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Best Of 2021: In Epically Nerdy Interview, Elon Musk Discusses Build Quality Problems With Engineer Who Compared Model 3 To ‘A Kia In The ’90s’

Tesla’s CEO then fesses up to his company’s build-related mistakes and dives into why they’ve been happening. When asked about panel gaps, Musk says: “It took [Tesla] a while to…iron out the production process,” going on to discuss how the company struggled to get details right while production was in “vertical climb mode.” Really early production cars, and the cars that come out after production has leveled off, Musk says, are the ones likely to have the best fit and finish.

Munro, having met with a number of Tesla owners during a recent road trip, noticed variations between two vehicles built in the same short time-span. Confused as to how this could happen, he asked Musk. “We actually did improve gap and paint quality quite a bit towards the end of last year,” the California-based engineer-CEO told the Michigan-based engineer-CEO, “Even in the course of December.”

Musk also mentions that while ramping up production, his team rushed cars in a way that didn’t adequately allow paint to dry, causing issues with quality. “Production is hell,” Musk puts it frankly.

What about the rear part of the Model 3’s body, which Munro criticized for consisting of far too many pieces with far too many different fastening methods? (shown below):

Image for article titled Best Of 2021: In Epically Nerdy Interview, Elon Musk Discusses Build Quality Problems With Engineer Who Compared Model 3 To 'A Kia In The '90s'

The image above shows this problem on an early Model 3 build, though Munro’s 2021 model does show some improvement. For example, there are now 17 spot welds on one particular plate instead of 26 on the old car, and there’s one fewer bolt. Oddly, though, even newer Model 3s don’t share the Model Y’s more intuitive “mega-casting” rear wheelhouse — i.e. a single piece instead of various panels fastened together.

Musk discusses this Model 3 design weakness.

“The organizational structure errors, they manifest themselves in the product,” he begins. “We’ve got probably the best material science team in the world at Tesla. Engineers would ask what’s the best material for this purpose…and they got like 50 different answers. And they’re all true individually, but they were not true collectively,” he admits.

“When you try to join all these dissimilar alloys…you’ve got gaps that you’ve got to seal, and you’ve got to join these things, and some of them need to be joined with rivets, some of them need to be joined with spot welds, some of them need to be joined with resin or resin and spot welds,” he continues.

“Frankly, it looks like a bit of a Frankenstein situation when you look at it all together.” Musk then talks about how sealing the gaps between the different pieces in the body is a nightmare. “That might be the most painful job in the factory, is spackling on the sealant,” he describes, mentioning how even a small error can cause leaks and NVH problems.

Munro asks why newer Model 3s still make use of such a multipiece rear body design instead of a single casting like on the Model Y. “It’s hard to change the wheels on the bus when it’s going 80 mph down the highway,” Musk responds, saying the Model 3 represents such a large portion of the automaker’s volume that the company “[needs] an opportunity to redo the factory without blowing up the cashflow.”

He talks about how important going to a single-piece casting was for the Model Y: There are no gaps, there’s no sealant and there’s no risk of galvanic corrosion at the interface of dissimilar metals. That choice alone, Musks says, allowed Tesla to reduce its body shop size by 30 percent. “We got rid of 300 robots just with that rear body casting,” he tells Munro.

Musk then discusses with Munro the plans for Tesla to move to a structural battery pack that leverages the individual cells as structural elements that resist shear forces. “The cells today in every car are carried like a sack of potatoes,” Musk explains. “They actually have negative structural value,” going on to say how today, cells don’t make vehicles any more rigid, and that especially because there is isolation material needed between the cells themselves and the pack housing to help the batteries handle shock loads, batteries are just a liability from a mass standpoint. Musk wants to change that, and get dual use from those batteries.

The rest of the interview remains thoroughly nerdy. There’s discussion about cars’ natural frequencies, about how reducing polar moment of inertia by bringing mass toward the car’s center of mass yields better handling. There’s discussion about tolerance stack-up and how that leads Tesla to almost always err toward fewer pieces and Lego-like parts precision.

