It’s 5.5 metres long, 2.2 metres wide and weighs 4082 kilograms. But the moment you touch the throttle, it’s fast, controllable and responsive.
I never expected to like a Hummer. I never imagined thinking highly of any passenger vehicle that weighed more than four tonnes and wasn’t a bus.The Hummer EV is an all-electric reimagining of the obnoxious piece of war chic that was the General Motors-produced original. That road-going homage to the military vehicle that helped flatten Iraq ceased production during the global financial crisis, when conspicuous consumption suddenly became unpopular.
We tested the newcomer on the dirt and gravel tracks of GM’s Milford Proving Ground in Michigan, sitting next to Jim Greene, one of the engineers who helped develop its drivetrain and performance aspects.His first piece of advice was to floor it and I did, reaching 100km/h in about four seconds – on gravel. The plume of dirt and rocks thrown up behind us was extraordinary.
Greene ran us through what seemed like an endless list of clever electronic features and modes. We put them all to the test. Among the most talked-about is CrabWalk, which makes all four wheels steer in the same direction at slow speed, making the Hummer slew sideways and forwards at once. It feels weird.
A related trick, magnifying the front steering at the rear by a factor of 1.6 to create a fishtailing effect, enables the Hummer to be threaded around boulders and down narrow, winding dirt trails. The aggressive rear steering also gives the 5.5-metre long, 2.2-metre wide behemoth the turning circle of a small hatchback.
The vehicle introduces GM’s Ultium EV platform and battery system, with the claim it can add 160 kilometres of range with 10 minutes of charging. For ultimate acceleration, which is quoted as 3.1 seconds to 60mph on bitumen, there is a sports mode known as “Watts To Freedom”. Work out the acronym and you’ll realise Elon Musk isn’t the only car baron with schoolboy humour.
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