Man Buys $115,000 Hummer Electric Truck – It Immediately Left Him Stranded in Middle of Road. Sorry GM, we won’t be buying one of these heaps (Or anyone else’s) anytime soon. This would really be exciting. if it happened 30 miles north of Lovelock, Nevada in the middle of nowhere. Out there if you call AAA they laugh and hang up.
After only a few days, and with fewer than 250 miles on the vehicle, the Hummer had problems in spectacular fashion. Alone on a busy highway, Mica found himself stranded.
The Hummer ceased to budge.
The shifter wouldn’t move. The trunk refused to open.
And then there is the simple matter of recharging the battery. Something that under some conditions may take days to build up for the Hummer EV.
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There was also a recent story about a new Hummer owner plugging in his new EV and the screen telling him it would take 4 days to charge. That was from a regular outlet, without the special charging station you have to have installed. Clearly that will not work, unless you only need a vehicle every four days. But even with the charging station, the readout told him it would take 18 hours to charge. That doesn't really work either, does it? So what EV owners do is they only charge to about 85%, which the station can do in a reasonable amount of time. Well, what that means of course is you don't get the claimed "range" when you go to use the stupid thing, because you're always starting out with less than a full charge.
The weight of these behemoths is 9,640 pounds. I predict in the future someone will be driving up a narrow dirt road and their Hummer will collapse the edge due to the weight and it will be yahoo time rolling off a cliff.
Electric vehicles weigh so much the tire companies had to invent new tires for them, because their normal tires were shredding under the weight. So tires is another thing that costs more with an EV. They cost more and they wear out much faster. I'm guessing with a 9,640-pound vehicle, tires are going to be a major and regular expense for owners... like somewhere in the range of $2,000 every ten to fifteen thousand miles. You won't hear that from the sales staff in the showroom.
Wonder if the CEO of GM will make the statement now about cars not having to reboot like a Windows OS computer? Anyone buying one of these Edsel's proves the quote to be accurate "A fool and his money are soon parted"
An Edsel would be an improvment. At least you can work on it.
Right? As I was saying to someone after reading the linked article, why do the carmakers think that because it's an electric car EVERYTHING must be electric and linked to the computer system? It's ridiculous. Teslas come with special instructions on how to break the window to get out, because when the system fails, which it frequently does, sometimes with smoke and flames, you cannot open a door to exit. Instead of a simple mechanical latch with a handle to open the door, they have a system that tells the computer to open the door. Why? How is that an improvement over what has worked for a century? What are you supposed to do in an emergency, wait for some helpline in Pakistan to tell you in unintelligible English how to fix your computer so you can get out of the car? These Hummer guys could not open the hood because the hood is opened electronically by the computer... which of course was not working. THAT is stupid engineering.
I dont own a Tesla and wont own one. The best way to open the locked window would be a round through it (caliber of your choice). Yes, your ears might ring but that damn window will shatter and out you come.
The incident I'm thinking of was a brand new Tesla owner stopped at a stop sign. Suddenly there was smoke coming out of his vents, lots of it. The entire system of course went dead since the batteries were afire. Luckily he remembered reading in the owner's manual how to break the side window to get out and was able to extricate himself, because within about a minute his car was ablaze with flames thirty feet high, which he caught on video from down the street while announcing to everybody around him that he just bought the damn thing.
This is Harinder at Tesla, how may I help you?
Owner: My Tesla is on fire! I can't get out!
Harinder: Have you tried rebooting?
Owner: My Tesla is on fire. I'm burning!
Harinder: OK unplug your Tesla for 20 seconds, plug it back in and see if it reboots.
Owner: Arrrrrgh! Aaaaaah!
Harinder: Hello? I am very sorry but I can't understand you. Can you repeat, please?
Owner:
Harinder: Hello? Hello? Hmm. I guess he hung up. Those Americans are so impatient!
Oh my goodness, that part near the end where they had to press and hold the brake for twenty seconds, lower and raise four different windows, all to convince the computer overlord that they really wanted to put the damn thing in neutral, was hilarious. Who would write an algorithm like that? Morons? Dumbasses? It sounded like an algorithm written by a committee composed of coders and lawyers.