeep DJ Dispatchers, generally called "Mail Jeeps," and they were sold all the way through 1984. 1984 was also the year that the United States Army put the first AM General-built High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles (HMMWV, which soldiers pronounced "Humvee" at first but eventually adopted the "Hummer" nickname). Around the same time, militarized VW-powered sand rails were being purchased from Chenowth by Uncle Sam. After Arnold Schwarzenegger convinced AM General to build civilianized Hummers, sales of the not-so-civilized brute that became the H1 began in 1992. The H2 and H3 had the misfortune to be launched just before the Great Recession hit and fuel prices went crazy, while a couple of overseas conflicts that were much less popular than Gulf War I made grim headlines and reduced the street appeal of combat-inspired civilian wheels. The H1 got the axe in 2006; GM tried and failed to sell the Hummer brand to a Chinese manufacturer in 2010, as it struggled through Chapter 11 bankruptcy, finally giving up and killing the brand alongside Pontiac, Saturn and Saab. Then the Hummer name was revived in 2022 as an electron-fueled GMC model, and you can buy a 2024 GMC Hummer EV SUV right now (though GMC's website warns of "LIMITED AVAILABILITY" in big red letters, so you might have a hard time actually taking delivery of one). The final 2010 H3s were built for Avis at Shreveport Operations, which itself shut down two years later.

General Motors could turn Hamtramck into its electric pickup, SUV hub

Electric off-roaders could revitalize the Detroit-Hamtramck factory that General Motors previously announced it will close. While official details remain shrouded in secrecy, analysts believe the plant will be re-tooled to manufacture at least three electric models due out during the early 2020s. The plant's scheduled closure was one of the grievances the United Auto Workers (UAW) union cited when it embarked on a 40-day strike in September 2019. General Motors agreed to keep it open without shedding much light on what it planned to build there. Analyst at LMC Automotive told the The Detroit News they believe an often-rumored electric SUV that will resurrect Hummer's name, image, or both will be one of the models assigned to the Hamtramck plant. Battery-powered variants of the GMC Sierra and the Cadillac Escalade will be made there, too, as will an enigmatic van. LMC Automotive's Jeff Schuster believes the van will come first; it could enter production as early as 2021. The Hummer — which might also be offered as a pickup — will follow before the end of 2022, while the Sierra and the Escalade will both arrive in 2023. We're taking this report with a grain of salt, though, because only one of the aforementioned models has been announced by General Motors. Rumors of a Hummer resurrection emerged in the summer of 2019, just a few weeks before we heard unverified reports of a battery-powered variant of the next-generation Escalade. General Motors confirmed plans to enter the burgeoning electric pickup truck segment, which Ford, Rivian, and Tesla also have their sights on, but it hasn't detailed how or when. The van is a mystery. General Motors refused to comment on the report. It previously announced it will keep Hamtramck open, and invest $3 billion to build electric vehicles there. The investment will create 2,225 jobs. Inaugurated in February 1985, the Hamtramck factory has churned out a diverse selection of models over the past 34 years, including Cadillac's Eldorado, Seville, and Allante, the Oldsmobile Toronado, the Buick Riviera, and more recently, gasoline-electric Chevrolet Volt. General Motors announced plans to close Hamtramck in 2018, but it quickly backpedaled and extended its lease on life until 2020 by keeping the Chevrolet Impala and the Cadillac CT6 around for a few additional months.