GM sells out first year of electric Hummer production
reuters.com
reuters.com
Likewise a vehicle like the electric Hummer (or the Rivian truck and SUV) doesn’t need that visibility- and pedestrian-killing codpiece that they have mounted over the electric drivetrain (which likely doesn’t extend beyond the envelope of the wheel wells). There’s no need for it except to tell people “hey, this is a truck”. Except in this case it’s a design element that is literally killing an increasing number of people every year[1], not just a bit of wasted screen real estate.
I really hope this design language eventually goes the way of way of the Landau[2], either by way of some forward-thinking EV designer who doesn’t keep copying the mistakes of ICE vehicles, or that people finally wake up to how utterly ridiculous these vehicles look[3], or by way of some kind of minimal standards around forward visibility[4] and pedestrian injury potential.
[1] https://www.codot.gov/safety/traffic-safety-pulse/2019/march... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landau_(automobile) [3] https://twitter.com/verge/status/1318208829675491329 [4] https://twitter.com/ItsMcMikeTime/status/1296801390862446597...
Tesla has done well to design away the ICE front grill. Though even the original Model S had a fake grill to not throw people off.
I thought consensus was opposite.
Don't underestimate the number of people who like to lean back in their chair and do everything with a mouse.
"Don't review large vehicles if you don't like them."
"There are bigger vehicles on the roads."
"It's not a problem because I personally have never hit anyone."
"It's supposed to be big an imposing."
People really are addicted to their oversized silly-mobiles.
[0] https://www.rushlane.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/2021-hum...
For this reason and many more - ever since Tesla announced their SUV, I have wished that someone in the EV space would consider this era of van when building anything meant to appeal to overlanding. Despite the many many issues, the design has excellent approach and departure angles, extremely good utility, has the same footprint of a full sized truck, and (for many reasons) has been a favorite for aftermarket conversion for a long time (see Sportsmobile or any of dozens of RV builders). Professional conversion companies and hobbyist like myself spend a lot of time building electrical systems into these vans to make them into better campers. Unlike your average truck owner (farmer, rancher, contractor, etc), the entire van-building niche would embrace a solid EV alternative.
IMO there are very few situations where a van isn't superior to a pickup truck, and I don't understand the continued popularity of trucks versus vans in the US. About the only advantages of pickups are for bulk materials (e.g. soil/gravel), messy materials (e.g. straw bales) and really tall things that need to stay upright (e.g. refrigerators), and of course towing certain extremely large trailers.
I've had a pickup and a van and it's easier to get stuff in and out of a pickup - you can walk around the side and haul stuff over your head and get in the bed and walk around. motorcycles fit in a pickup, or 3 of them.
An EV chassis could converge driving, lighting, appliances, heating and cooling into one system, and make off-grid and solar a real possibility.
Don't buses, vans and trucks kill people too? How about solving problem of mixing pedestrian and car traffic to begin with. Also slowing the streets themselves to the point you're comfortable cycling next to traffic? Make parking spots smaller so that it's just inconvenient to use ${car_type_I_dont_like}.
It's hard to know if there was a commensurate rise in buses, vans and (commercial) trucks, but they have a couple of mitigating factors: Drivers usually have more training, and they're often designed with reasonable forward visibility (especially cab-over designs).
You're 100% right that street design is a super important variable here. If this kind of thing interests you I'd recommend the book Right of Way by Angie Schmitt (no relation).
But is there clear data? Seems pretty straightforward data to collect...
You can also correlate it to price of bitcoin, smartphones, avocado futures, airpods and social media /s
Finally, how much professional training to minivan and MPV drivers get?
In states like Texas a huge portion of vehicles are not cars but these behemoths.
Why is that "concerning"? It probably hasn't been officially tested yet.
Anyway, what does it matter when you can make adjustments to your EPA number have the car actually under-perform range in the real world by 25% or more:
https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a33824052/adjustment-f...
Still, it's so expensive GM will make money on it. They probably won't have any problem making however many people are willing to order. It's a niche item, though.
Ford has an electric F-150 truck coming out.[1] Ford's goal is to make a cost-effective work truck, not a "lifestyle vehicle". If they succeed at that, the impact on the industry will be huge.
[1] https://www.autoblog.com/2020/09/17/electric-ford-f-150-deta...
Misguided people will tell us that it's all about 4WD, but you see the same phenomenon in 2WD trucks and besides it didn't used to take so much clearance to add another differential under the engine and engines are smaller now anyway. The real reason is to sell pickups to people who don't need pickups. If they worked for a living they'd get annoyed just like we are. They should have been sold lift kits instead.
