Exclusive: An Interview With the 2023 Hummer EV
You’ve probably already read a lot about the 2022 GMC Hummer EV and its hyperbolic specs and performance. What you haven’t heard, until now, are the behind-the-scenes beefs and brags from the machine itself. Ahead of the Hummer EV launch, C/D scored an exclusive interview with GM’s new flagship 4×4, with no topics ruled out. This transcript is edited for clarity and profanity.
C/D: Thanks for talking to us. You’re obviously a big deal to GM, but you’re also the most controversial new vehicle in years. Do you think that would be the case if you were, say, a Chevy instead of a Hummer?
Hummer EV: Sorry, I wasn’t listening. I was just thinking about how my 1487 pounds of payload means that I could carry more than 140 cases of Muscle Milk.
C/D: I was asking about how your brand, Hummer, carries a lot of baggage that might be absent if you were a Chevy.
Hummer EV: I’m a GMC, brah! That’s like a Chevy with a better credit rating. They had to make me a GMC because hippies burned down all my dealerships in like 2009. At least, that’s what Bumblebee told me. I know Bumblebee.
C/D: All right, let’s move on. You’ve made a big deal about “Crab Mode,” where the rear axle steers in phase with the front. What is the use case for that?
Hummer EV: Getting out of your mom’s driveway.
C/D: Let’s try a different tack. You’ve said that the Rivian R1T “Looks like something you found in your poo”. Can you elaborate more on that?
Hummer EV: (Snickering) You said “moron”.
C/D: Let me rephrase. Do you think you’re being too hard on Rivian?
Hummer EV: (Snickering harder) You said—
C/D: OK, anyway! According to our scales, you weigh more than 9000 pounds. Does that conflict with your message of sustainability?
Hummer EV: Oh, so I weigh that much according to your mainstream media scales? Yeah, right. I probably weigh less than that. Or more. Who cares? Eighteen-wheelers can weigh 80,000 pounds. Think about how much ships weigh, or the moon. Nobody talks about those.
C/D: Your “Watts to Freedom” mode is clearly meant to have another connotation when used in its abbreviated form, “WTF”. Would you say that’s a way of owning the derision that many feel toward your brand?
Hummer EV: I don’t know how to read.
C/D: Fine, let’s talk batteries. Detractors say that mining the raw materials for your battery is environmentally harmful, and that when the battery eventually fails, it will take up space in a landfill.
Hummer EV: If you’d recycle all your copies of Tiger Beat instead of throwing them in the trash, maybe there’d be more room in the landfill, chief. Kidding, not kidding. But really, I figure that when I need a new battery, I’ll do a huge burnout and make a new Grand Canyon and throw the old battery in there. And then somebody can mine it back out again and you can cry about it.
C/D: Do you ever talk to any of your relatives? We’ve heard you’re the black sheep of the family.
Hummer EV: I get along with H1 and H3 Alpha SUT, but the other ones hate me cause they ain’t me. If you see an H2 that doesn’t have 24-inch chrome wheels and low-profile tires, give ’em my number. But I doubt my phone’s gonna ring. Last time I saw H2, there was a comment about electric motors being useless except for starting gas engines and I wasn’t supposed to hear, but I was right there. My family, they forget that I’m quiet. I’m a 9000-pound ninja, son.
C/D: Do you think that part of your attitude comes from resentment toward internal-combustion trucks, particularly the practice of ICEing—parking internal-combustion vehicles in front of EV chargers?
Hummer EV: I park in front of diesel pumps just for the lulz, so I get it. I have 1000 horsepower and T-tops, if you’re looking for the source of my extreme awesomeness.
C/D: That’s not really what I was asking, but OK. Do you expect that your marketing campaign will target internal-combustion trucks? Like maybe show you pulling a Ford F-350 out of a mud hole or the like?
Hummer EV: I pull F-350s into mud holes. I’m not here to make friends. Unless you’re a Trans Am. In which case I’d be like, “’Sup? Nice T-tops.”
Car and Driver
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