Sales figures for new cars are out for the first quarter of 2024, and in “Murica, f-yeah” news, year-over-year quarterly sales of the GMC Hummer EV jumped by 83,000 percent to 1,668 units. Yep, that means GM only sold two in the first quarter of 2023, and this can largely be contributed to the fact that making cars is hard.
It’s no secret that General Motors has experienced substantial troubles rolling out its Ultium EV architecture. Up until recently, key battery pack assembly line equipment wasn’t, um, online, forcing GM to build Ultium battery packs by hand, as reported by Inside EVs. With a usable capacity of 212.7 kWh, the battery pack in the Hummer EV seems like it would take quite a while to assemble with the appendages many of us were born with, which helps explain how such a monumental backup of orders happened.
Back in September of 2022, CNBC reported that Hummer EV order books were closed due to a backlog of more than 90,000 orders. While GMC originally forecast mass production of the 3X trim to be online in autumn of 2022, that didn’t happen as planned (below you can see timing estimates on GMC’s website as of April of 2021). In fact, only 72 Hummer EVs were sold through the fourth quarter of 2022.
Even at the start of 2023, progress was slow, with two being built in the first quarter of 2023 and 47 sold in Q2 of 2023, but things picked up in the third quarter of last year with 1,167 trucks and SUVs making it into customer hands (these sales figures are all from GM). For the fourth quarter, numbers increased again to 2,028, which means that Hummer EV deliveries through Q1 were actually down 17.75 percent between Q4 2023 and Q1 2024.
Surprisingly, the Hummer EV isn’t the lowest-volume model line in GMC’s range. The Savana cargo van only sold 1,078 units through the first quarter, probably because two out of three tradespeople in America have one already. Needless to say, that leaves GMC with quite the uphill battle to come.
Let’s take that estimate-figure of 90,000 orders, then subtract sales figures for Q1 of 2023 through Q1 of 2024 to end up with 85,088 orders to go. Averaging delivery figures from Q3 2023 through Q1 2024, we end up with a quarterly production average of 1,621 units. Divide 85,088 by 1,621, and you get 52.49 quarters, or, uh, more than 13 years. While GMC is in the process of ramping up production, it’s going to need to ramp up seriously quickly to fulfill all of those orders.
Look, maybe a massive so-called ‘Supertruck’ isn’t the best product to lead with if you’re trying to scale EV battery production. Is it cool that we have a 1,000-horsepower T-topped pickup truck that can crab walk on demand? Yeah. Is this actually the solution to get America hooked on green energy? Probably not, especially with key products in GM’s EV portfolio being delayed. Oh well, let’s see how this pivot to plug-in hybrids goes. Talk about a potential rebuilding season, right?
(Photo credits: GMC)
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Overweight behemoth…what a waste of resources
It’s a truck, relying on Areo for range won’t work for trucks. I think hybrids would work but that’s just a band-aid on a bigger problem.
Assuming average quarterly production volume holds constant is the wrong way-too-early statistical lie to create here. What you should definitely not do instead is extrapolate the quarterly growth across 2023 (each quarter 1,000 more are made than the previous quarter), counting 24Q1 as an outlier to be ignored. Using that also misleading approach, pre-orders are satisfied in mid-2026 and 53 quarters from now there will be almost 1,600,000!
I live in EV central (Seattle) and have only seen 1 hummer EV in the wild. I have also only seen 1 cybertruck but they have only been out a month. By comparison I easily see 5-10 rivians (not counting the one in the neighbor’s driveway) per day, countless telsas and at least a couple lucid airs per week. I think the overlap between people with money, people who want an ev, and people who want a hummer is pretty damn small.
I get an atavistic urge to own something like the Hummer EV or stay with dino-fuel and buy a TRX. My local GM dealer even has a 3x SUV model on the lot (a mere $106K sticker, IIRC). I could trade my two staid Volvos for one Hummer, but then my reasonable side kicks in, and I drop that daydream.
A year or so ago, I did think about trading them in on an F-150 Lightning, but the salesman tried to tell me he couldn’t sell at MSRP (or less) because it was made from rhodium, the interior was sown from the Golden Fleece, and the wood was from the True Cross. Or something like that.
That same dealer has had a fully loaded Lightning on his lot for at least four months, and he’s put some money on the hood ($10K on a $90K sticker); another dealer near me has a dozen Lightnings on his lot. I’m not interested anymore.
Funny, but I think it’s because who’d buy the f a n c y “GMC” branded cargo van instead of the Chevy one?
…I still wonder whether I should be looking for used E-series conversion vans or one of the GM twins. An LS sounds nice…
There is one on the GMC dealer lot I drive by. An SUV. Listed on their website as having a MSRP of $103k.
Considering a Yukon Denali is $90k these days, I guess that price isn’t as crazy as it sounds. Or maybe the Yukon’s price is the crazy one.
Crazy isn’t a zero-sum game, there is a bottomless supply.
Reminds me of a saying about arguing with stupid… (paraphrasing)
Don’t.
as while intelligence has a limit, there is no limit to stupidity
Empires rise and empires fall but the Savana remains the same.
If your an Erasure fan, you could buy a blue savana.*
I actually saw one of these in Memphis last week. I have also seen exactly two Rivians in the past year and one F-150 Lightning. I don’t exactly live in a car Mecca. I do see a rampaging horde of Altimas daily, though.
*Yes I know the spelling is wrong, just go with it.
I’m not surprised GM sold so few vans. The GMC / Chevy twins are positively archaic compared to the offerings from Ram, Ford and Mercedes, and can’t be had with a tall roof. Every time I rent one I’m reminded of how ancient the design is.