The media will tell you that Americans only like to buy large cars, but try to buy a small car and you will find they don't have any in stock -- but look, here are 50 trucks for 40% off lined up in a row.
It used to be just American car manufacturers that did that, but it happened to me when I went to a Honda dealership looking for a Fit, which they didn't have new because the factory washed out, but here we have 20 CR-Vs from the same factory on sale, why not take one of them?
Lots of Americans don't like to buy things without thinking they're getting a sweet deal.
Most small cars your average American will consider are fairly low-margin items unless you go uptrim. Often the only times incentives are possible are because of severely slumped sales of a model, usually the only time you'll see those kinds of numbers off on a car is if it's an older MY or otherwise definitely on it's way out of the lineup.
SUVs and Trucks have historically been priced higher, with larger margins. The Automakers can give nice looking discounts to prospective buyers while still making more money.
> It used to be just American car manufacturers that did that, but it happened to me when I went to a Honda dealership looking for a Fit, which they didn't have new because the factory washed out, but here we have 20 CR-Vs from the same factory on sale, why not take one of them?
The Fit was assembled in Mexico; my gut says the new trade agreement made it unprofitable to continue selling under that setup (possibly foreign parts content?)
The other thing to note; It's a lot easier to fit a battery pack in an SUV than a car, doubly so when we consider these manufacturers are likely looking to retrofit existing unibody designs to electric if they can.
>> Production of the current-generation Fit in Mexico will end, and Honda will ramp up production of the related HR-V crossover as a result.
(https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a33337398/honda-fit-discon...)
Same reason it's nearly impossible to find a rear-wheel drive car in areas where it snows regularly. You can go further south and find plenty of RWD cars, but few northern dealerships will stock cars that can't be driven half of the year.
CRVs sell in large numbers so dealerships stock them. Fits don't sell in large numbers so dealers don't stock as many. It's not a conspiracy.
The following article credits Electrek.co with the info, but no mention of it on their website.
https://www.motor1.com/news/450123/hummer-ev-edition-1-sold-...
I wonder if there will be vocal GM short-sellers now too.
This is a legacy company trying to implement the Tesla marketing strategy, and, as often happens, it feels a bit contrived.
Interesting that people question everything when it's GM and question nothing when it's Tesla though. Remember 450,000 Model 3 reservations? Have they even sold that many yet?
Marketing is telling half the story, the best half.
(except for the superbowl ad, which was inventing a story to tell)
It's too bad they didn't capitalize on a few more differentiating points.
"Full sized dashboard in front of you"
"We will sell you parts and a service manual."
"You don't have to hook your car to the internet if you don't want."
I am all about electrification but as a cyclist and pedestrian, I really don't want to be around 3000kg vehicles that can accelerate this fast.
If you want this truck for cruising in rural areas or on the highway, fine, but don't bring it to the city where there are pedestrians, cyclists, narrow roads, and limited parking.
It has actually really surprised me ancedotally how many times I see a sports car (mustang, challenger, porsche, etc.) or other type of vehicle with a high acceleration (motorcycle) accelerate in a REALLY short distance. I am talking less than 100 ft/30 m, and possibly as little as 50 ft/15 m. Even more so, it happens on a busy street with a lot of pedestrians or where a lot of folks would bike. On a few occasions the vehicle almost hit another car that was trying to take a turn.
In Berlin there's a low-key idea to ban all cars from city center though: https://www.berlin.de/tourismus/infos/verkehr/nachrichten/63...
(Too bad Madrid rolled their progress back...)
I don't understand? You were asking how a fast accelerating car is worse than a bus/garbage truck, so I answered your question.
It sounds like Berlin is doing the right thing. You can get a sports car if you want, but if you kill someone you should be treated as if you murdered someone.
Less vehicles means less chances for that to happen.
That said, I really hope for self-driving so we can all have whatever and it’s fine, and until then grade-separated cycle lanes are also good — but the danger is there, and I wouldn’t oppose car limits if there was a vote.
[0] UK, hence which sides
Cars on the other hand... The Mercedes GLE mid-range SUV starts at 245hp, and has options all the way up to 612hp. Why on earth do you need so much power in a family car?
[0] https://www.scania.com/uk/en/home/products-and-services/truc...
I actually feel that the insane acc that Tesla makes normal for non-sport cars might be a safety hazard. There will probably be many "hits the acc pedal instead of brakes" accidents when they get more common.
