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The author in an EV Hummer.Oliver Milman
This story was written by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
It is the weightAn elephant can move like a crab, and was once vilified by environmentalists. The Hummer, the gas-guzzling machine, is back as an electric vehicle, with an unlikely role as an ally in the fight to end the climate crisis.
The reincarnation, tested-driven by the Guardian in the searing heat of Arizona, has been lauded by manufacturer General Motors as proof that electric vehicles can now reach even middle America’s most obdurate devotees of supersized car culture.
GM wants to discredit the idea that green cars should look like a Prius. “We want to turn EV skeptics into EV believers,” said Mikhael Farah, a GM spokesperson. This Hummer has even been endorsed as a climate boon by the White House—in November, Joe Biden screeched around GM’s Detroit plant in a Hummer EV. “This sucker is something else!” the president, a self-confessed “car guy,” exclaimed.
It’s a startling reframing of a brand that was spawned from a spartan, military-grade Humvee and became a sort of muscular invading force on roads in the early 2000s. Arnold Schwarzenegger was a champion of it before he began to issue serious warnings about climate change. The Hummer, which was boxy and unrefined, embodied a boldly masculine aesthetic that almost seemed to revel in its enormous fuel consumption.
Even though automobiles have become larger than ever, the Hummer was a comical villain because of its concern about climate change. 2003, dozens of Hummers were vandalized and set on fire by environmentalists in Los Angeles, with many of the vehicles spray-painted with the words ‘‘gross polluter’’ and ‘‘fat, lazy Americans”. The Hummer was retired in 2010.
The electric resurrection, first announced in 2020, of the Hummer has produced a vehicle that doesn’t emit the carbon pollution that heats the planet and many of the other toxins which routinely kill thousands of Americans and millions around the world who inhale the polluted air.
In many ways, it is still absurd. The vehicle weighs in at more than 4.5 tons, making it heavier than a small bulldozer. This is much lighter than the type of cars you would see on American streets a decade ago. The vehicle’s huge Ultium battery Is almost 3,000 lbIt is about the same price as two grand pianos. It looks like the wheels could cross Mars.
The large display panel located in the bulky interior of Hummer shows a graphic showing the car on Mars when it’s in off-road mode. Most trips are on roads, of course—Nearly half of car journeys in US cities are three miles or less—meaning Hummer drivers will be piloting a metal behemoth weighing the same as a young blue whale when popping out to get some milk. “The Hummer is a niche statement of excess,” according to Daniel Sperling, director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Davis.
The price of the first Hummer EV iteration—subsequent models will be cheaper—is a princely $110,000. Approximately 66,000 people have placed orders for the Hummer EV pickup or SUV. GM claims that most of these people have never owned an EV, but many others are adding it to their fleet as a second or third vehicle. This negates the climate benefits. “It’s huge, it’s terribly expensive and it doesn’t fit every lifestyle,” said Carla Bailo, chief executive of the Center for Automotive Research. “GM won’t overproduce it because there’s a limited base of people who will want it.”
However, the Hummer EV is a brilliant piece of engineering. The battery can propel the vehicle for 329 miles on a full charge. A top-up is not necessary. The Hummer is smooth and powerful on rocky terrain. The test drive demonstrated its ability to effortlessly navigate the cacti-dotted desert west Phoenix, which has a number of pitted trails.
The task is aided by a wealth of technology—the Hummer has 18 different camera angles from below and around the vehicle you can view via the screen, as well as an innovation called “crabwalk,” where each of the tires are set at a 10-degree angle to allow for a sort of sliding, diagonal movement to maneuver away from precipitous edges of tracks.
There is also raw pace on the flat, with electric acceleration instantly accelerating the Hummer from a standstill at 60mph to 60mph in three second, a speed that can cause both drivers and passengers to yelp with surprise.
Inside, the Hummer EV is more comfortable than the original and features designs of the moon’s topography—a nod to GM’s role in creating a lunar-roving buggy, which of course was electric—but it maintains a certain butch aesthetic. This points to the Hummer’s broader significance—a demonstration that electric vehicles can now provide the sheer power, size and sensibilities that US buyers cherish, even if they still command only a A small percentage of sales.
“What we wanted to do is get a truck buyer who would never buy an EV in his life, or never even think about it,” said Brian Malczewski, a chief exterior designer of the new Hummer. “We’re hoping to get, finally, the truck buyers who may be the hardest people to get into this space. This is the perfect conduit for that, I think.”
This is not a new idea for GM. Ford has already done this. It announced the launch of an electric version its F-150 truckTesla is the best-selling American vehicle since Ronald Reagan was president. Cybertruck, much-hyped Rivian, a newcomer to the market, has received a lot attention. Even though the Maserati electric Maserati will be available at a lower price point, it will still be an attractive option.
“I think electric power trains for heavier work trucks, SUVs and pickups, like the Hummer, will be amazing,” said Chris Gearhart, director of NREL’s Center for Integrated Mobility Sciences. “The torque profile of an electric motor will give these vehicles a lot of towing power, and the potential for using some of the electrical power in the batteries to directly power worksites and provide backup power could make these vehicles incredibly useful.”
While EV options are expanding, it’s still unclear whether production levels, and sales, will ramp up with the urgency of the climate crisis. GM promised 1 million EVs in 2025 and then went all-electric a decade later, but only 26 electric cars were sold to customers during the final quarter last year. Toyota plans to sell 3.5million EVs annually by 2030, but currently there are none available for sale in the US. Public charging infrastructure, meanwhile, remains spotty across the US and Biden’s attempt to fund 500,000 new chargers has yet to be fulfilled by Congress.
Although phasing out gasoline cars by the US by 2035 is a difficult task, experts believe that replacing them with similar electric options will be the fastest and most practical way to reduce emissions from American car-dominated lives.
“EVs are by far the best and most [economical] way to reduce greenhouse gases in transportation,” said Sperling. He added that better public transport, cycle paths and denser housing would be beneficial too but these actions are “far less important for reducing greenhouse gases, at least in the US and other affluent car-centric countries.”
Others advocate for a fundamental change that removes people from cars, and not just replacing one type of large vehicle. Harvey Miller was crossing the road in Columbus last month when he was struck by an SUV. He was left bruised. Miller said the “mortified” driver, who said she hadn’t seen him, fortunately stopped the car before crushing him to death.
Miller was walking home from Ohio State University’s campus where, ironically, he teaches classes on transportation safety and urban mobility. The incident underlined to him the lingering problems of America’s fixation upon wide highways, sprawling suburbs and huge vehicles, even if EVs do become the norm.
SUVs are more likely to cause injury to pedestrians than cars. Research has shown thatBlind spots due to the elevated seating position, bulky front ends that strike people higher in their torsos and heads than they do in the body. Their ubiquitous nature in American life can make it hard for people to find other ways to get around.
“The Hummer scares me—it’s massive and not compatible with life in cities,” Miller said, adding that SUVs also can be dangerous. “These large vehicles use up a lot of space and are expensive. I’m disappointed that Biden is championing them and not other forms of mobility, such as walking and biking infrastructure. Cars should fill in the niches for some people, not be the default.”
“I’m not against EVs—they are the future, but you’ve got to support buses, walking and cycling too or it’s like rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic. People need choices. Unfortunately, car culture is so ingrained that even painting a bike path can get a huge amount of pushback.”