Munro mentions his company’s BMW i3 findings, lauding the German automaker’s excellent build quality for the carbon-fiber body. Musk replies that one of his major concerns about use of carbon fiber is that it has a vastly different coefficient of thermal expansion than aluminum or steel, and this can cause fitment issues when the vehicle is subjected to certain thermal environments.

Musk also talks about how Tesla’s casting sizes on the Model S and X were limited because heat treatment led to shape distortion once the part reached a certain size. To facilitate larger castings, Musk states, company’s material scientists had to make a custom alloy that didn’t require an additional treating step after casting.

Musk also mentions that he wants to do away with 12-volt systems on EVs — a holdover from earlier designs and a way to easily integrate already-existing components from prominent auto suppliers. A 48-volt system, Musk and Munro agree, could have lots of benefits including reduced wire size and weight. Musk mentions that the S and X are now getting lithium-ion 12-volt batteries, which add capacity and last longer than traditional lead-acid ones.

The discussion concludes with talk about the future of EVs and the speed with which they will enter the marketplace in coming years. There’s also talk about shortsellers because of course there is.

Throughout the interview, especially in the beginning, Munro compliments Tesla’s excellent seats, with Musk talking about how the key is to reduce pressure peaks on the body. The two enginerds examine the value of making seats in-house versus buying them from suppliers.

It’s all nerdy and fascinating, and in some ways, a truly magical moment between two total math and science geeks. I love it. I also love how, when Munro says he was having issues with Tesla’s Autopilot driver-assistance system because of bad road markings in Texas, Musk straight-up says: “Even if the road is painted completely wrong and a UFO lands in the middle of the road, the car still cannot crash and still needs to do the right thing…It can’t be dependent upon the road markings being correct….It’s just gotta be ‘no matter what, it’s not gonna crash.’”

The whole interview is just gold. I talked with Munro & Associate’s president Cory Steuben, and he told me about how this interview even came to be. Steuben and Munro are in the middle of a road trip right now in a Model 3 that they spontaneously decided to purchase.

The two planned a trip out west to see some EV automakers, and hung out in Fremont to see if Musk would be there. He wasn’t. Serendipitously, Steuben received an email from an individual saying he could set up an interview with Musk. Musk’s assistant, at 11 p.m. on Monday, scheduled an interview in Boca Chica, Texas for Friday, but by that time, Steuben and Munro were in Eugene, Oregon.

So Steuben and Munro had to bee-line it 2,500 miles, 40 hours in the Model 3, planning charging stations and really putting electromobility to the ultimate test in driving from Oregon all the way to Texas to see the king of EVs himself, Elon Musk.

Luckily, Steuben and Munro made their meeting, with the former saying the billionaire came off as “one of the most enjoyable, humble, stoic…people that I’ve met who’s in a position like that.”

Musk, Steuben said, spent three hours with the two engineers from Michigan, and was seen working at 10:30 p.m. on a Friday.

As if the interview weren’t epic enough on its own.

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We visit a Lucid Motors electric-vehicle showroom

In Scottsdale, Arizona, the luxury electric vehicle manufacturer Lucid Group has opened its newest storefront in the Fashion Square Mall, where it welcomes visitors to see and experience its Lucid Air models.

“Lucid’s Scottsdale Studio allows customers to experience the brand and obtain information about its products in a location that underscores the company’s unique design aesthetic,” the company says in its press release.

When entering the storefront, visitors are greeted by the Lucid Air Grand Touring, which, as the company describes it, is “the quickest, longest range, fastest charging luxury electric car in the world.”

Lucid, We visit a Lucid Motors electric-vehicle showroom, ClassicCars.com Journal

At $139,000, the Lucid Air Grand Touring sits at the top of the production range that includes the Lucid Air Pure, starting at $77,400; the Lucid Air Touring, starting at $95,00; and a special-edition Lucid Air Dream Edition starting at $169,00.

Lucid’s battery has a projected range of over 500 miles and the drive unit is rated at 600 horsepower, helping these luxury sedans reach 0 to 60 mph in 2.5 seconds and cover a quarter-mile sprint in 9.9 seconds.