I have mixed feelings about this car: on the one hand, it does give me hope that mainstream consumers who are attracted to trucks and SUVs will start to accept EVs as the standard, and the brand cache will accelerate EV adoption overall. It's also a pretty darn cool car; they did a great job with their initial marketing. On the other hand, it's going to suck to drive (or cycle, or walk) alongside people driving these vehicles. We're going to be complaining about selfish Hummer drivers when we see these on the roads again based purely on their behavior as drivers, EV or not.
Personally, I'm hoping we start to see a more diverse mix of electric vehicles on the market, including new kinds of micromobility. The Biro (https://biro.nl) is apparently a very cool car to own among wealthier Europeans. I've heard of a couple electric motorcycle brands that are trying to copy Tesla's playbook as a high end, prestige brand. More efficient delivery vehicles are desperately needed, too. But unfortunately, when other people drive SUVs, it makes it harder for you to drive these other vehicles safely and incentivizes you to drive an SUV, too.
I recently started paying my utility company extra for green energy enough to offset my entire carbon footprint, including car and it's like $15 a month, so that's a lot of years of ICE before $10k delta difference is overcome...
I never really thought of it until I did this but converting cars seems like a pretty inefficient (per dollar) way of reducing carbon.
I am nervous about the carbon-offset space, but what warmed me to the idea is it's through my utility so it should be straightforward to measure/calculate/act, as opposed to farm/rainforest protection which is a lot more fussy with much more unknown side-affects.
And part of the justification is the state's regulation requires them to sell you the cheapest power, so it makes sense that you can volunteer for slightly more expensive power that is more green. Also the program is certified by green-e and apparently endorsed by NREL.gov.
And FWIW, it's not a "offset your whole footprint" program; I just used a national kwh-co2 calculator to calculate how much green power I would need to put into the market to offset my entire footprint (instead of only paying to offset the power I use). So very napkin math-y.
And even if you're ambivalent about SUVs, after a while you start thinking "It'd be nice to be able to see beyond this giant block in front of me".
Not really addressing anything in your post, but I saw this and wanted to provide some info for those curious.
There are a couple of motorcycle brands that technically produce or are planning to produce electric bikes, but so far there is only one that reliably produces them on scale, and they are definitely treated as Tesla of motorcycles in the community. The brand I am talking about is Zero Motorcycles, and it is pretty much Tesla down to a T when it comes to branding and the experience.
The pricing is notably more expensive than comparable ICE motorcycles, but not outrageously so (their premium models go for a bit above premium Kawasaki models and comparable to BMW ones). Everything is very clean and nice, but looks subtly more different than ICE bikes (similar to how it was with Tesla Model S). A lot of controls through the app and digital screens. Delivers on value great.
Unfortunately, that's the only realistic electric motorcycle option at the moment. Harley Davidson made Livewire, but it was a terrible EV bike that had issues with charging, and had to get recalled multiple times due to software bugs (yes, this is as ridiculous as it sounds). Not even mentioning the price (on both their EV and ICE) being in a whole other category compared to literally any other motorcycle manufacturer. Livewire started at $30k, while Zero premium street bike started at $20k (with even much cheaper models available).
The other one that looks promising is Lightning, but there weren't many sales and i haven't seen virtually a single one on the road (with plenty Zero bikes everywhere btw), so, I suspect, something is not right. Pricing is a bit cheaper, but comparable to Zero.
P.S. I promise I am not affiliated with Zero motorcycles in any way lol. I don't even own one, I have just been researching heavily into electric bikes since last year, because I am looking to upgrade from my trusty Honda cbr500r.
The amount of energy imparted upon impact to a pedestrian is mostly a factor of momentum and the shape of the vehicle.
Also, wide vehicles have a much harder time dealing with pedestrians on bike lines and shoulders. I've been forced off the road so many times by Hummers and their ilk, and almost never by a sedan.
I would bet that your relative difference in experience between different types of vehicles is more of a function of:
1. vehicle size and shape compared to the total available road space
2. differences in driver attitudes as they correlate with the vehicles they choose to drive
It is worth noting that the Hummers you find to be particular problematic are some of the slowest vehicles on the road. The average sedan today accelerates faster than any hummer ever made.
I'm sure there's some MBA-speak that explains it, like keep supply low on halo vehicles to make the overall GM brand seem appealing. But the end result has been that I've owned one GM car about 30 years ago (Geo Prizm), and only because my parents worked for GM and got a substantial discount. Since then, I've just kind of given up on them. Even if they make something I like, they won't make enough of them.
I'm unclear on your meaning. I loved that car, where does "horrible" fit in?
Growing up with friends who had one or the other the plastics tended to fail a lot more often with the Geo models. Same could be said for the headliners and vinyl on the dash and A-pillars. The vinyl in one friends Prizm seemed to have shrinkage issues as it pulled itself away from all the corners before falling apart.
