(the sound of wind across the desert)
[Country music playing]
Most electric vehicles try to be small, low profile, and aerodynamic practical machines.
These Hummer EV supertrucks though are literally none of those things.
It's been about a year since the Hummer EV was announced, and today we get to take it
on a first drive, a first convoy, off-roading.
It should be pretty fun.
Let's get started.
[Intro]
So today, and I'm still kind of in shock that they let us do these things, but we are taking
the GMC Hummer EV off-roading for the first time.
This is the world's most powerful electric vehicle at the moment with 1,000 horsepower
and 11,500 pound feet of torque.
It's kind of mind blowing how much power is at the tires as we're taking it off road.
With all that power though, it does come with a premium price tag so it should make this
off-roading experience interesting, especially because on either side of the road there are
incredibly prickly cactuses that might do some damage to the paint job.
But luckily we're also here with Dan who has a degree in cactus science.
-[Laughing] I took one class in college at Arizona State about the natural history of
Arizona.
Now it's turned into I have a full degree in Arizona natural sciences.
Okay, I'll take it.
-It'll tell you everything you need to know.
Anyway, it should be a fun day.
So right now we're in off-road mode.
What's cool about the Hummer EV, one of the 5,000 things, is that is has 18 cameras surrounding
the outside so we can see every aspect of the truck.
Plus it has 4 wheel steering so we can make super sharp turns without a super wide turn
radius, which is something that the vast majority of trucks do not have.
And this is a mammoth vehicle with about the same footprint as my Military Humvee that
I'm turning electric.
It has the same ground clearance at about 16 inches.
[Strange sound] Weird sound effects all over the place which is interesting.
I should have watched...
-That wasn't a sound effect...that was a tree!
[Laughing]
-But not a cactus!
And there are three motors in the bottom of this.
There are two in the rear and one in the front so the traction should be exceptional since
it can tell when the tires are slipping and instantly stop or add power to those wheels.
Check this out.
What's tricky about Terrain Mode is as I'm turning the front wheels, the rear wheels
are moving in the opposite direction which makes you feel like the rear end is slipping
out from under you when in reality it's just tightening up your turns so you can turn on
a dime and get it around obstacles or in between walls like that dirt tunnel back there.
And in one way it does feel like it's cheating a little bit, but at $110,000 you would kind
of expect that.
So it's a little bumpy right now.
And you know while it's super cool that there are 18 cameras and all 4 tires turn, one of
the coolest things about this Hummer EV is the battery pack.
So inside of this it has 200 kilowatt hours.
And to put that in perspective, the Humvee I'm building has 100 kilowatt hours.
And even most Tesla's, like my wife's Model X, have 100 kilowatt hours.
So it's effectively twice the size of a regular electric vehicle.
But with that comes the ability to charge at 800 volts, or 350 kilowatt hours of energy,
which gives you about 100 miles of range in 10 minutes.
Now the way GMC manages that...sorry we're going off-road here...is by actually, it's
not one battery pack underneath here, it's actually two.
And the way they have their contactors set up they can split the packs and charge them
both at the same time which gives you that super, super, super fast charging rate.
I know charge time has been one of the things that people have brought up in the past, but
when you have effectively two packs underneath charging at the same time, you're not spending
much more time at the charging station than you would filling up with gas as it is.
So super cool technology coming from GM.
[Hailing sounds]
So out of the blue, we're in Arizona, just started hailing.
Super sorry for the audio.
There are like literal ice balls coming down from the sky.
But one cool thing I want to show you is that the Hummer EV has 3 windshield wipers.
So check this out.
Oh, it's stopping right now.
So the three windshield wipers here, and then back here you can see their windshield wipers
in this digital screen which is kind of nuts.
I'm not a huge fan of the digital rear view mirror.
So as you're driving you're looking far away and then you have to focus close by so it's
kind of like one of those magic eye things where you have to focus your eyes all weird.
Anyway, I'm not a huge fan of a digital rear view mirror.
I think a regular mirror...call me old school, but I think a regular mirror would have worked
just fine.
The Hummer EV weighs 9,243 pounds, which means when we're off-roading and going downhill,
the electric motors can take that weight, slow us down and put energy back into the
battery pack.
And like other EV's we'll have more juice at the bottom of the hill than we had when
we started up at the top.
There's also a fancy little paddle here at the top of the steering wheel with the battery
indicator, which if it's compressed can also initiate that regen and add additional regen
as you're going down the hill.
And if you're off-roading, you know, chances are you'll find some dirt.
If the underbody cameras do get dirty or blocked lenses, we can spray them the same way that
the windshield gets cleaned with the windshield wiper fluid.
It's mind blowing to me that we can be off-roading and be so quiet at the same time.
Like literally the only thing we're hearing...normally with Humvees they are so freaking loud, but
here in this new Hummer EV it's just quiet...except for the tires spinning.
You got this!
