[Dramatic music playing]
So we have a lot of catching up to do.
Today we're going to see if my electric converted military Humvee can climb this mountain.
Underneath the hood we have our inverter, we have our motor, a torque box, and then
a transfer case down there below the truck.
The transfer case is what gives us our four wheel drive, and then back here we have 95
kilowatt hours worth of Tesla battery packs which is what gives us our fuel for the vehicle.
All in all, this project has taken us about 2 years to build.
There are about 25 videos showing how every component comes together and works together,
and finally today we get to test it out.
And while the Hummer is indeed functional, it is nowhere near finished.
There's still a lot of work left to do, but it's functional enough that we can try climbing
this mountain.
With 700 newton meters of torque coming out of the electric motor, there's definitely
enough power to get to the top.
But, it is a very old vehicle, from back in 1995.
So the power is definitely there, the structural integrity might not be.
Does anyone else get the munchies when they're nervous?
Because I definitely do.
Lucky for us, this video is sponsored by Huel.
It only takes a few minutes to make a nutritionally complete, inexpensive meal with 27 vitamins
and minerals.
Eating right is the hardest part of staying healthy for me.
But thanks to counting calories, and making those calories count, I've lost 15 pounds
since this time last year.
Thanks for noticing.
And eating healthy is a huge part of that.
Today we're trying out the 100% nutritionally complete chicken and mushroom.
It's from the hot and savory huel line up.
With a heck of a lot of vitamins and minerals, look at that list, including 24 grams of protein,
which is amazing since we're probably going to be pushing the Hummer home after we attempt
this mountain.
And the whole thing has exactly 400 calories which makes tracking my intact a whole lot
easier.
It tastes clean and healthy while still having a lot of flavor.
You don't have to take my word for it though.
Huel has sold over 300 million meals in 100 different countries.
So if you want to bring some healthiness to your own life, I'll leave a link down in the
description, and huge thanks to Huel for sponsoring this video.
Now though, I think procrastination is over and it's time to see if we can get to the
top of this mountain.
Let's get started.
[Intro]
Here we go.
So we have 2 shifters here, and this is for the rear wheels and the front wheels.
So now we're in 4 low.
Flip into forward for the electronics.
Four-wheel drive.
We're doing this.
With the electronic throttle, basically we need to program it so that it doesn't respond
instantly to any variations of the pedal, and then I think this ride will be smoother
and we'll get a better suspension because this suspension was built for the turret,
and we reduced quite a lot of weight.
So...let's see if we can take this one slowly.
[Dramatic music playing]
Woo!
Dang!
[Triumphant music playing]
Woo!
That was crazy!
Oh man.
And we've made it to the top.
I've been waiting two years for this moment.
I imagined my Hummer sitting on top of this mountain in this position for so long, and
we finally did it.
There were a couple points coming up this mountain that were a little bit sketchy.
If you look down the hill right here, there's some loose gravel on top and this Hummer doesn't
actually have locking differentials, so if one wheel loses power, it starts spinning.
I'll replay that clip.
So there are a few downsides to 30 year old technology like what we have here, but man,
that was so cool.
So much fun.
There are still so many things we have to do.
If you remember, I did drop this off to my buddy, Jeremey, to figure out why it was not
charging.
Turns out what he discovered is that both the display and the charger were not communicating
on the CAN network.
So we swapped that out as well as the charger, put a new air-cooled 6 kilowatt charger in.
He documented that whole process on his channel.
The videos are still in the playlist though.
There's a lot of testing data that I still don't have yet on this.
For example, the 0-60.
I've only gone 55 miles an hour so far.
It feels comfortable in the 40 mile an hour range, but going past that...it just wasn't
built for speed.
We have about a hundred miles on the odometer give or take, and the range estimated we started
at 90% this morning.
And right now we are at 70% having gone about 22 miles.
So overall we have a range of around a 100 miles with a 95 kilowatt hour battery pack.
The efficiency of this thing is just not good – about half as much as my Rivian.
But, I didn't build it for efficiency.
I also didn't build this for cost savings.
If I was looking for a cheaper EV I would have picked a much smaller vehicle.
I haven't officially done the math yet, but this probably cost maybe a tad more than my
Rivian.
Let me know down in the comments if you want a complete breakdown of the cost and I'll
bring myself to actually do the math.
I thought we'd have a bit closer to 200 miles of range.
But I guess there's just a lot of inefficiencies when dealing with a military Humvee.
We can try hypermiling it at some point, but I'm not disapointed with a hundred.
Back on solid ground again.
And we're not done with this project.
There's a whole lot more that I want to do.
I want to close it off, add some doors, put some solar panels on the top.
I mean, come take a look at this.
We have the fire extinguisher for safety.
But up here there was a turret cut out and they chopped the B pillar which is not super
safe.
We have to get this thing painted.
There are a million things left on the to-do list.
As always, thank you so much for joining us on this journey.
This has been the project of a lifetime and I'm glad I get to share it with you.
If you have any questions leave them down in the comments.
And thanks a ton for watching.
I'll see you around.