I can be biased against American cars at times, because at one point they did fall far behind the quality coming out of Europe/Asia. Ever since global models of cars took off they have improved greatly.
I worked for nearly 5 running an online auto parts store and yeah no car is perfect and they all suffer from some issue in the end.
GM produces millions of cars a year and has been around for over a hundred years but doesn't sell cars people actually want?
With the Hummer at $110,000? All that goes out the door. You can buy a loaded to the gills gas guzzler and pay for 10 years of gas and still have $10,000 in the bank.
Ultimately the Cybertruck is the sort of EV which might hit mass adoption. The price is decent, Tesla has the brand to carry it, so long as the truck delivers on it's promises, I can see the Cybertruck being a huge hit. The Hummer is destined to ship a few thousand in the first couple years, then gather dust in showrooms.
This car is too big for European streets. Might sale well in parts of the US but that's it.
Yep, but then most American trucks it's designed to offset are as well.
I might be able to get away with a Model Y, or something comparable.
Maybe the eF150 will be the stuff. Just haven't seen anything on it.
For the moment anyhow, the Cybertruck is by far the most affordable of the eTruck options announced. The base model and the base 4WD are $20,000+ less than the rest of the truck EVs out there. Since Ford is seemingly pretty far behind in the EV game, if they announce an F150 well under that mark, I'd be surprised.
But if they do, it'll likely be hugely popular.
The Cybertruck's looks don't do it any favors in this market. Also, those giant sides on the bed really put a hit on the utility.
A "loaded to the gills" gas pickup is the same price range as this electric Hummer. Pickups are very expensive.
https://www.autotrader.com/cars-for-sale/all-cars/gmc/sierra...
And that's before you get to the really bougie stuff -- some Ford F350s start at $85k and there's a handful of MSRP >$100k:
https://shop.ford.com/build/superduty/#/config/Config%5B%7CF...
Where can a person go buy a Cybertruck for the advertised price? Tesla has a history of claiming their cars will be cheaper than they end up being. I'm extremely skeptical that they manage to build that truck for $40k.
An electric Hummer counters that brand signaling in unexpected and, for me, surprisingly welcome ways. Converting a large gallons-to-the-mile ICE to an emissions-free electric drive train shows a willingness to cannibalize a previously successful marketing brand with a more responsible offering.
Ideally, the EV Hummer would offer comparable or better performance than the ICE, though achieving such will likely take further research and investment.
Such manufacturing and marketing moves, though late in coming, are laudable and I sincerely hope such companies blow through their wildest sales projections in the EV market.
My Focus EV 2017 has a lifetime of about 275Wh/mi (and I have a lead foot).
A 200KWh battery could also power a large (e.g. 4br+) house for at least a few days.
it is very much the same scenario that played out with the move to LED lighting, suddenly you can so much more lighting because it cost so little compared to previous lighting.
if anything our next bogeyman may be all the excess heat we generate by increased power usage
When Tesla first started to gain traction people talked about them like they were a company that wanted to save the world. People talked about EVs like driving one was an altruistic endeavor for the future of mankind.
Now if someone as, like you said, individualistically isolationist as an EV Hummer can sellout then that's a sign the narrative around EV are changing as they become more mainstream.
The only time I think IC vehicles are useful are for the power density of gas, which should just be super-long trips with no infra.
The marketing brand for Hummers is girth and power, male sexual machismo in car form, and that isn't changing at all. Nobody evaluates their proxy phallus in terms of fuel consumption. They do it in terms of manly things like horsepower, towing capacity, and taking up a lot of space so that the whole world notices you. Electric vehicle marketing has been all over the "MOAR POWAR!" angle from the very beginning. There's zero reason for a car to accelerate to 60MPH in 3 seconds, but here we are with every electric tank advertising that it flies like a bullet.
For an electric motor driven by batteries, the primary cost of a high power system is the ability to push lots of current to the motor. The motor itself is relatively cheap.
Any electric car that has the ability to charge quickly also has the ability to discharge quickly, to deliver lots of power to the motor.
Fast-charging is the cake, insane 0-60 times are the icing.
As for the original H1 it turned out to be a fine vehicle for the "Green Zone" but did not sufficient force protection for today's urban warrior.
Can you offroad in a model 3? What lift kit do I need to install to fit 40" tires? What's the departure angle? Approach angle?
Apples and oranges, but this is probably beyond the scope of HN. I doubt we have many other people here who are into offroading.
It's appealing to me.
