2022 GMC Hummer EV

[Grey Havoc]

Placed here rather than the bar, since it seems that the US Military will be now buying a fair few examples (hopefully at least some bit properly militarised) as part of the Biden administration's government vehicle fleet EV initiative (though I'm a fair bit sceptical myself on how well it will work in practice). The U.S. Army will probably be ordered to lead the way. The video below was made 3 months ago, before current events.

View: https://youtu.be/LkM0L4_W_pM



A few reports on the aforementioned initiative in general:

Biden plans to replace government fleet with electric vehicles

The government is a major purchaser of vehicles. However, replacing such a fleet with EVs assembled domestically will be costly and take time.

www.cnbc.com

The U.S. Government's Entire 645,000-Vehicle Fleet Will Go All-Electric

The United States government operates a fleet of about 645,000 vehicles, from mail delivery trucks to military vehicles and passenger cars. On Monday, President Joe Biden announced that his administration intends to replace them all with American-made, electric alternatives.

jalopnik.com

The US Government's Entire 645,000-Vehicle Fleet Will Go All-Electric - Slashdot

Jalopnik reports: The United States government operates a fleet of about 645,000 vehicles, from mail delivery trucks to military vehicles and passenger cars. On Monday, President Joe Biden announced that his administration intends to replace them all with American-made, electric alternatives...

hardware.slashdot.org

 

[Lc89]

That's stupid.

 

[Orionblamblam]

That's stupid.

Oh, come now. What part of "heavy, expensive, range-limited and takes the better part of a day to recharge" doesn't sound just perfect for military applications?

 

[Lc89]

That's stupid.

Oh, come now. What part of "heavy, expensive, range-limited and takes the better part of a day to recharge" doesn't sound just perfect for military applications?

No, I was referring to related articles.

 

[TomS]

There's no indication that the electrification mandate will apply to military vehicles for field use. It's about pool cars that get used around town, for the most part.

 

[Orionblamblam]

There's no indication that the electrification mandate will apply to military vehicles for field use. It's about pool cars that get used around town, for the most part.

I'm sure that'll be inexpensive. And not at all ridiculous to replace hundreds of thousands of fully functional vehicles that can be easily and cheaply maintained that still have potentially decades of life in them with new complex vehicles of uncertain lifespan.

A more sensible approach would be to invest instead in thermal deploymerization and similar technologies to turn sewage and biowaste and whatnot directly into petroleum and use *that* to fuel government vehicles.

 

[TomS]

You keep imagining things that haven't been said.

The current requirement is to come up with a plan to replace government vehicles with electric. That doesn't mean junking existing vehicles, which is good because right now there isn't enough production capacity to replace even a sizable fraction immediately.

Note that the vehicles likely to be replaced include a ton of postal vehicles, which are long overdue for replacement. And electric mail vans are already being planned; USPS has already contracted for demonstrators.

 

[Orionblamblam]

The current requirement is to come up with a plan

That's the whole friggen' problem. If electric vehicles are practical replacements for gas vehicles, then they will replace them in due time with minimal fuss. But if there is A Plan... well, how well do government plans *ever* work out?

 

[donnage99]

The current requirement is to come up with a plan

That's the whole friggen' problem. If electric vehicles are practical replacements for gas vehicles, then they will replace them in due time with minimal fuss. But if there is A Plan... well, how well do government plans *ever* work out?

clean energy is kinda like moon and mars landing. There's no reason for private sector to dump money into technology with the goal of it being just as good in capability and same cost as current tech for some lofty ideology of a greater good that won't immediately make them money. that's where govt jumps in.

 

[Orionblamblam]

The current requirement is to come up with a plan

That's the whole friggen' problem. If electric vehicles are practical replacements for gas vehicles, then they will replace them in due time with minimal fuss. But if there is A Plan... well, how well do government plans *ever* work out?

clean energy is kinda like moon and mars landing. There's no reason for private sector to dump money into technology with the goal of it being just as good in capability and same cost as current tech for some lofty ideology of a greater good that won't immediately make them money. that's where govt jumps in.

That's fine. Having the government do important research is Constitutionally justifiable and laudable. Where I have a problem is when policy makers make decisions about how the entire economy is going to be set up in a very short period of time based on the *assumption* that some technology or other - based on currently non-existent physics - will be deployed in an economical and reliable way. Imagine if in the early 1960's the entire United States power grid was to be set up so that fusion plants would be providing all the energy by 1978 or so. Or if national health policy planning circa 1980 was based on the idea that cancer would be cured by 1990. If space planning circa 1995 was entirely based on the notion that by 2005 all space launches would be conducted with VentureStar SSTOs using linear aerospikes burning slush supercooled LOX mixed with a slush-hydrogen/lithium gel propellant, stored within graphene composite multi-lobe tanks.

The government wants a future of electric cars? Great. Devote effort to making electric cars actually practical (300 miles range is nice, but charge times measured in *hours?* Get bent.) And when the technology has actually been commercially and successfully demonstrated, THEN start making policy changes.

 

[shin_getter]

Ever look at Tesla stock (and hype-ware EV startups) prices? The market is throwing money at EV in an frantic act of FOMO, there isn't much need for government money. With penny pinching amazon finding use for EV delivery vans, the tech and operating cost curve is good enough to replace ICE vehicles as fast as batteries can be built for a while.

What the government need to do is sort out the electrical infrastructure, including finally standardizing charger plugs (or gasp, battery swap infrastructure!), and help build out the electric grid and charge points. Those are complicated multi-level coordination problems that no single private company can deal with regardless of stock price. Strategic patent buy outs to prevent legal challenges blocking development can be useful (imagine a patent troll sitting on a few key tech), though I don't think the US government have a mechanism for this right now. (not american)

This announcement just sounds like the government reflecting the public sentiment, probably end up a somewhat money wasting nothingburger.

 

[Grey Havoc]

GM sacrifices profits in $27bn electric drive

General Motors does not expect to make comparable returns on electric vehicles until 2025 at the earliest, says boss Mary Barra

www.telegraph.co.uk

 

[TomcatViP]

Since the introductory post was focused on the military usage of an EV Hummer, here is something less radical, ready to be introduced through a current fleet upgrade that could bring limited to medium pure electric range, increase traction and torque as well as introducing a stealth mode:

View: https://youtu.be/eA36jWvYCnA


This is the perfect upgrade to evaluate militarized EV through direct truck to truck comparisons.

 

[Grey Havoc]

On a tangent:

U.S. Electric-Vehicle Tax Breaks Rile Asian, European Allies

The EU, Japan and South Korea say provisions in the U.S. legislation to promote clean energy discriminate against their auto makers and might violate World Trade Organization rules.

www.wsj.com

 

[Grey Havoc]

Is this what an electric tank will look like?

The Army is looking to go electric on everything from infantry squad vehicles to main battle tanks in coming years. Megan Eckstein looks at potential options.

www.defensenews.com