“Our Dream Edition that we’re launching with has over 1,000 horsepower with two drive units,” senior director of retail operations Zak Edson told me during my visit. “When you’re looking at the characteristics of the car, you can drive it like a sports car, you can drive it like a luxury car, you can take it on road trips – they can achieve whatever you need.”

Lucid Air models are equipped with a combined charging system, so they can plug into seemingly any charging station on the road and need only 20 minutes for a 300-mile charge.

The model displayed in the Studio is finished in Infinite Black paint over the Tahoe interior configuration, which includes Nappa full-grain and premium natural grain leather in Lucid Black and a Saddle with Carbon Oak trim.

Sitting in the driver’s seat, you’re presented with an impressive set of two touch-control displays behind the steering wheel contoured toward the driver and a “glass cockpit” 34-inch, 5kKfloating touch screen located on the lower left of the driver. Look up and you see a glass canopy roof design that stretches over the rear seats.

Each Lucid Air is equipped with “Dream Drive,” a driver-assistance program that features 32 sensors and high-res LIDAR using laser beams to measure distances from objects.

“It’s a luxury vehicle, so it does have heated and ventilated seats, but also massaging functions in both the lower cushion and the back portion of the seats,” Edson shared. “It has a premium sound system, surreal sound we call it, that uses Dolby Atmos tuning that gives you a rich depth of sound.”

Behind the car, visitors can get up close to the drive unit, which encompasses the motor, inverter and transmission, the Wunderbox charging system, and a Lucid Air battery.

Visitors are invited to try out Lucid’s 4K virtual-reality experience which “combines the physical and virtual worlds to showcase seamless personalization of everything from interior finishes and materials to exterior color,” Lucid noted.

T-shirts, hoodies, hats and other Lucid-branded items are available for purchase.

While this is the first Arizona-based storefront, it’s not the EV manufacturer’s first time in the Grand Canyon state. The company built its enormous 1-million-square-foot lithium-ion battery production plant in Casa Grande, between Phoenix and Tucson.

“Opening our first Studio in Arizona, just an hour from where the Lucid Air will begin rolling off the assembly line in Casa Grande this year, is a special milestone,” Edson is quoted in the press release. “This opening reinforces the company’s commitment to the region, and is in direct response to the warm welcome and the high level of interest shown for both our manufacturing operations and the products we are bringing to market.”

Learn more about Lucid Motors on its website.

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Your New Electric Car Will Cost Less To Produce Than Your Old Gas Guzzler Very Soon

One of the most important milestones in the shift to electrification is coming sooner than you think. Electric cars will cost less to make than internal combustion cars by the year 2027, according to a report from The Guardian.

And the lower cost of production will come even sooner than that in certain EV segments. For example, electric midsize sedans and SUVs will be cheaper to make than internal combustion midsize sedans and SUVs by 2026, per the report. Just one year after that, smaller cars will follow and it’s mostly thanks to cheaper batteries.

The research that The Guardian cites concludes that batteries will drive a big decrease in EV production costs in the near future. As EV batteries get cheaper, the production of electric cars gets cheaper, too, because batteries account for as much as a quarter of that overall cost.

The Guardian cites a new study, which suggests that the price of batteries will decrease by more than half of where it is now, in this decade:

The new study, commissioned by Transport & Environment, a Brussels-based non-profit organisation that campaigns for cleaner transport in Europe, predicts new battery prices will fall by 58% between 2020 and 2030 to $58 per kilowatt hour.

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This means that in as little as five years from today, electric cars will actually be the cheaper option for big auto and it’s very possible that, as The Guardian outlines, “tighter emissions regulations could put [EVs] in pole position to dominate all new car sales by the middle of the next decade…”

When you take the stricter emissions that the European Union is proposing, and you add that to the lower cost of batteries, you get a market where making and selling EVs is more lucrative for carmakers than ICE ever was.

The important question, then, is: Will cheaper to make translate to cheaper to buy? The report indicates that it is a possibility:

The current average pre-tax retail price of a medium-sized electric car is €33,300 [~$40,135], compared with €18,600 [~$22,615] for a petrol car, according to the research. In 2026, both are forecast to cost about €19,000 [~$23,101].

