GMC HUMMER EV “Talk About A Revolutionary Supertruck”

Michael Murguia:
Hey you guys. Welcome back to the channel. I’m super excited today. We have the unique opportunity to talk with Al Oppenheiser. Al is chief engineer for the Hummer EV. He started his career at GM in 1985 and prior to the Hummer EV, he was chief engineer for Camaro for more than a decade. It was under his leadership that the Camaro resurged to take the 2016 Motor Trend Car of the Year Award, not to mention the ZL1 and its sub-12 second quarter mile. When GM came to him with the opportunity to lead the creation of the Hummer EV, he took the challenge and dove into the world of electric vehicles.

Corrie and I had the great opportunity to see the Hummer in person last year at GM and we spoke with Al and his team. We’re excited to get this behind the scenes update. If you guys haven’t been here before, my name is Michael. I founded Overland Bound a few years ago. We believe that adventure is absolutely necessary. Today we’re talking about the future of adventure travel, so let’s catch up with Al right now. He’s at the Milford Proving Ground, taking some time out of their testing schedule to answer some questions from the community.

Al, it’s a pleasure. It’s a pleasure to have this opportunity to interview you because I’m a car enthusiast. My first car was a Chevy, restored a ’68 Chevy Camaro myself. Today we’re talking about the Hummer EV.

Al Oppenheiser:
Well, you just went up a little bit of value in my world here, Mike, with that comment. I didn’t realize that. That’s awesome. We can talk about that another time, but today we’re excited because we’re here at our Milford Proving Grounds in Michigan and I’m sitting in a test vehicle, a test Hummer EV. The last time we were together, we were at the Design Dome with you and Corrie, looking at the show truck. You were some of the first people that are non-GM to see the Hummer and even though you got into that one, this is real.

This is the real truck. This is out doing testing and we’ve got a lot of things to talk about with you today. We’re moving so fast. Basically our team did the vehicle the way it is. So to present it to people like you and Corrie and have your opinion be as you mentioned, very positive. We didn’t really know, I mean maybe we were going down the wrong path, but based off of the excitement and the great conversation we had with both of you after the Dome event kind of felt like we were on the right path. We really want this to be no excuses, not a poser, it’s a real off-road vehicle and of course, the styling is over the top.

Michael Murguia:
It sounds like there’s real tenacity in that team and it showed in Detroit with the vehicle that we saw today. I’m hoping we can dive into a little bit more detail and talk about some of the things that you guys have done to make this a true off-road capable vehicle. People have concerns that immediately come up when you talk about an electric vehicle off-road; range, reliability, things of that nature. To cue things up, is there anything for those preconceived notions that you might want to speak to about your awareness of those things and what it might mean for the Hummer EV?

Al Oppenheiser:
Absolutely. So I’ll tailor the first response right to your audience because I know they want to understand what does it mean if I go off-roading, rock crawling, overlanding experiences, trail riding. So I’ll give you a scenario here. So with an EV, there’s a lot of range anxiety. With an EV that’s the size of the Hummer, of course that would be magnified. And then I’m going off-road. There’s no charging stations in the middle of Moab. A lot of people have no idea of what an electric vehicle is and can I plug my phone in? Will it drain my range? So let’s say that you want to go camping at a spot that’s a hundred miles from home and you want to stay for 10 days. So you load the family up, you load your gear up, you get a full charge on your Hummer from home, you’re ready to go.

You drive your a hundred miles, you go to your trailhead, you go find your camping location. You can use your coffee maker every morning for your morning coffee, the whole trip. You can leave your cooler plugged in the whole time. You can plug your electric griddle in and cook three squares a day. You can leave your lights on, you can watch your TV, you can crank your music and then you got enough range to get back home, that 100-mile trip back home. And you haven’t done anything other than leave with a full charge when you leave your home.

