The Hummer is coming back as an electric vehicle | Hacker News Reader

The Hummer is coming back as an electric vehicle

npr.org

38 pointsscdoshi60 comments

By giving it ridiculous power and making it somewhat cartoonish, I think it will be hugely successful on one condition, they have to keep the price manageable. Especially if they want to compete with the cyber truck.

It also has to be somewhat more energy efficient than an actual hummer, otherwise it's going to go like 50 miles on a full charge. And charging will take three days.

I can't think of a brand that would be a harder sell for the sort of people that want an EV right now.

In my mind it screams "big for the sake of big", not efficient or environmentally friendly...

I think this strategy is aimed at the people who think they do not want an Ev under any circumstances

They lost the market in 2000 by canceling their ev program. Now they want to get back into it by marketing only to the people who would never buy one? Sounds like GM needs a new marketing department.

Maybe it’s a subtle apology.

Seems like people who want a Hummer that can do Ludicrous Mode would be a good market.

Building a vehicle that checks two sets of boxes like this (family SUV with an EV carbon footprint and performance) has worked out very, very well for FCA and their 4dr Jeep. A lot of people who didn't go into the dealer looking for a Wrangler bought them because they managed to check so many requirement boxes at once. I think GM may be hoping to do the same.

Husband wants a Model 3, wife wants 4Runner (or vise versa, point is that they want totally different things), joint bank account wants absolutely nothing to do with either. GM swoops in to save the day by checking the snazzy EV and the practical SUV sets of boxes at the same time at a typical GM price point.

Considering the number of pickup truck EV and large SUV EV in the plan, I think this exactly what many non-EV people want.

Still waiting on a sub 30k electric sedan that doesn't look like a turd

Do you have a better suggestion for passing air easily? It’s foundational to car movement now a days.

... and isn't full of tablet computers with half finished software that needs constant updating, miles of wire, self driving snake oil, and other electronic wizz bang nonsense. I just want a car. Not an IT experiment.

One which can be repaired without expensive trips to the dealership to use proprietary tools.

This could help at high altitudes where you don’t get enough air for a naturally aspirated engine. I ran into this problem off roading above Ouray and Telluride, CO at about 12,500ft. Though adding forced induction would’ve given me back some power.

Sounds like a good location to run out of battery

That would be my concern. It's only a matter of time before battery recharge trucks roam the streets and rescue people from offroad power failures. Cheaper than loading an EV on the back of a diesel flatbed to be taken to a recharge station, which I often see in California.

In general I expect serious off roaders will carry a generator - they often do anyway for their campsite. Of course we are talking altitude which changes things.

A generator to recharge an ev battery needs a lot more power than a camping generator can generate. You'd need a huge unit hence my parent comment.

No, it just charges slower. You do of course need a charger that doesn't draw as much power. Enough gas to run a camping generator overnight will get you half a charge and that should get you back to civilization. If this is your normal use case a conventional engine is by far better - but for the average camper this is done so rarely lugging around a generator only when needed makes sense.

Get a generator and some fuel with you just in case.

Some? Turbochargers don't lose much with elevation, especially if sized appropriately. And even a turbocharged configuration a little down on power would still be doing better than NA at any elevation.

The real nuisance with high elevation is getting enough air over the heat exchangers to not overheat or heat soak the intercooler, air:water would be desirable.

GM made a Chevy Silverado platform 'hummer H2' suv, that's what this article refers to, not the milspec Hummer made by AM General.

The GM 'consumer' Hummer was basically a pseudo milspec hummer and this new EV version will presumably be a similar marketing effort. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hummer_H2

Wonder how they'll get on with Cybertruck.

They will fight each other at monster truck rallies. "Team Cyber" and "Team Hummer" shirts will sell out. Many corn dogs will be eaten.

I would gleefully attend an all-ev monster truck rally.

Electric power is well suited to driving the huge wheels of a 4x4 monster truck, great low end torque and wide power band. The problem might be battery weight - monster trucks are basically lightweight space frames with low unsprung weight pushed by a big block V8 engine with a flimsy fiberglass body over the top of it all.

