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2006
The decision: The decision to end the H1 was made on 9 May 2006 and announced on 12 May 2006; production ended in June 2006. The two stated reasons are printed as the record gives them, because together they describe exactly what the 1999 deal had made of the vehicle. First, the 2007 federal diesel-emissions rules, which no H1 powertrain could meet. Second, GM's withdrawal of technical and financial support for the engineering and recertification the rules would have required. The H1 had always been AM General's vehicle; under GM it lived on GM's engineering support, and when that support was withdrawn, the emissions deadline became final.
The plant consequence: For the military plant, the H1's end closed a fourteen-year sideline, not a main line: the Humvee work that shared the building continued at full military tempo in the middle of the Iraq armor surge. The civilian presence at Mishawaka contracted to the H2 alone — which is why the H2's suspension, three years later, is the true end of civilian production at the works, and why the Commercial Assembly Plant, not Plant 1, carries the post-GM story told below.
Sources:
- General Motors / AM General announcement record, May 2006, and the H1 marque history — the 9 May decision, the 12 May announcement, the June 2006 production end, the emissions-rules and support-withdrawal reasons.