If you wanted to go more extreme, we have Google Automotive Services Navigation system on the Hummer EV. Using our Energy Assist app, you can plot out your trip. So let’s say it’s twice as far or three times as far from home to get there and you want to stay longer and you want to go further on daily excursions and then you want to end up back home. If you plug that in through our Energy Assist app, it will tell you, “Hey, I got you covered.”
You’re going to have to stop at a certain location where there’s a DC fast charger and we can top you off before you go hit the trail head. Then you can do your excursion, come back home and we may tell you to stop on your way home and charge a little bit to get there. Our Energy Assist app will guide you on your whole tour and tell you if on that tour you need the DC fast charge. It will actually work and see if you want to set up an appointment, reserve a spot for you. So we’ve got you covered on all fronts if you want to take your Hummer EV off-roading.

Michael Murguia:
Much of that I hadn’t heard before. I think you are speaking directly to a big percentage of our audience. You brought up a key point about electric draw. When you’re talking about charging your iPhone or running a blender versus powering the Hummer EV, we’re talking about two different worlds, right? So you’re not going to drain your primary motor battery by plugging in your iPhone.

Al Oppenheiser:
Exactly. But I should also say that in the Hummer EV we’ve got regen braking, which takes that energy from your braking and helps feed back the charge into your battery. So there’s opportunities to increase the efficiency of your trip.

Michael Murguia:
Let me ask you, we’re talking about these trips close to home or even extended. How does the weight or the equipment that people might want to bring with them, whether it be in the vehicle or out of the vehicle, what are some of the considerations for adding accessories and equipment and how might that affect the range of the Hummer EV?

Al Oppenheiser:
Basically, about 100 pounds of cargo will eat about a little over a mile range. So it’s really not that big of an impact. So if you load up your cargo under the tonneau cover in the bed or in the hoodie, which is the front storage system or inside the vehicle, there’s kind of a guide for you. So you can see it’s not really an impact. However, if your accessories include like a light bar or some of the roof accessories we’ll offer, well, you’re now affecting your cross-sectional area and your drag or your aero, and that does have a little bit more of an impact. The vehicle is more aero-sensitive than it is mass-sensitive.

Michael Murguia:
Along the same lines, how does terrain affect the Hummer EV?

Al Oppenheiser:
Terrain, like sand, deep sand, that’s obviously going to put more load on the driveline system versus rock crawling. It kind of depends on the scenario. What’s the ambient temperature, what type of driving style you have, what mode you’re in. But I still think we’re talking a normal expectation of range usage. It’s not more of a drain than it would be if you’re using a gas as well. I hope that answers the question.

Michael Murguia:
Yeah, I think it really did and you offered that at least preliminarily that you’re seeing what might be expected, which is you’re going to get more draw if you’ve got your foot into it in sand as opposed to crawling over rocks. So you just mentioned you’ve got 100 trucks out there in the wild going through various scenarios. How are you guys testing the off-road durability of the Hummer EV?

Al Oppenheiser:
We’re testing any way you can. We’ve got vehicles that are testing in some of our lab environments. We call it an 18-channel rig. What it does is it takes data from the road systems and it basically will set it up on this multi-post simulator and it will run the structural durability for up to a million miles, runs 24 hours a day. So we’ve got trucks doing that. That takes us way out into the 100, 200, half a million-mile range to see what happens to the structure. We’re also running schedules in that durability that matched some of the off-road routes as well.

Besides that, we’ve got vehicles up North doing winter testing right now. We’ve got vehicles out West on Sorrel Trail. We’re going to Moab soon. We’ve got a lot of vehicles running around town that are starting to get photographed on social media that are running regular roads, highways, rural routes, and of course we’ve got a lot of vehicles running here at our Milford Proving Grounds in Michigan. So it’s just basically run them as long as fast as you can.
We’ve got 24-hour schedules. They never sit. When one team finishes, they will give it a charge and hand it over to the next person. Given the accelerated schedule we have, we don’t have time to sit. It’s amazing how much testing is going on as we speak. You’ll start to see them everywhere and it’s kind of neat that people are identifying them and taking pictures. I guess they’re exciting a lot of people out on public roads.

