by Michael Satterfield - 10/25/2022
The Hummer EV is a bit of a paradox, it's all-electric, yet it still offers the opulence of inefficiency that made the original road-going H1 the darling of the anabolicy altered. I don't really know who the target audience is for the new Hummer because there isn't a real person that needs it, it doesn't solve any problems, in fact, I found it created them. No, this is a vehicle designed for a fictional character.
Now before the EV cultists get all upset, the Hummer EV isn't bad because it is an EV, there are lots of great uses cases for efficient electric vehicles of all kinds. But the Hummer is festooned with massive tow hooks, a tow package, crab walk steering, and a host of other rugged off-road-ready features. But despite the costuming, the Hummer isn't great as a truck, Car and Driver did a towing test and found that the 329 EPA estimated range dropped to just 140 miles when a 6,100-lb trailer was attached, so you better hope that there is a Level-III Charger at your campground or boat ramp parking lot if you plan on getting home.
A good example of how people with expensive trucks tend to use them is from my childhood home in Ontario, California. In the summertime, people would load up on Thursday night and drive the 255 miles with their boat to Lake Havasu to spend the weekend on the Colorado River and return home. In the winter they would load up their ATVs and UTVs and spend the weekend carving up the dunes in Glamis, 191 miles away. So the 140-mile towing range doesn't even get them to their destination without adding 4-5 hours of charging, doubling the drive time of the trip.
Take the Hummer EV off-road and the 9,200+ lb vehicle starts to dig in as the soil gets even a little soft, while we didn't get stuck driving down the dirt road we were on if this thing did get seriously stuck on a trail, your standard recovery team isn't going to be able to help, most winches are only rated to 10,000-12,000 lbs. You would need to call in a CH-47 Chinook to airlift your Hummer out of the woods. Plus if you really do some off-roading it's likely that you will get some damage here and there, and just hope you don't damage a taillight, since replacing one is $3,045.48. So the Hummer EV isn't for the serious outdoorsman, off-roader, or towing enthusiasts, perhaps it is just for those looking for a sensible, clean, and green vehicle to drive to and from work.
It's not... the Hummer is the polar opposite of most other all-electric vehicles, take the Hyundai Ioniq 5, both offer over 300 miles of range, and both seat five passengers, but that is really where the similarity ends. The Hummer weighs 5,267 pounds more than the Hyundai, and it takes a full 10 hours to charge at 220V compared to the Ioniq's 8.5 hours, plus if green is your goal Hummer EV’s battery requires so much power that driving one generates more carbon per mile than a gas-powered Chevy Malibu.
If you do happen to have access to a 440V charger the Hummer can charge to 80% in just 1 hour, however, at our local fast chargers, we found it still took around 2-4 hours to get back up to 80% charge from 30%. Plus there is the nagging fact that you can buy four Nissan Leaf EVs for the price of one Hummer EV. While GMC has been promoting the 440V charging in just an hour, it's a lot like saying you shot your TV show in 16K, sure one day someone might enjoy it, but most people won't be able to use it for years, if ever. The Hummer EV feels like an overcorrection from the early GM EVs from the 1970s, which were small, slow, and ridiculous, and this is from the same company that makes the very good Chevrolet Bolt EV.
The Ioniq, Volkswagen ID.4, Tesla Model 3, Kia EV6, and Nissan Leaf are all popular EVs because they work where most people live and work... in suburbs and cities. But just like how the Hummer feels like it is out of place in legitimate truck situations, it's actually much worse when it comes to city driving. At 93.7 inches wide (at the mirrors) the Hummer requires clearance lights like a commercial truck, won't fit through most car washes, and if you have a two-car garage, it is a one-car garage now. They also decided to put the charging port in the back where the standard fuel door would be, not as big a deal if you are pulling up to the pump, but this meant that at all the public charging stations the Hummer had to be backed into the parking place, many of which are built for more compact EVs, making it a tight squeeze.