By 2030, the same electric car is forecast to cost €16,300 [~$19,818]before tax, while the petrol car would cost €19,900 [~24,196.]

Carmakers are beginning to like not operating on razor-thin margins. It’s possible that cheaper batteries will mean more profit for big auto, rather than EVs for the masses.

I can’t wait to see what carmakers are going to push in order to meet these upmarket margins as EV production costs go down. Really, I’m just stoked to see how they’ll swerve around the $25,000 electric car.

It’s Come To My Attention That The Ferrari SF90 Stradale Qualifies For The EV Tax Credit

The Ferrari SF90 Stradale is a 986-horsepower plug-in electric hybrid supercar with a price tag north of half-a-million dollars. I have good news if you’re in the market for one, as it has just come to my attention that the SF90 Stradale is eligible for the same federal tax credit you used to get when buying a Tesla.

According to the Internal Revenue Service’s website, the SF90 is not eligible for the full $7,500 tax credit, but it is eligible for $3,501, which is sure to factor into your purchasing decision, though the SF90 Stradale isn’t the only electrified vehicle you might consider. There’s also the 2020 Bentley Bentayga Hybrid, which costs over $150,000, which is eligible for the full $7,500. And there’s at least one budget option available, in the form of the $79,900 Porsche Taycan, eligible for the full $7,500 credit too.

Here is the formula for the credit per the IRS:

Internal Revenue Code Section 30D provides a credit for Qualified Plug-in Electric Drive Motor Vehicles including passenger vehicles and light trucks. For vehicles acquired after 12/31/2009, the credit is equal to $2,500 plus, for a vehicle which draws propulsion energy from a battery with at least 5 kilowatt hours of capacity, $417, plus an additional $417 for each kilowatt hour of battery capacity in excess of 5 kilowatt hours. The total amount of the credit allowed for a vehicle is limited to $7,500.

[…]

Manufacturers of the vehicles … have provided appropriate information and have received from the Service acknowledgement of the vehicles eligibility for the credit and the amount of the qualifying credit.

I don’t know about you, but I for one am happy to live in a country that is trying to get as many electrified Ferraris, Bentleys, and Porsches on the street as possible. This world isn’t going to save itself.

More seriously: It is funny that Ferrari had to lift a finger to get the SF90 Stradale tax-credit eligible, and it actually did.

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Ferrari, Cobra and more extravagant custom golf carts

The game of golf dates way back to the 15^th century in Scotland, but we didn’t start seeing golf carts being driven around the courses until the 1930s.

Tired of walking from hole to hole, an engineer named Lyman Beecher is credited with building the first ride-on cart, which was pulled around by caddies. Beecher eventually added electric batteries to his cart, although it took 6 batteries to complete an 18-hole round.

Fast forward to the 1950s, when both electric and gas-powered golf cart manufacturers began to emerge like Marketeer, Golfmobile, Cushman, Club Car, etc.

Popularity grew quickly, but most golf courses banned carts — until they realized the money they could make from renting them to golfers.

Today, golf carts aren’t just for carting your clubs around but feature high-tech amenities to keep you on you’re A-game, as well as luxury amenities, and can be customized to reflect your personality.

Check out these expensive, custom golf carts that’ll have you golfing in style and luxury:

The sports car of the golf course, these teched-out carts are designed with both comfort and style in mind.

They’re equipped with a carbon fiber body, peaked rear spoiler, leather lounge-style seats and, our favorite feature, a built-in fridge. There’s even a touchpad on the dash where you can keep track of your score throughout the game.

Who wouldn’t want to feel like James Bond on the golf course?

Inspired by the original white and blue Moke James Bond drove through the streets of San Monique in the 1973 film Live and Let Die, this cart features the same design with more modern upgrades.

The cruiser comes with a wood steering wheel, rear tire cover with “San Monique” artwork, white rims, backup camera and a Bluetooth radio.

Get carted around the course in style with this custom Phaeton-inspired car covered in gold metallic paint.

