General Motors has begun production on it’s second Hummer EV, the Edition 1 SUV, and it would seem the ghost of conspicuous consumption continues to haunt the model, even after it went green as an all-electric vehicle. The problem now? It needs literally tons of battery cells, which may be crimping the supply of energy storage units for the expanding slate of EVs from GM.
According to a post on Motor1, GMC and Buick Global Vice President Duncan Aldred pulled no punches about the effects of slotting a literal boatload of batteries into the Hummers, which tip the scales at nearly five tons and require all that storage to achieve 0-60 times on par with some Corvette models. When asked if chip shortages and so forth were holding back Hummer production targets, Aldred said that real concern surrounded Hummer’s battery requirements.
“What is more of a limiting factor is the amount of battery cells that are available,” Aldred told Motor1. “Hummer EV is a pretty heavy user of battery cells when you compare it to, really, any other EV in the GM portfolio. You almost get to a point where one Hummer could be two of something else within the GM EV stable of products.”
Or even three, if you include the popular Bolt EV’s 66kWh pack. The Hummer’s massive top-option 212-kWh battery pack also gives the big rig a lot of range, up to 350 miles in some tests. All fine and good, but that’s more than double the battery capacity of the largest power pack option in a Tesla Model S, which will top 400 miles on a charge. Nine thousand pounds is a lot to haul around and requires some electron-hungry motors.
Battery demand and the pressure it is putting on the supply chain for the materials required, especially lithium, much of which is sourced from China, continues to be a sore spot in the transition to electric vehicles. Electric cars (and now trucks) aren’t the only lithium-ion battery destination. They’re also in every cell phone, e-bike, and countless other devices and machines. The quest for new battery formulations continues at a feverish pace. Here’s hoping progress is made soon as GM says it has over 90,000 reservations for the Hummer models, and the upcoming electrified Silverado will be using packs of similar size.
