The GMC Hummer EV has spent two years in development, biding its time until it was ready to face down the U.S. highway system. Now it’s on the precipice of release: Starting in next month, the 9,000-lb behemoth will begin making three-second 0-to-60 runs on roads near you. Look on General Motors’ works, ye mighty, and despair.
Duncan Aldred, global vibe president for Buick and GMC, said on an investor call that only Edition 1 Hummers will begin deliveries in December. In fact, those will be the only versions available for the first year — though he didn’t mention how many Edition 1 trucks had been preordered, or how many will be built.
The Hummer EV, which is legally defined as a Class 3 medium-duty truck due to its weight, claims a range of 329 miles in Edition 1 trim. That accounts for the 35-inch offroad tires, rock slider, and skid plates that make the launch-series Hummer so comically oversized.
Let’s talk about the physics of the Hummer for a second. If you’re driving the classic stand-in for A Large Vehicle That Hurts When It Hits You, the Chevy Tahoe, it’ll take you six seconds to hit 60 miles an hour. The Hummer will make it there in half the time, and at the same speed will have nearly double the momentum. The truck is, indeed, too big.
That size leads to some pretty incredible inefficiency. The Hummer EV Edition 1 gets 239 miles of range out of its 200 kWh battery. That’s, by my math, 83.68 kWh per 100 miles of range. That’s almost exactly one-third as efficient as Chevy’s own Bolt. Granted, that’s based on GM’s figures and not a listing on the Department of Energy’s website, so we’ll all have to keep our eyes peeled for the official numbers.
So we’ve got an enormous, heavy, inefficient truck that will destroy any road it deems worthy of buckling under its incredible load. EV or no, it seems GMC’s built a true Hummer successor — for better or for worse.
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