Last Updated on July 25, 2022
The Army is now testing a first of its kind electric military hummer for future battlefield use. General Motors was selected to provide a GMC Hummer EV for a test drive as the armed forces looks to reduce reliance on fossil fuels. The move comes just weeks after President Biden vowed to spend “billions” on making the military more “climate-friendly.”
“Leveraging GM’s advanced technology, this demonstration will prove to our U.S. Army customer what an all-electric supertruck can do and how the underlying technology can be leveraged for future defense needs, whether on an installation or in a tactical environment,” Steve DuMont, president of GM Defense, a subsidiary of General Motors, said in a statement.
The vehicle will be a top-grade Hummer EV Edition 1, which has a list price of $112,595. The Army did not disclose what it paid for the EV, though that figure is expected to be disclosed at the end of August.
GM’s all-electric Hummer features 1,000 horsepower with a 24-module, double-stacked Ultium battery pack. It offers almost 330 miles of combined driving range with its first edition and can go from 0-to-60 mph in as little as 3 seconds, a company spokesman said.
GM Defense said it is leveraging its $35 billion investment in electric vehicles and autonomous vehicle technology to help the Department of Defense meet its climate goals. “With access to GM’s advanced technologies, GM Defense is able to provide proven commercial technologies adapted to meet specific defense requirements and the needs of our customers,” Dumont said.
The tests will allow the DOD to study how a commercial electric like the Hummer EV pickup can perform when given military tasks. The Army will evaluate its performance on a military operational mission profile as the branch looks to develop a future electric light reconnaissance vehicle (eLRV), Steve Herrick of the U.S. Army Program Executive Office Combat Support and Combat Service Support told Fox News.
The Edition 1 is equipped with all of the features offered on the Hummer EV, including a 1,000 horsepower tri-motor drivetrain and an air suspension system with an “Extract” mode that can raise the vehicle by six inches if it gets stuck, Fox News reported.
President Biden recently said that he plans to spend “billions” on making the U.S. Military more “climate-friendly” during a Rose Garden statement. “In the United States military, every vehicle is going to be climate friendly, every vehicle,” Biden told a group of Democrat lawmakers on Earth Day. “No I mean it, we’re gonna spend billions of dollars to do it,” the president continued.
The Biden Administration hopes that electric vehicles can make up the bulk of the Pentagon’s fleet by the end of the decade. According to Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks, tactical vehicles will first go hybrid, using a mix of fossil fuels and electricity, before making a full transition. An additional 170,000 non-tactical cars and trucks used on military bases could be converted to electric right away.
“Electric vehicles are quiet. They have a low heat signature and incredible torque, and because they tend to be low maintenance with fewer moving parts, they have the potential to reduce logistics requirements,” Hicks said while touting the department’s climate initiatives as Eastern Michigan University.
The U.S. Military is currently in the process of replacing its aging Humvee fleet with a variety of vehicles. The Army currently uses more than 242,000 tactical wheeled vehicles, according to the Government Accountability Office.