Battery pack might be better really, you could move the centre of gravity slightly lower than the fuel tank and engine on a ICE version.

It's the weight of the batteries to drive that sort of power compared to ICE that would be the issue, not location. Would be an interesting experiment

With how massive the wheels and tires are, maybe hub motors with batteries packed in their centers could work. I don't get the impression that monster trucks strive to minimize unsprung weight, the tires are wrecking balls.

https://youtu.be/OumQxxO8v1M <- 2014 EV monster truck

You wouldn't need huge battery life for a 15 minute performance, so shaving off battery weight might just work. What most people go to see is airborne jumps rather than crushing things hence need for low weight.

IIRC the rubber tires weigh 1000+lbs each, I wonder if the tires could be implemented differently using lightweight materials shifting their weight budget into hubmotor+battery.

Tires are consumable so you're unlikely to see monster truck teams adopt anything too exotic for cost reasons unless there's a huge performance improvement to go with it.

They won't.

H2 EV is to Cybertruck as used Ford Ranger is to CPO Tacoma. The owners of the latter will turn up their nose at the former if they cross paths at all. They're mostly disparate buyer demographics.

Didn't Arnold Schwarznegger have a Hummer EV 20 years ago? Californians derided him for driving around in a Hummer - so his response was to rip out the gas engine.

European sustainability: ride your bike

American sustainability: ev hummer

That's pretty amusing. The brand is still recognized...may as well use it and why not try something new?

Considering it has both the power figures of a Veyron and a size that requires those roof safety lights, I think it's safe to say the brand will still be keeping with their tradition of absolute trash fuel/power economy.

I'll take 40 eMPG if if gets the original 9 MPG ICE Hummers off the road.

On one side, yes.

On the other side, the biggest problem with this type of vehicle is 12 inches behind the wheel. They should create a special category of license with extra hours of certified training.

Potential military application? The Hummer originally came from the battlefield after all.

Probably not.

1. Electric vehicles are a terrible fit for military operations

2. The actual HMMWV is a steaming pile of garbage. Not sure why the US Gov would want to buy an expensive version of the same thing

3. The HMMWV was recently replaced by the JLTV - it'll probably be at least 20 years before the next refresh cycle

On 1, how couldn't silent operation be anything but a boon. Airdropping battery packs would appear to be safer than gas right?

Airdropping battery packs would appear to be safer than gas right?

Absolutely not! A lithium battery is fragile and highly flammable. Diesel is much safer to transport.

> Airdropping battery packs would appear to be safer than gas right?

This is the most absurd statement I've read on HN in the past week. Just take 20 seconds and think about the logistics of a 60+ ton tank in the middle of nowhere doing a battery swap.

If (and it is a big if) electric power had an advantage, surely they would just have a support vehicle with a big generator that they could recharge from.

> If (and it is a big if) electric power had an advantage, surely they would just have a support vehicle with a big generator that they could recharge from.

On the actual power generation side, electric might have an advantage. But the range and recharging story is just too awkward to make sense. I'm not saying never: if battery power density jumped up 10x, they might be able to make it work. Just not right now.

1. Armored vehicles can have enormous gas tanks. The Abrams has a 500 gallon gas tank. If needed, it's pretty easy to double the size of the tank by strapping 10 5-gallon gas cans to the size of the vehicle. I just don't see how current battery technology could hope to compete with that.

2. The vehicle that refuels front line troops is the HEMTT. It carries 2500 gallons of petroleum and can fuel 2 vehicles at a time, maybe 5-10 times faster than a gas station.

That means that these vehicles can drive up to the front lines, fuel up vehicles and leave quickly so that they're less of a target and the front line vehicles can get back to doing what they need to do quickly.

In your generator scenario, you still need the fuel trucks, but there's an additional truck that has to sit there, charging vehicles for a long time.

I just don't see it working.

I have wondered about an electric tank. Some advantages. Doesn't require air. No thermal signature. Quiet potentially. Instant power. No diesel fuel to catch fire. No hydraulic system. Potentially redundant drive and actuators.

Sure. That's all good stuff.

