The Hummer Is Back, and It's All Electric. Here's Your First Look.
Trucks are the best-selling vehicles in America—the Ford F-150 has been our number-one selling thing with four wheels for decades—which is why you now see everyone from Tesla to Lincoln and startups like Rivian creating electric trucks to get a slice of that very large pie.
After months of rumors, GMC officially announced it will be joining the electric truck battle with the GMC Hummer EV, what it describes as an “all-electric super truck.” It revives the Hummer brand, which got mothballed in 2010 after sales slumped and a post-bankruptcy sale to a Chinese company fell through. The Hummer EV will be fully revealed on May 20 and built in Michigan at the GM Detroit-Hamtramck plant.
Wait. Hummer, the brand that was a symbol of gas-guzzling excess, is now electric? Yes. The truck will be introduced further during a Super Bowl commercial this weekend, but in the meantime, you can check out its wide, imposing grill with lights that flash on in a nifty sequence, as well as these impressive specs: 1,000 horsepower, 11,500 lb.-ft. torque, and, get this, 0-60 mph in three seconds, which would make it one of the fastest vehicles on the road. (The new Corvette goes 0-60 in 2.8 seconds.) The top-of-the-line Tesla CyberTruck gets around 800 horsepower and a claimed 0-60 mph time of 2.9 seconds.
Mind-melting specs aside, isn’t it weird that GMC chose to bring back Hummer as a green brand? The Hummer H2 back in the day had a fuel economy of around 13 miles per gallon combined. (A 2019 Prius, to put things in perspective, gets over 50 miles per gallon.)
But people didn’t buy Hummers for fuel economy. They didn’t buy them much for utility either. For as big as they were, Hummers always lacked the interior and cargo space you thought they would have in spades. And they weren’t exactly the nimblest cars on the road. Nope, you bought a Hummer for style more than anything else.
Those who buy trucks generally use them to do truck things, but electric trucks have positioned themselves to be a little more style-centric—you kind of want one just because they look cool. And because they’re electric, you can feel a little less like an imposter because, well, you’re saving the planet, right? Go ahead, live that Canyonero life guilt-free. Just don’t take up three parking spaces, okay?
So while “electric Hummer” may sound like an oxymoron, it’s really not that big of a stretch when it comes to who may ultimately be behind the wheel. The electric super-truck wars just got a little more interesting.
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