If Chrysler made an electric Wrangler or Ford an electric Raptor, now that'd be interesting.
FWIW the model 3 is better than one would expect off road since there's a lot less stuff to worry about on the underside (no oil pan, for example).
I'm super excited for electric off road vehicles, but when you're way out there you really still need a gasoline engine. It's just too convenient to store 100+ miles of fuel in ~60lbs strapped to the back of your truck, your friends truck, and every other person's truck who you meet on the trail. On a longer trip it's easy to be a day or more from fuel (because the roads are bad, and average speed is very low)
Torque from 0 and independent control of each motor is going to be a game changer. Add in new suspension possibilities when you don't have differentials and axles (hub motors?) and next-gen trucks could be extremely capable. If we can figure out the range/refueling problem (...and I don't think we can for 10+ more years for this use-case)
I think folks are getting confused about 'off road' in the comments here. Image search '4x4 rock climbing' - that's the stuff many trails have short (or long) sections of. Add in the isolation, constant use of aircon or heat (or both), high power demands to go very short distances, and electric just won't do it right now. We need better batteries or some way of producing electricity from liquid fuels.
The difference is, I'm guessing the Sedan can't pull my 9,000lb trailer very well.
The ICE Hummer was at least 3X less efficient than the Honda Civics and Toyota Camrys of its era.
I'd say it actually reflects pretty well on the Hummer if it's only uses 2.25x more energy than the Model 3, which is known to be very well optimized and highly aerodynamic.
Pretty much all highway-legal vehicles with strong offroad capabilities are less efficient than their non-offload-capable counterparts. (See, pretty much every Jeep ever; the Toyota offroad versions of their trucks and SUVs vs the standard models.)
On the other hand, I can't imagine their prev base of the flamboyantly anti-liberal is going to be excited about an EV either. So are all their new buyers those sheepish in-the-middle people who don't care that much about the gross brand and always wanted to buy a Hummer themselves but were too embarrassed?? Seems like an odd niche to focus on.
Anyway I'm confused about the marketability of this product unless they openly disavow and almost apologize for their previously brazen/gas guzzling/tree-hating positioning. That they've sold out the first year means nothing without knowing the volumes involved. My gut tells me this isn't actually going to be a big seller and unlike you I don't imagine their intentions are laudable. More likely this is a callous and misguided resurrection of a dead and vile brand and they aren't even thinking about that history and their culpability in perpetuating the associated culture.
This might be off-topic and I don't mean to come across as confrontational, I would like to ask: I've read this as a reason to own a truck many times and, assuming you don't have something like a farm, I'm very interested to know what it is you're hauling on the regular?
I've owned property three times in my life, twice in Texas (where there's no shortage of trucks) and have never owned a truck. All three properties have been single-family detached structures with yards, once with a pool, the works. The few times I needed to bring something home my regular sedan couldn't handle, I rented a truck for a couple of hours or a day.
Full disclosure: I loathed driving the things, too. Pedestrians were virtually impossible to see, a staggering number of blind spots, felt like it took an entire county to bring the thing to a stop, and one refueling of the rental was about what I spent on a month of gas for my usual vehicle.
For example, I've been looking at appliances, and occasionally see nice appliances on sale on craigslist or the like... these would be dead simple to pick up if I had a truck, but I'm a small car kind of person.
Similarly, I've been putting off a Home Depot trip to buy lumber for a project because I would need to get the plywood cut down pretty small to fit in my car, and I can't be bothered to rent a truck.
A good way to solve this issue is a small car with a trailer. Even the smallest trailers available here (750kg gross weight) are plenty to haul home any appliance or piece of furniture.
And the trailer doesn't impact your fuel budget when you're not using it.
More important for city living, the trailer doesn't make the vehicle fundamentally more difficult to parallel park in a tight spot.
I also don't currently own a truck, but a small sedan so all of these recent things I had to wait/pay for delivery, borrow a truck, or depend on rentals so I'm familiar with "truckless" lifestyle and can say I would prefer at the least a beater truck for these tasks, at which point trading my current car would come out equal to a standard truck in that scenario.
This EV Hummer looks awesome. I think their timeline to delivering is VERY optimistic and their tech will lag behind Tesla in every single way. I have a deposit on a Tesla Cybertruck and will be keeping that.
I'd be interested in Sandy Munro's take (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCj--iMtToRO_cGG_fpmP5XQ)
"isolationist individualism" - is that something bad or good? Sounds like description of pretty large number of people working in IT (typically called "nerds").
So, at least part of that isn't too radically different from the politics a large number of folks working in IT profess.
