I had just said to my wife ten minutes earlier, while leaving dinner, something about how the advantage to the GMC Hummer EV 3X SUV (especially in the shade of orange GMC calls "Afterburner Tintcoat") was that you'd have no trouble figuring out which car in the parking lot was yours.
And then, another one passed me going the other way.
After three years on the market and a remarkably low profile on the streets (which is more than can be said for one on the Sycamore Creek Trail in Arizona), the GMC Hummer EV, in Afterburner Tintcoat and six other colors, has found the...um...afterburners.
Year-to-date sales are up 622% over the same period last year, with (as of October 1) 8,900 of them (SUV and pickup combined) finding homes since January 1.
The improbable resurrection of the Hummer brand was almost impossible. Lost in the sands of time, but not in the archives of my old TireKicker site, is the fact that GM, unhappy with declining sales beginning in 2007 and accelerating as the Great Recession hit in 2008, had a deal to sell the Hummer brand to Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machines Co. Ltd. in early 2010. A thumbs-down from the Chinese Ministry of Commerce was the only thing that prevented the sale from happening.
So when Mary Barra decided that an EV was the perfect opportunity to resurrect a brand known for gas-guzzlers (the Hummer H2 got 10 mpg city), GM still owned the rights.
And that enabled them to build, and us to ponder, a 9,000-plus pound, six-and-a-half-foot tall, 17.1-foot long, five-seat, 830-horsepower, one-hundred-thousand-dollar SUV that seats fewer people than a Chevy Tahoe/GMC Yukon, gives second-row passengers 3.6 fewer inches of legroom than a Tahoe/Yukon, and has 36.6 cubic feet less cargo space behind the second row than the Tahoe/Yukon offers.
Even including the Hummer's 11.3 cubic foot frunk (front trunk), it's still 25.3 cubic feet worth of stuff shy of a Tahoe's cargo capacity.
Of course, it's fast. Zero to 60 in 3.4 seconds. Three electric motors and a battery pack that all by itself weighs 3,600 pounds. Not a typo---thirty-six hundred pounds. The GMC Hummer EV SUV battery pack weighs a whole Corvette.
Efficiency is critical in EVs. This may be the least efficient ever. The average electric vehicle can travel between three and four miles per kilowatt hour (kWh).
I couldn't get the Hummer to break 1.8. And I was resisting the urge to hot-dog it.
The EPA says the GMC Hummer EV SUV gets 53 MPGe combined city/highway/. The fine print says standard SUVs can get up to 100 MPGe.
Energy waste is energy waste. Sure, this doesn't have tailpipe emissions, but there is nothing laudable about making this vehicle when you could have made a truly efficient five-passenger SUV.
Upsides? Range. It can go 314 miles on a charge. Also recharging. On a 240-volt charger (the kind most often used in homes), you can get a full recharge in 10.5 hours---so, overnight.
Yeah, it can crabwalk. But that may just be so that you don't end up hating it when you have to parallel park it for the first time in a major city.
The thing that bothers me the most about the GMC Hummer EV SUV? When I'm actually at the wheel driving it----I don't hate it. It's actually fine. By the end of a few minutes, I'm kinda enjoying it. And that bothers me because it's the same effect that lulls every driver of a ridiculously oversized vehicle into thinking that because they're okay, everyone else around them either is or can go jump.
The base price of the 2024 Hummer EV 3X SUV (3X is the top-of-the-line trim) is $104,650 ($106,945 including destination). Standard at that price, air ride adaptive supsension, four-wheel steering with crabwalk, 22-inch premium finish aluminum wheels, trailer brake controller, a trailering package (max towing capacity is 7,500 pounds while a half-ton GMC Sierra 1500 will do 13,200), a 13.4-inch touchscreen infotainment system that does have wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, a three-year OnStar subscription, a free trial of SiriusXM satellite radio, a Bose premium surround sound system with 14 speakers, keyless open and start, remote vehicle and start, wireless phone charging, GM's Super Cruise Level 2 autonomous driving system (which requires an active subscription), three-zone climate control, 12-way power front bucket seats with four-way lumbar, heated and ventilated front seats with memory settings, a heated steering wheel, cargo-tiedowns, front recovery hooks, power front trunk release, LED headlamps, opaque removable roof panels, fixed assist steps (running boards), and a power tailgate.
The only extra-cost option on our tester was the Afterburner Tintcoat paint ($1,225), so the bottom line on the window sticker reads $108,210.
By now, you may have guessed that I'm not a fan. And I don't have to be. I'm not the intended customer. But when you look at all the ways almost any other vehicle would be a better choice, I have to wonder---
Who is?