It comes custom with a digital LED speedometer, backup camera, modern radio with Kicker speakers and LED backup lights.

Built and customized by Streetrod Golf Cars, this cart will cost you $25,700.

If you really want to make an impression on the course, check out this F5-inspired cart custom-made by Luxury Carts.

It features the iconic Ferrari body style, tan leather seats, 15-inch custom rims, a chrome tilt steering column and a motor that gets this cart up to 24 miles per hour.

When you order the cart for a base price of $23,800, you can choose any color you’d like.

Picture yourself playing a round of golf behind the wheel of a Shelby Cobra. Great, right?

Officially licensed by Shelby, this Cobra-inspired cart built by Caddyshack features a hand-built fiberglass body, white Cobra stripes, vinyl and Ultrasuede seats with the Cobra logo and Shelby signature and original Shelby-style 12-inch wheels.

It’s available with both electric and gas motors with a top speed of 25 miles per hour.

For the classic car enthusiast, you can bring the style of your classic onto the golf course.

Built by Luxury Carts, the red fiberglass body is built on a Club Car Precedent chassis and features chrome bumpers and a wood grain dashboard.

This electric classic will set you back $22,000.

An official licensed GM product, this H3 Limo cart comes with a certificate of authenticity from Hummer.

The 124-inch-long fiberglass body features a genuine Hummer chrome grille, 15-inch custom Hummer wheels and a rubberized diamond plate floor.

Battery-powered to reach a max speed of 19 miles per hour, the base price is $16,299 but has a long menu of additional options you can add on.

Not for the shy, this hot pink mini Mercedes-Benz cart won’t go unnoticed on the green.

Powered by a 3.8 horsepower motor, the heavy-duty fiberglass body features a tinted windshield, side mirrors, front grille and “Daytona Style” steering wheel.

And if the pink is a bit much for you, the maker, Luxury Carts, offers a selection of other colors.

You can own your own limo for just $13,595, but it’ll only take you 45 miles on one charge.

This California roadster limo 4-seater cart features a proportionally correct composite body, tan vinyl interior, custom polished aluminum mirrors and a color-matched dash built on an all-aluminum chassis.

It comes in four other colors (red, yellow, white and blue) and has a long list of upgrades, including a Sony sounds system, custom hard top and mobile video system.

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Washington State Legislative Committee Aims For Ambitious EV Adoption Mandate In Nine Years

Every one of us stood back mouth agape in awe of California’s Governor stepping up and committing to a statewide mandate for all new light vehicle sales to be electric by 2035. Fifteen years is not a very long time, and this seemed like an incredible power to wield from a gubernatorial executive order, especially because Newsom won’t be Governor in 2035 as his term limits will preclude him. Washington State’s House transportation committee just moved a bill one step closer to law, which if passed would make California’s EV mandate look like small potatoes.

Washington State House bill 1204, entitled Clean Cars 2030, aims to ban the sale and registration of gasoline and diesel-powered light-duty vehicles. Any new vehicle—barring the occasional emergency response vehicle—weighing under 10,000 pounds must be zero emissions (which pretty much limits new car sales to battery-electric or hydrogen fuel cell) by 2030 to be legal in the state.

While California Governor Newsom’s mandate doesn’t really have teeth beyond his term, this legislative mandate from Washington State aims to change state law, which will be much harder to subvert than an executive order. It also draws up the timeline from Newsom’s utopian ideal by five years to 2030, just 9 years away! Actually, it calls for all 2030 model year cars to fall under this mandate, so most new cars sold in the state in 2029 will need to be zero emissions.

Since GM’s Super Bowl commitment to only selling EVs by 2035, many other automakers have come out in favor of an all-EV lineup, including Jaguar, Infiniti, Volvo, and others. Ford has committed to launching more EVs, but it’s all-EVs news cycle headline grab is limited only to the European continent. In any case, there should be plenty of EV choices on the market by 2030 for the citizens of Washington State to choose from.