Cybertruck came out with a radical design. The Hummer EV looks tame in comparison. There's also the new Ford Bronco that feels like it's in the same category (unique, off-road capable vehicles) and a few other truck platforms coming out.
To me, it feels a bit like the modern-retro muscle cars of the late 00's. Challenger, Charger, and Camaro all coming out in a similar timeframe generated hype about the category. I don't think any of those cars would be as successful without they're competitors.
It is a low volume production run to the point where this is a boutique novelty car.
Plenty of people see this more as a fun cool toy than some kind of statement of their allegiance to the wanton destruction of all that is good in the world.
Is it a little silly? Sure. It it some kind of thing to make you as mad as you’ve just become? Likely not.
Tesla started out the same way with the Roadster, and that paved the way for the more mainstream models later on. It punched a hole in existing expectations and cleared a path for what was to come.
It’s not a perfect analogy, but it says a lot about GM that what they are doing in 2020 is on the same scale as what Tesla was doing in 2004-2008 with $60 million in funding.
It's tough. It's freaking huge. And it's the only EV that can off-road. Subaru and Jeep are going to be facing extremely tough competition if GM can produce this in any significant volume.
wait until eM1 Abrams. With additional benefit of improved IR signature.
Vs. creating a rendered biomass pipeline to feed an extremely fiddly engine with hundreds of moving bits and bobs?
The fiddly engine's moving bits and bobs will degrade with use, so it should be possible to pull replacements from disused alternatives.
If The Shit Hits The Fan for reals, you can just plug in any power source to an electric motor and make it go. Adjusting power can be done with really simple electronic connections. Just an on/off switch will do in a pinch.
Good luck trying to find a head gasket for a certain model of ICE though =)
These ones do. You're probably thinking of brushed motors, like the kind you can buy at Radio Shack as "hobby motors". EVs typically run brushless or induction motors, which require sensors and electronics to time the power to each coil.
Compare and contrast to the Volvo brand, and marketing, which sends all of the signals you're looking for ... and can barely be bothered to enter the electric car market.
It's basically 2021 and what they have to show is an iMobile or eCar "mobility" initiative (Polestar 2) which is barely more than a concept car.
If corporate image manipulation had any basis in reality, we'd have a plain old Volvo V90 electric car by now, based on about 6-8 years of platform development at "the good car company". (I would buy this car, by the way)
Instead, I think Volvo and Hummer are both just carmakers and they will behave the way incumbent carmakers behave.
WHAT?
Volvo is I think the only traditional car producer that sells absolutely no ICE-only vehicles (all of them are at the very least "mild hybrid"). Its declared goal is to be electric-only, and they certainly seem to be making good progress on that. Sure, they're not Tesla, but I think it's unfair to compare them with Hummer.
[edit] here are their (public) goals: https://www.volvocars.com/intl/why-volvo/human-innovation/el...
- Since 2019, all cars electrified, all cars available in "plug in hybrid" version
- 2020, launch full electric vehicles (they did, XC40)
- Their goal is 50% plugin hybrid, 50% full electric by 2025
This is the same company that released the seat belt patent to public domain[1], just to make stuff safer for everyone.
[1]https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/u-s-patent-issue...
Volvo and their inability to commit to electric (and all of the marketing and advertising to the contrary) is a master class in the reality of incumbent ICE manufacturers. It also shows how much of the volvo branding and market segment is just bullshit.
"Their goal is 50% plugin hybrid, 50% full electric by 2025"
Yes, we all saw those press releases but the reality is the actual volvo cars (V60, V90, XC90, S60, S80) will be the hybrids[1] and the space-tron eMobility iDrive ecoTrans "initiative" cars will be the electric ones.
Show me an actual volvo (not a space-tron concept car and not their little XC40 golf cart) that is electric and I will happily recant (and go purchase one).
[1] With tiny, loud, high vibration lawnmower engines mated to turbos and blowers.
Hybrids may not be perfect, but they're better than the alternative of ICE-only vehicles, and the sale of hybrid consumer vehicles has done wonderful things for air quality in CA (wildfires notwithstanding).
That sounds totally outside the realm of reason. Please do cite some third-party sources.
You do know that the car industry only uses a fraction of a fraction of all electric motors created, right? And the stuff dug out of the ground doesn't mystically disappear, it can still be recycled.
Coal and oil will actually just go poof when it's used. It can never be used again.
Depending on the way a country produces most of its electricity, EVs will outperform ICEs in emissions in just a few years. And that's mostly ignoring the emissions from drilling oil, refining it to petrol and moving said petrol to stations.