Michael Murguia:
Yeah, I can tell you you’re exciting a lot of folks in our community as well. It’ll be great to start to see them. So my understanding is the first version of the Hummer EV has a three motor configuration. Can you tell us a bit about that?

Al Oppenheiser:
Exactly. So the first one we’re calling Edition 1. The way we code our electric vehicles is a coding system that gives you the motor number and then how many modules the battery is. So for instance, the vehicle I’m sitting in right now, which is our year one Edition 1, it’s called a 3M24. So it’s a three motor 24-module pack battery. So this vehicle has three basically identical motors. The two in the rear are opposing each other and then there’s a third one in the front. They help generate a thousand horsepower and then of course that monster number of the 11,500 pound feet of torque.

A couple things about the motor is that the two rear motors that are opposed, all the motors are inboard. They’re not at the wheel, but the rear motors have no mechanical link to each other. So they’re true independent. They control each motor, allows us to do torque vectoring so that we can do things like yaw control one side versus the other. It’s huge for a truck like this to be able to control individual wheel yaw control, individual torque vectoring; in fact, at all four wheels. In that whole scheme of why would somebody consider an electric vehicle, we can multiply the motors and increase the horsepower and the torque capability.

Michael Murguia:
In a real world scenario. I rely on my lockers all the time and I know it’s not a one-to-one comparison between my drivetrain and the Hummer EV drivetrain. Maybe you can talk to it from that perspective. If I’m looking for locker type capability, what does that mean with the Hummer EV?

Al Oppenheiser:
Good question. So the front motor is a true locker. The rear is an eLocker. It’s an electronic locking diff. We call it an E4-wheel drive because there are no mechanical links side to side on the rear motor. There’s also no mechanical links from the front to the rear. That allows us to split out the gear ratios front to rear. So we have a different gear ratio in the front drive unit versus the rear drive unit. The front has a 13.3 to one and the rear is a ten five to one ratio.

But that allows us to control the power that we need front and rear. When you can do that, we can use the power that the three motors provides to give us the performance numbers that we have. In fact, we had to back the torque off the front drive units to keep the tires on the ground, otherwise it becomes a big drag car. The capabilities of using three electric motors that we can torque vector off of, true standard locker in the front and eLocker in the rear, is a real enabler for us on some of our performance capabilities.

Michael Murguia:
I started to visualize how I would be driving a Hummer EV, as I have many times in the past two months, and I’m picturing myself on the trail, putting some of those traction control features to work. The physical aspect of being on the trail and protecting the Hummer EV.

Al Oppenheiser:
The Edition 1 is our off-road high performance variant. It does come with standard rock sliders. The rock sliders are capable of basically protecting the truck for half of its mass per side. So you’ve got plenty of security behind you that you’re going to be good. The other protection we have, we’ve got a complete set of underbody skid plates. I should also mention that we got a feature, as you know, crab walk mode. Because we’ve got rear steer, we can have the wheels turn in the same direction with the rear wheels turning up to 10 degrees.

So sometimes when you’re navigating a rock trail, it could be really narrow. Rock sliders are definitely the key to make a successful run through your route, but sometimes there are those obstacles that you are a little worried about your right or left rear quarter because you’re not going to be able to make the turn. With crab walk mode, you can follow the path with your tires, but the body literally stays pointed forward in the direction you’re traveling.
The rear steer also will allow the rear wheels to oppose each other. So you’ve got the turning radius of a small sedan. We’ve had a lot of people already experiencing some of our test trucks within the company, some of our leaders, and they can’t believe the turning radius of this thing, which is also an enabler, ultimately that could help protect from vehicle damage on a trail.