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Washington State already has among the highest EV adoption rate in the country, but electric vehicles are still a minority of new car sales. In 2020 only 4.8 percent of new cars sold statewide were battery electric. To reach this proposed 100 percent goal by 2030, the state will need to see annual growth of 40 percent, which is an ambitious growth rate by anyone’s measure. The Pacific Northwest state has a leg up on the nationwide number, which is was around 1.85 percent in 2020, though by some models that is expected to exceed 3 percent this year.

Obviously this bill will still need to pass the house general assembly vote, and then be passed on to the state senate, before being signed into law by Governor Jay Inslee. It’s fairly safe to assume that if this bill makes it to Inslee’s desk, it’ll be signed. The governor has been bullish on climate, and practically formed his entire personality around that issue.

For the record, I like this idea, and think that Washington is in a particularly unique position to make it happen within the next 9 years. It’ll require a lot of action on the part of the entire state government, including finding budget for massive infrastructure adoption. The homeownership rate in Washington State is over 62 percent, meaning a smaller than normal percentage of the state’s residents will need to charge their electric cars somewhere other than their homes. Washington already averages well above 2 cars per household, meaning many families will be able to adopt a current-spec EV while keeping their older gasoline, diesel, or hybrid-powered cars.

It won’t be without hurdles or struggles, but the bill does specifically call out a need to investigate impacts on the community of the state. A particular focus on “equity, especially including disadvantaged and low-income communities, communities of color, and rural communities, and strategies for maximizing equity in implementation of the 2030 requirement.” The bill also includes a study of job gains and losses which can be expected as a result of the 2022 to 2040 transition period. Thankfully, as opposed to the California mandate, this Washington bill includes a requirement for investing in “Charging infrastructure; software development; grid upgrade and management; battery, vehicle, and charging equipment manufacturing; education; training; and research and development.”

It doesn’t appear that this bill is short sighted or rushed for green points. If it does come to fruition, this will completely change the economy, environment, and lifestyle of Washingtonians. I don’t often root for bills to pass, but I hope this one does. It’ll be an interesting experiment, if nothing else, for the rest of the country to watch with great intent. Someone has to take that first step, and it may as well be Washington State. Whip those votes!

We Want To Hear Your Electric Car Ownership Stories

Did you own a Ford Ranger EV back in the ‘90s? Do you have a Nissan Leaf in the middle of nowhere, hundreds of miles from a fast charger? Do you keep your Tesla Roadster in Manhattan, even in a blackout? The world of EVs is full of interesting stories, and we want to hear yours!

Every week, we’ll be posting an interview with an owner of an electric vehicle. We want our coverage of EVs to be practical. We want it to represent reality, not the hype that comes from Silicon Valley startups, or the untethered hope of over-eager politicians, or the pessimism of head-in-the-sand retrogrouches who think you just can’t own an EV in this day and age.

That means we want to hear from rural EV owners, from apartment-bound EV owners, first adopters, and veteran drivers.

But to get those stories we need to hear from you! We want to interview you for this site and get your story out. Maybe you worked at one of the California utilities that got EV fleet vehicles decades ago, or you were part of that BMW 1 Series lease program. Half of the world has forgotten these things even existed.

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We want:

Your name
What car do you own? (If you owned a car in the past, let us know what years!)
Where do you live with it?
How and where do you charge it?
How was buying it?
How long have you had it?
How has it lived up to your expectations?
A photo of your car

If you want to be interviewed, please let us know an email with an re: EV Ownership Stories to tips at jalopnik dot com!

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Tesla Never Really Had Its Heart In The $35,000 Model 3

I’m old enough to remember when the Tesla Model 3 was supposed to be the affordable Tesla, the one that costs “only” $35,000, except we only ever really saw the $35,000 Model 3 in fits and starts. Now it looks as if Tesla might soon be moving on from the $35,000 Model 3 for good.

First, I must share that today I personally enjoyed reading the headlines and time stamps on the following two Jalopnik stories from last year:

Real roller coaster of emotions there. The thing is, the $35,000 Model 3 did eventually appear, though later you had to order it in person at a dealership or call — Tesla sold it online only for a brief bit. That Model 3 was a $38,000 Model 3 but “software-limited” to get its price down to $35,000. Some people bought it this way, but when companies start making it actively harder to buy a product it’s a sure sign that said product’s days are probably numbered. That is possibly, in the case of the $35,000 Model 3, because Tesla could be selling it at a loss.