And to all the people commenting below. It doesn't even matter if EVs are better. Even if they have half the emission to a normal car. Reusing a existing car is almost certainly still better. Also no one really know what the lifespan of any modern car is. If you assume cars follow the trend of anything else then EVs will probably be obsolete after 5 years by the time we have 50% EVs on the road. Building a car EV or not that last 10, 15 even 20 years outperforms in emission. Also my main point was that humanity should reduce cars that aren't moving that would reduce pointless emission.
True, all cars pollute, but EVs pollute their environment less.
>Also gray energy emission (embodied energy) is completely ignore as allays. If we compare average emission per mileage per car over the whole lifetime EVs are just as bad as any other car.
For one, I'm pretty sure that CO2 emissions per lifetime of EV is significantly less than ICE although it is absolutely not zero, that's true. But point two: Containing emissions from a factory is much simpler than containing emssions from a million cars driving around.
>The only way to change that is if cars stop being parked 99% of their lifetime. Environmentally the worst thing for a car to do is not being in use. It means more cars are build than work is there for them.
True, personal vehicles are rather wasteful but it is definitely worse for the environment to drive an ICE than to not drive it.
>Thats how we actually waste resources and pollute completely unnecessary.
I agree, cars should be taxed a lot at purchase and their usage billed (with road usage taxes for instance).
You had me up to this point. EVs are certainly responsible for some emissions.
But ICE cars share all the "Emissions" you mention (Tire rubber dust/oil/windshield wiper fluid etc.), plus the massive emissions of just burning gasoline increasingly inefficiently over the lifespan of the vehicle. Plus wasteful oil leaks and just oil burning over the life of the vehicle; the environmental cost of shipping oil and gasoline all over the planet; the environmental damage from massive oil spills and small gasoline spills from everyday fill-ups; transmission fluids, the list goes on and on.
EVs aren't perfect in terms of the environment, they aren't even great, but they are a metric ton better than ICE vehicles.
The Hummer EV easily beats any ICE Hummer, as well as it's contemporary ICE peers, on all performance metrics except range.
In fact, the ICE Hummer was such a gas guzzler that even its range was worse than the Hummer EV. With fuel efficiency as low as 9 miles to the gallon, the Hummer H2's 32.0 US gallon fuel tank would have only given it a range of 288 miles compared to the Hummer EV's 350.
A lot of people enjoy living in far places away from communities. I think that’s my perfect retirement scenario honestly.
The enormous externalities of supporting that lifestyle, whose costs are frequently borne in the form of municipal debt, climate devastation, and by (in net, when everyone demands this and fills in-demand areas with widely spaced housing) reducing the available housing stock.
Living semi-off grid and with a low environmental impact is possible, but it demands deliberate choices and trade-offs.
Also, I do not understand how someone living further away from a city reduces the housing in a city.
Cybertruck is larger again at 5,885 mm, but that may differ for the production version.
It has a bunch of interesting features that showcase the best of GM's engineers. It really is a good flagship. By going for the most machismo vehicle in the line-up, they're helping Tesla destroy any last vestige of electric vehicles as just fancy golf carts. I mean, this was (and in some circles, still is) the popular perception of electric vehicles 17 years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcmZ1dof3Qw
(Also, in absolute terms, they get the biggest emissions advantage over a conventional powertrain this way. Convert a Hummer from conventional to electric saves like 1 pound of CO2 per mile driven versus like 0.25 pounds saved per mile for, like, a subcompact car.)
Vehicles like this are super important for helping convince the general public that climate action and electrification of transport doesn't mean diminished capacity and a smaller, more boring future.
I was super impressed by the video GM released on it. I have said skeptical things about past "Tesla killers" and I am very much a Tesla fan, but I only have good things to say about this.
With such a huge battery capacity, it might even be useful for towing, who knows!
The EV Hummer car will sell like hotcakes here. It achieves it's main goal of looking cool and distinct from the other cars here, not to mention it can use EV parking spots.
A 200kwh battery that only gets 300mi of range is TERRIBLE. Especially if they are making the numbers pretty like Tesla does. Even the fastest at home charger you can buy will take ~22 hours to charge the vehicle, or more like 18 hours if you do standard 20% to 80% charging. If you daily drive this thing 300 miles a week, you will need to charge it for almost an entire day of that week. Let's take 40 miles a day as an example, it will need a charge by Saturday, and it will basically charge all the way until late Sunday...
The 800v charger they are referencing has no network, I cannot even find one in the entire state of Florida. This thing is years out from being practical, where as a Tesla is practical today.
i genearally agree that people overvalue fast charging, but if the parent comment is accurate and it will take 22hrs to charge on a home charger, that's longer than overnight charging. that's really not acceptable.