Michael Murguia:
Absolutely, and it will in some ways dictate what trails you can take the vehicle on, right? Because you have that turning radius and that capability. Another thing I know when I’m out on the trail of my current vehicle, this is a difference as well. I’m driving around in my pumpkin, right? I always have that in mind, but the undercarriage of the Hummer EV is different than a traditional vehicle.

Al Oppenheiser:
Absolutely. I mentioned we’ve got the five protective covers underneath. There’s the skid plates, there’s a battery protection plate. Also in the suspension, we have a little extra for our customers called extract mode, which if you’re out on a rock crawl and you approach an obstacle and you think you’re going to clear it and as you get closer you realize you just aren’t going to clear it and you really wish you had more vertical travel. We bantered around what we call this thing because it’s really a lifesaver.

This gets you a chance to get a little bit more vertical travel. It’s speed related so that it gets you over that obstacle and as you pick up your speed again, it will settle back down to the mode you are in. Compared to a regular off-road vehicle with a regular driveline, we don’t have the pig to worry about. We don’t have the prop shaft to worry about. It’s a flat underbody, which also allowed us to add underbody cameras, with a wash system I should add. It literally allows you to plant the front tires and the rear tires wherever you want them, because you can see them on your center screen.

Michael Murguia:
That’s great. We have a saying, when in doubt get out, and of course you should always do that, but here at least you’ll have a view to the ground and you’ll be able to see where your tires are. What other advantages might we not be thinking about because we’re just now learning about the Hummer EV. What other advantages might you want to mention?

Al Oppenheiser:
All four of these infinity roofs come out and the rear drop glass will drop as well, which gives you a complete open air environment. I think our customers will love the fact that if you’re rock crawling, you’re out enjoying nature. There’s kind of a cool factor where you’ve got no engine noise or you hear your tires scrubbing and chirping. The sounds that you’re able to enjoy are there for you because it’s an EV.

Michael Murguia:
One of the reasons we’re encouraging people to go and find that connection with nature is because of its benefits and we feel more people should do it. So those features that you bring up, I can only imagine because I always hear the roar of the engine and that has its own charm, but being able to feel even closer to nature as you’re traveling, that’ll be a great experience.

Al Oppenheiser:
I totally agree with you. It’s a real important thing. The whole movement to EV, one of the offshoots is enjoying the world.

Michael Murguia:
Al, one question I had, I’m thinking about folks that are out there. I want to ask an obvious one, which is, Hey, I’m splashing through water. This is an electric vehicle. What’s my fording depth? What’s the reality around going through water?

Al Oppenheiser:
Not to worry, our battery systems are completely sealed. All electrical connections are weathertight connectors. In extract mode, you can water for up to 32 inches.

Michael Murguia:
It’s been a blast seeing the vehicle on YouTube and as we learn more, but I think people will gain a new appreciation for it, really be excited when they have the opportunity to see it in person. It’s an incredible vehicle. It’s really fun to see. Al, I’ve been excited to talk to you. My first car wears the Body by Fisher nameplate and so it’s been fun to talk to you. I really appreciate you diving into some more details on the Hummer EV.

Al Oppenheiser:
No problem. Love talking about it and I love the fact we get to share it with you guys. Like I said, it was really exciting to meet you at the Dome. Next time you can sit in the passenger seat with me or even the driver’s seat and I’ll sit in the passenger seat. How about that?

Michael Murguia:
I’d prefer that.

Al Oppenheiser:
Okay, no problem. I’m getting enough drive time and we’ll give you a chance.

Michael Murguia:
That’d be incredible. Well, thank you very much Al. Really appreciate it.

Al Oppenheiser:
Thank you. It’s been great.

Michael Murguia:
All right, you guys. There you go, our first behind the scenes look with the Hummer EV. We are going to be doing a lot more with Al and the Hummer EV team. So if you haven’t, make sure you like and subscribe so you get to see those first look videos. Also, if you’re not on an adventure but planning one, go and check out some of the other videos we have on the channel. All right, until next time, outfit and explore.

For more, see the GMC YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/gmc