All of which is to say, according to Electrek, the $35,000 Model 3 might soon be a thing of the past.

Sources familiar with the matter told Electrek that Tesla informed its staff that they weren’t allowed to “downgrade” new 2021 Model 3 vehicles to “Standard Range” and sell them for $35,000.

They are still allowed to software-limit features on 2020 Model 3 Standard Range Plus vehicles that are still in inventory and sell those to customers as Model 3 Standard Range for $35,000, but not the new 2021 Model 3, which comes with new features.

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Earlier this year, Tesla CEO Elon Musk acknowledged that its cars aren’t affordable enough — implicitly including the $35,000 Model 3—saying that it was working on an even cheaper model, a $25,000 compact. Which is still a fair amount of money considering that Tesla buyers no longer get the $7,500 federal tax credit but it is, you know, a start.

It also allows us to move on from the idea that a $35,000 Model 3 was ever particularly affordable in the first place, or that a $35,000 Model 3 would even be particularly desirable, as software-limited as it ended up being. Because if you’re getting a Tesla without all the tech you’re kind of defeating the purpose of getting a Tesla at all.

That means that a $25,000 Tesla with most or all of Tesla’s tech would be a big step forward. But as we’ve learned with Tesla, we’ll just have to watch and wait.

I emailed Tesla for comment and will update this blog if I get a response.

GMC unveils electric Hummer pickup truck

GMC has unveiled what it is calling “its new supertruck,” the 2022 GMC Hummer EV, an electric-powered off-roader pickup that appears to be General Motors’ answer to the variety of Jeeps and to the forthcoming Ford Bronco.

The electrified Hummer is scheduled to go into production in the fall of 2022.

“The GMC Hummer EV is revolutionary, defying what the industry thinks of as a pickup truck,” Duncan Aldred, vice president of the Buick and GMC brands, was quoted in the news release.

He added that the Edition 1 version of the truck “will make Hummer EV’s unprecedented capability and zero-emissions a very special proposition for customers.”

Edition 1 vehicles, with a base price of $112,595, will be done in white exteriors with 5-seat “Lunar Horizon” interiors featuring a 13.4-inch infotainment screen and 12.3-inch driver information display.

There a ‘frunk’ up front that can store removable roof panels

But the most striking feature may well be an “Infinity Roof” with removable transparent “Sky Panels” that can be stored in the “frunk” at the front of the vehicle. Edition 1s also will have a power-rear backlight, power tonneau cover for the bed and a MultiPro tailgate.

Edition 1 Hummer EV trucks will feature an Extreme Off-Road Package with 18-inch wheels wearing 35-inch Goodyear Wrangler Territory MT tires, underbody armor, rock sliders, underbody cameras, as well as adaptive air suspension and 4-wheel “CrabWalk” steering with a diagonal-drive mode.

The trucks will have a 3-motor propulsion system with 1,000 horsepower and what GM figures to be 11,500 pound-feet of torque. GMC expects 0-60 mph acceleration to be achieved in 3 seconds. Range is foreseen to exceed 350 miles, GMC added.

The trucks also will offer “Super Cruise,” a hands-free driving mode for 200,000 miles of roads that have been readied for such technology.

If the Edition 1 price comes as a shock (pun intended), GMC added that the base price for the Hummer EV with a 2-motor system will be $79,995, $89.995 for a model with adaptive air ride and CrabWalk, and $99,995 for one with the 3-motor system. Those versions will be available, respectively, in Spring 2024, Spring 2023 and Fall 2022.

“The Hummer EV will be the first full-electric vehicle in GMC’s portfolio and is powered by General Motors new Ultium battery system,” GMC noted.

Batteries will be produced in Lordstown, Ohio, in a joint venture with LG Chem, and the trucks will be assembled in Hamtramck, Michigan.

For more information, visit the GMC Hummer EV website.