The All-Electric Hummer Can Turn All Four Wheels And Drive Sideways
[Oct. 20, 2020: Victor Tangermann]
General Motors has finally revealed its fully electrified take on the retired-but-not-forgotten Hummer brand.
On paper, the “electric supertruck” ticks all the boxes. The Hummer EV is a 1,000 horsepower beast with air suspension and a 350-mile range — not to mention it can even drive diagonally thanks to a feature called “Crab Mode.”
Did we mention it’s speedy? The steel-clad goliath can accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in just three seconds.
It’s an odd twist in GM’s Hummer brand, which was once infamous for being one of the least efficient, most greenhouse gas-producing trucks on the market — a far cry from its electric iteration.
The Hummer EV is so rugged, in fact, that GM might be hinting that it’s capable of traversing some of the roughest landscapes — even outside of Earth. The Edition 1 variant is riddled with callbacks and references to the rugged terrain of the Moon, as spotted by YouTuber Jack Nelson of the “JerryRigEverything” channel.
“Intergalactic travel and otherworldly landscapes are the inspiration for [the Hummer EV’s] Lunar Horizon themed interior,” reads an official description on GM’s website. The speaker cover features topographical lines of the Sea of Tranquility, the site of the first manned landing on the Moon on July 20, 1969. Apollo era boot prints can be seen all around the interior.
GM is aiming the truck squarely at off-road enthusiasts. Some Hummer EV models will be able to raise the truck’s suspension by a lofty six inches, for a total of 16 inches of ground clearance, to tackle the most “extreme off-road situations” including boulders or deep waters, a feature GM is calling “Extract Mode.”
Another feature, called “Crab Mode,” is also very much intended for navigating tight spaces during off-roading, allowing all four wheels to move side to side independently. An extremely narrow rocky canyon limiting the turning radius? No problem.
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The truck certainly isn’t designed for hypermiling on the highway either. 350 miles is not exactly groundbreaking, with several upcoming electric sedans crushing the 400 mile marker on a single charge.
To wit, the Hummer EV’s gigantic, double-stacked battery is rated for 200 kilowatt hours. A Tesla Model S Long Range (admittedly a far smaller vehicle) can squeeze just over 400 miles out of just 100 kilowatt hours.
GM is prioritizing speedy charging, though. The carmaker claims the truck can charge up to 100 miles in just ten minutes — a full charge in less than 40 minutes — thanks to an 800 volt charging system. That comes out to an impressive charging rate of 350 kW, faster than Tesla’s “V3” Superchargers.
The truck will go into production late next year and will go on sale in late 2022. That’s more or less the timeline for Tesla’s competing Cybertruck, a similarly beefy, all-electric monster of a truck.
But it will cost a pretty penny: the truck starts at $79,995, for a less powerful two motor variant called EV2 that will only be available in spring 2024. If you just can’t wait to get one, you’ll have to shell out just over $112,000 for the “Edition 1,” which will be the first Hummer EV model to go on sale in fall 2021.
A three-motor “EV3X” model and a features-enhanced two motor variant called “EV2X” will be available in fall 2022 and spring 2023 respectively.
The lineup will also feature an 18-camera “Ultravision” system that will alert the driver to pedestrians and allow them to see their entire surroundings. That’s important considering the truck’s enormous size — the vehicle is so wide, it needs three separate windshield wipers side by side.
A 12 inch screen gives the driver most of the information relevant to them. It will also show off some impressive graphics related to the status of the truck thanks to the company’s partnership with Epic Games, the developer behind the blockbuster video game “Fortnite” and the ubiquitous Unreal Engine.
This Brighter Side of News post courtesy of Futurism.