We charge the car to 90%, every time the battery is down to perhaps 100 miles of range, and it takes ~3h. Technically 0-75kWh at max current (which wouldn't happen but let's play) would take 6.5 hours.
For the Hummer, 200/11.520 = 17.4 hours. Yikes.
Plus it would be legitimately expensive, since you're blowing through 40 kWh every day. Compared to a gasoline car that's normally sized, this might be more expensive to drive.
How much you pay for electricity depends on where you live, so it's very possible that a Hummer EV would cost less than an ICE sedan on a refueling cost basis.
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2020/10/american-excess-is-back...
HVDC chargers are mostly used for roadtrips, not daily charges.
Tesla has pretty much perfected this. You tell the car where you are going and it tracks where the Superchargers are and will automatically redirect you to one when needed. It will also tell you when you can/should leave - which in most cases isn't at 100%.
I'm actually glad a luxury priced vehicle finally has a decent range, considering the I-pace, E-tron, EQC, taycan have equivalent range to the much cheaper Tesla model 3 and Chevy Bolt. (~220-240mi)
I will need to lookup the source, but electricity generated by fossil fuel sources are to a certain degree dirtier than just using the fossil fuel source directly in the vehicle.
> The number is "at least 200,000." Musk made the comment during an interview with Automotive News on Sunday, and it's a significantly lower figure than the running total compiled by a crowdsourced list. Fans keeping track of their order numbers estimated that there have been approximately 727,000 reservations for the electric pickup truck.
source: https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/elon-musk-tesla-cybertruc...
Downplaying demand is the conservative position to take, since it's not clear how many reservations will actually convert to sales.
Of course since most of these trucks won't see the light of day until sometime in 2022, it really doesn't make too much difference at this point. If Riviian or Tesla starts shipping in volume before the Hummer (or Cybertruck if Riviian is out the door first) is out, what is a refundable presale deposit worth?
That's probably why he says something low - I bet they estimate deposit -> sale conversion rate to be ~25%
GM decides 105k just short of an Escalade, prolly seats 6-8.
And I'm sure I will see them here in NY/Long Island, and just like every other car on the road, you'll see one person behind the wheel.
[edit] Thanks for the responses reg models years vs calendar years. Makes sense.
Honestly we should be praising this - we need more electric vehicles and while this is a luxury toy that is where Tesla started.
EDIT: Honestly, I say honestly way too much :)
To put this in perspective, there are perhaps 171,670 homeless families in America, according to https://endhomelessness.org/homelessness-in-america/homeless....
That means each person who reserved an Edition 1 could have bought a $30k car instead and the rest of the money could have bought a house for a homeless, resulting in no homeless families in our country. We need to get our priorities straight.
I am all for EVs, but we need them mandated as the norm, not luxury status symbols that cost as much as a house. When they are mandated and gas models aren't sold then manufacturers will make cheaper models to meet the market's demand.
That isn't how that works. You can't just make something cheaper by fiat. It takes time, demand and technological advancement. Banning new ICE vehicles unilaterally will make it so nobody can afford a new car.
And does that have to do with the price of butter?
GM also admitted they don't have a real, working hummer EV at this point. All the numbers are "GM Estimates", so I highly doubt they'd offer more than 1000 units on something they might not be able to achieve.
edit: heck, even the number of motors is "estimated"
Priorities are definitely not straight in this country, but I'd bet 95% of those sold are going to be financed. Very few people have 100k liquid, and even fewer are willing to drop it on a car. Your point stands though, those people didn't finance a 30k car and agree to pay 82k via convenient monthly payments over a number of years to end homelessness.
This brings up another point - why are massive new vehicles seen as such a status symbol in the US? 120 month loans on a rapidly depreciating asset are insane, same with rolling over debt from prior vehicles. Millions of people have 7+ year car loans which are holding them back from achieving economic stability. They won't have positive equity in the vehicle until the last couple years of the loan, by which point their vehicle needs have likely changed and they've already gotten a different car.
Instead of attempting to control the luxury purchasing habits of the wealthy, we should instead just tax them more (their income/wealth, not the sale) rather than relying on their selective and conditional charity.
I doubt the sales of these would drop much if we did.
If you see a problem that could be obviously, easily solved, especially with nothing but money, then maybe it's wise for you to assume that you're underestimating the problem.
To put it another way, the production of the Sierra is a horrible place to start assumptions for how many units of a novelty/niche six-figure electric SUV will be produced.
It's a bit like saying "there are a lot of Corollas, I bet they'll sell a few million Lexus LFAs!"