The charging port location is also puzzling since most home chargers are on the wall at the back of the garage, so pulling nose-in puts the plug within easy range of the cord, with the GMC keeping it in the back you'll need a longer cord or to relocate your charger to the middle or front of the garage, the other option would be to back your massive truck into the garage each night.
But it must be fun to drive at least... Well, it is a lot like driving an old Hummer if the old Hummer could scoot to 60 mph in less than four seconds. While it is not the largest vehicle I have ever driven, it does feel big and heavy but is still surprisingly responsive. When compared to another big GM vehicle, the Chevrolet Silverado High Country, the Hummer feels less refined and the use of plastic in the interior I fear won't age well. I also found there was a lot of road and wind noise, the whistling from between 25-40 mph was by far the biggest disappointment. The tech was interesting, but the novelty of the crab walk feature was lost on me after one try, while Super Cruise was very cool, it quickly stopped working about 10 miles outside of town due to mapping issues.
Range as always is a big discussion when it comes to EVs in taking it for a drive up to my parents which is 64 miles away it used 86 miles of range, with just two of us in the vehicle and no cargo. On the way home it took just 72 miles of range to cover the same 64 miles, but while the range can, and often is, off on gas vehicles, I don't need a 10-55 hour block of time to refill my tank on a traditional vehicle. Overall I never really ran into range anxiety while driving the Hummer and Level 2 charging at home is a must due to the fact that there just aren't a lot of DC Fast Chargers in the wild just yet, and that is my biggest issue with electrification, the lack of adequate infrastructure to make electric cars plausible as an only vehicle, not a second or third car.
According to the U.S. Department of Energy's Alternative Fuels Data Center, there are just 46,000 public EV Stations in the US, compared to over 145,000 gas stations, on top of that just 14% of those EV Charging Stations offer DC Fast Charging and that number includes the Tesla only Superchargers. For non-Tesla owners, the options to charge up in around an hour are very limited. Plus, a major pet peeve of mine is that the chargers or the charger card readers are often broken or all the chargers are in use by cars that are already charged, meaning you may have to shop around to find a charger. Like last time when I was driving the all-electric Jaguar I-Pace, I ended up with three different apps on my phone to pay for charging at different providers around town.
The Hummer EV does do something else that the Hummers of old did, it draws a lot of attention. Everywhere you go people give you thumbs up, owners of G-Wagons feel inadequate, and teenage boys think you are cool. The Hummer EV is, as the Hummer brand has always been, a standard-bearer of American extravagance, a six-figure truck that can't tow your boat to the lake but can draw a crowd at the Country Club. It is likely a third or fourth car for TechBros who made a killing pumping and dumping NFTs last year and GigaChad influencers looking for their latest Instagram flex, just remember to click the link in their bio to buy their course on how to be an Alpha Male so they can make that $1,500 a month payment.
My wife didn't like the Hummer EV, nor did my mother, sister, or any other woman who actually took a ride in it. It was hard to get in and out of, hard to see out of, and so large that it meant parking in the outer limits of the parking lot or having passengers exit so I could cheat over to the passenger side of the parking space and then I fold myself in and out of the partially opened door like origami. At charging points, parking lots, and even the valet stand, not once did a woman stop to ask about the car or admire it. I always get a mix of men and women asking about the cars I am testing, be it a Range Rover, McLaren, or the new Nissan Z which drew a crowd at the local car meet that crossed all demos. But the Hummer is a bro magnet. If you enjoy talking to middle-aged men in fishing shirts and day traders in Patagonia vests at every stop, the Hummer is the right rig for you.
I suppose I am just not the demo that GMC is going after, but if I was going to head out and spend $115,000 on new vehicles from the GM portfolio, I would spend $32,000 on the Chevrolet Bolt Premier, and $77,000 on the GMC Sierra 1500 AT4X and still have money left over for a nice vacation.
_websize.jpg)