But fundamentally, EVs really only work well when vehicles can recharge on a grid. The Military wants to be able to operate away from the grid.

With all this talk US military has been doing about the changing theater of war in XXI century, about how it needs to refocus on effective operations in urban areas, I wonder: do they always assume that the power grid will be off? If not, then there may be some utility in a light and fast electric vehicle that parasites off enemy's power grid (and has solars or diesel aggregate as backup).

Also, did the military consider hybrid vehicles for similar role? They have the capacity to operate off-grid, and also switch to completely silent when tactically useful.

> do they always assume that the power grid will be off? ... Also, did the military consider hybrid vehicles for similar role?

I want to be up front - I'm far from privy to the military's decision making, which is byzantine and absurdist on a good day.

However, I think I can pretty safely say that the issue is not whether the military assumes that the grid will be off, but rather they don't assume that the grid will be on.

I think the closest they might get is a plug-in hybrid. However, that adds quite a bit of weight and complexity to a vehicle. I honestly don't know one way or the other how well that would work for armored vehicles, which are typically quite a bit heavier than you're probably used to thinking.

For example: homemade armor is typically 1/4" hardened steel plate welded to the outside of vehicles (thin skinned trucks, etc.) - about 2x the thickness of the Cybertruck's body. I'd assume that most purpose built armor kits are even heavier than that.

Electric motors still have a thermal signature, although obviously way smaller than a combustion engine + exhaust. Also, diesel doesn't really catch fire that easily (some tanks even proudly 'wear' extra fuel cans on their sides). Diesel is still very, very energy dense compared to batteries (for the time being), so for any campaigns away from established infrastructure, you'd rather be hauling diesel than batteries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stridsvagn_103#/media/File:Str...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density#/media/File:Ene...

> No thermal signature.

That's isn't how thermodynamics works.

It could have a reduced thermal signature but infrared cameras are so absurdly sensitive so it isn't obvious to me that a reduction would be a big advantage.

> Potentially redundant drive

Diesel-electric would have the same redundancy advantages: https://oshkoshdefense.com/engineering-solutions/propulse/

> No diesel fuel to catch fire.

Diesel is relatively hard to get to burn as liquid fuels go... lithium chemistry batteries aren't particularly known for being fire free.

Hummer H2 is a modified GM GMT820 made to resemble the military HMMW. It's just a cheap look-a-like. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hummer_H2

It's based on the H2 and the H1 geared hub axles would need to be heavily modified to handle electric motors. The H1 was full of defects. I replaced the pitman and idler arm 3 times, ball joints twice, engine once (paid for by AMG), starter once. I had not snapped the geared hub axle, but I know someone that did as they did more off-roading than I. They are designed to break early on purpose to protect the geared hubs. There is also not much room for batteries in the H1. It is designed to be low profile while having a lot of ground clearance at the same time. You would have to use up a bit of the cargo space which defeats the purpose in my opinion. Someone may mention that with electric motors, there is enough torque to not need geared hubs, but that isn't why they were implemented. It was to get the differential away from the ground for more ground clearance.

Ways GM could enter the electric market.

Electric Malibu: Totally makes sense

Electric Cadillac: Wow, forward thinking!

Electric Corvette: Whoa, world changing

Electric Hummer: But I. But we. Wait. What?

It solves the biggest problem everyone had with the Hummer: gallons-per-mile.

And it competes with the Cybertruck, and they don’t have to worry about a limited amount of space for the batteries. Seems like a good strategy to me, for a first attempt.

But my impression was that the only reason to have a hummer was the whole "I'm whatever enough to be above social responsibility" appeal. So if they make it socially responsible then that takes away their entire market. I've never been in the market for a hummer so maybe I'm missing something.

That said, an electric hummer could be a perfect fit for the hummer stretch limo market. Though idk if that market is big enough to warrant its own whole thing.

Are we talking about the mil-spec hummer which was admired by people who spent a lot of time off road, or the H2 which was just another truck (not useless off road, but no better than any other truck) which never actually went off road.

H2 is mainly what I was thinking.

Do electric horses dream of autonomous buggies?

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