So Dan's driving right now and he actually brings up some pretty good points about the
price.
Like yeah, this is a 6 figure truck, but, tell me what you said earlier.
-I mean you can think about the Porsche Taycan and how much that costs...anywhere from I
think 180 on the low end if I'm right, maybe up to 250.
Like, that's an expensive electric car.
I know it's a lot of money at $110,000, but if you compare it to other electric cars in
the space, it's not a crazy amount of money.
-So I guess if you are having a midlife crisis, this is a financially viable option compared
to the other options that you would have chosen during your mid-life crisis.
You can share this video with your wife.
GM's been making trucks for the last 100 years.
I think they've sold around 85 million of them.
So they do know what they're doing.
And it shows with this super truck and what it's able to do off-road.
Now I already have an electric Humvee so I don't know if I'm going to buy one of these
personally, but it was still really fun to come out and see what it does.
Some trucks try to be cost effective, but that's not what Hummer is about.
This is a premium truck at the very premium price point with every premium feature imaginable
in an electric vehicle.
Let's take a look inside.
The suspension is raised and lowered with this guy right here, the air canister, which
can adjust itself over 500 times a second.
The adjustments are nice because it gives us more articulation or wheel travel up into
the body and down to keep the cab level and smooth as we're going off-road.
Dan's over here being the cactus expert.
-I'm not a cactus expert!
[Laughing]
-So over here we have an electric cover for the rear.
Opens like that, and then we can drop down the tailgate.
And it has the ability to drop down even further and be a step to get up into the cab.
I think there are a few GM vehicles that have this same feature, but it's fun to see what
happens to the vehicle when there are a lot of 0's behind the price tag.
Some of the trucks as well have an option for wheels in the back.
And here's a good shot again of the wheel articulation on either side.
As far as charging goes, right here if we open this door we have the J1772, the same
plug in my Hummer, as well as the DC fast charging right below it.
For reference, my Humvee can charge at 7 kilowatts, the one I built, and this Hummer can charge
at 350 kilowatts. 350 kilowatts is a mind blowing amount of power.
We'll get inside the cab where there is less wind.
One of the really cool things about having an electric vehicle is that there's no drive
shafts running down through the center, which means there is a whole lot more storage space
inside the cab.
This is what it looks like from the driver's seat.
I like that there's tactile buttons everywhere, as well as very informative displays.
We can see all the wheel articulation, as well as the pitch and the roll with the compass,
which is all very useful information as you're driving down the road or going off-roading
to make sure, you know, your tipping point so you don't roll over.
We have our drive mode selector for off-road or sport mode, as well as a GoPro we ran over
earlier.
Got some good shots before it died though.
And some more storage space down here.
It's kind of fun that GM has gone with a space theme for this vehicle.
Like here we are driving on another planet or on a spaceship.
Going into off-road mode, I think we're on Mars.
Terrain Mode, I'm not sure what planet that is.
But if we go into Tow Mode we're towing a spaceship on the end.
GM's put a lot of focus on the graphics inside of here.
It's a little bit more aesthetic and put together than my Hummer.
Coming around here to the back.
We should have a little bit more storage underneath the seats.
A little tire repair kit, and a few additional compartments in the seatbacks themselves.
So normally you say electric vehicles are really quiet, but ever since, I think it was
2020, there was a law enacted by the government that says when cars are in drive they have
to play a sound so people who are hard of hearing or children know if the vehicle is
coming.
So if you hear behind me it sounds kind of like an organ chord just harmonizing.
And that's what the sound that the Hummer makes when it's driving below 20 miles an
hour.
Normally they would be completely silent, but since that law's enacted even the Rivian
has kind of a jet noise that it makes as it's driving.
Back here there are also 2 more shackles which we see on the original Humvees as well.
And a tow hitch.
This is a 10,000 pound truck and so the towing capacity is a little reduced when you compare
it to say a Rivian.
Rivian's can tow around 11,000.
The Hummer right now can tow around 7,500.
Let's go around to the front.
So over here around the front we have two more shackles as well as the ability to open
the hood.
Thanks Dan.
Super quiet.
And this right here is where we can store stuff like the cases for the roof pieces because
this is technically a convertible.
All 4 of those roof panels up there in the top can come off and we would normally be
letting the breeze flow through our hair, but it was raining and hailing earlier so
we're probably going to keep them on for now.
It's super windy so we're going to get back to driving, but I for one am super excited
where the future is headed.
Some people like to pay a lot of money for a lot of power.
Some people like to pay a little bit less money for a little bit less power.
You know, there's a truck out there for everyone.
Either way, thanks to GM for having us out, taking us on this little adventure.
Come hang out with me on Instagram and Twitter.
And thanks a ton for watching.
I'll see you around.
[Country music playing]
-[Zack] Phew!
-[Dan] What was that?!
-[Zack] He did say it might scrape a few times.
[Laughing]