I gotta be honest. I’m really surprised Mary Barra got talked into this Hummer adventure. All I can guess it that buyer history demographics showed that said dead brand had buyers with deep enough pockets to afford and big enough egos to want the brand back. It’s not even a good guess, but I just never saw the logic. But hey, 90k pre-orders ain’t bad so what do I know. They get to amortize the development expenses sooner with the high transaction prices, but I can’t help but think an electric Escalade would be cheaper to develop than rolling out a whole brand. I also believe an Elescalade would outsell the Hummer every day. The pickup version can be called the Elescalup. 😀
The H2 was mocked as the car of douche bags. It was cool for maybe 6 months before becoming the butt of jokes. I remember an episode of South Park where Cartman hid something at a Hummer dealership because nobody would think to look there. Of all the dead brands to resurrect, Hummer was not the one.
The Hummer EV was a case of GM trying to channel a weird hybrid of Elon Musk’s juvenile meme-lording and Dodge’s Demon/Hellcat gleeful consumption. It made sense to show truck bros that EVs could be cool and they weren’t just for tree-hugging liberals – while rapidly amortizing the R&D costs for Ultium. Unfortunately, it only made sense if they were able to hit the ground running with battery production, which they were not.
EZPZ, GM actually built some!!! That explains the sales increase.
Savana has to be pure profit by now. Nobody’s caring if the panel gaps are giant from the worn out tooling stamping panels incorrectly because it’s a work van. Besides, Mikey is going to inevitably dent it. Because Mikey, while the best fitter at the company and makes the best coffee on the face of the planet plus a decent guy to boot, well, driving isn’t a skillset he has. But he learned really quickly when the boss told him to take his Hummer to the supplier for some fittings and Mikey began the journey by fitting the Hummer through a gap that would have ripped the mirrors off a shorter vehicle. Probably off the Hummer too, but it was darn near airborne after the boss had left on the WTF mode before changing his mind and tossing the key to Mikey.
I saw one of these in real life, but honestly I would be more impressed if I saw a GMC Savanna or even a Safari in good condition.
So, funny you say that. I took the family on a road trip last week for spring break, and on the drive out I saw a Hummer EV in the flesh for the first time. Unfortunately, it is one of those rare vehicles that is uglier in person than in pictures, and my even my wife and kids thought it looked dumb.
On the drive back, we passed a brand-new Savanna with paper tags on it and the monroney sticker still on the window. My family didn’t get why I pointed it out to them, with my wife commenting “Are you sure that things new? I swear they looked like that twenty years ago?!” I just chuckled and tried to explain how they haven’t had many significant changes since the mid-90s, aside from the front end refresh and drivetrain changes, but my family just (justifiably) tuned me out.
One thing I love about the Express and Savanna, we all remember the cars around us growing up but they gradually disappear but these remain the same. It’s comforting.
Yeah, there should be a drinking game where you take a shot every time you see a white one that still has paint on the hood, AA would endorse it
Rustoleum White is a surprisingly good match for their paint. Embarrassed at showing up in a mangy vehicle, I taped one off and sprayed the hood & rear doors, thereby getting it officially assigned to me well before becoming a full technician.
-later found that their Appliance paint holds up much better, but our fleet manager is a Ford guy, so it got sold off cheaply to LS something 🙁
Same! Recently, I saw an Express 4×4 conversion in mint condition. I basically fangirled to the poor guy just trying to put gas in the thing. lol
You never will because white vans go to work every day. You can lock your stuff up in a van, your cargo will never get wet in a van or stolen from the bed. Vans are the real working class hero, not trucks. You can get one with a bunch of seats in it and now it’s hauling butts instead of cargo.
Maybe that’s the next big thing–getting guys who want to feel tough to buy a van instead. They’re truly the do-it-all vehicles that are super useful in just about every way. I’m honestly surprised they don’t make more 4wd versions.
That would cost money. I’d wager most of these vans are bought new by some kind of fleet that’s trying to keep unit cost and maintenance as low as possible. If they really needed 4wd, they’d be buying a trucks and putting service bodies on the back. Most of the new van buyers that would want 4wd are probably overlanding and vanlife folks who are ok buying a conversion kit or would be buying a Euro-style high roof van that comes with AWD from factory.
I’m weird (but who here is a normal car buyer?) I was cross shopping vans and BOF SUV’s as my family offroader and work vehicle (fieldwork) the low availability of 4wd meant I ended up with a SUV.
As far as I know GM makes the only 4wd short van and it’s rarely picked by fleets.
The one thing you can say for the new Hummer is it’s the rare revival of a badge that lives up to the original. 10 tons of absurdity for people who want to cosplay as badasses and are willing to pay for the privilege?
The funny thing is I remember when the H1 first came out it was the most ridiculously oversized thing on the road by a mile. I walked by one in a parking lot the other day and almost missed it – it’s positively svelte compared to the current crop of SUVs.
They are still grossly wider than anything else on the road
They are the same width as a Raptor and narrower than a TRX, but look wider because the proportions are out of the 80s.
Dang you’re right, they’re only 85″ wide. I really thought they were like eight feet plus, possibly the legal max of 8’6″. I guess they’re just not very tall and look extremely wide
What this tells me is that somebody could easily make a vehicle grossly wider than a humvee, and it would look ridiculously awesome
They’re still pretty tall, 79.1 inches. I think it’s all just proportions vs hard measurements, same way the Lucid Air and Chrysler 300 can look like pretty big cars when they’re really not
First one I saw in the metal was while I was driving a Chevy Express, oddly enough. Even from the seat of the Chevy, my first thought was “Dang, that thing is TALL.” I’ve seen a couple more since and I think that first one may have had its suspension at the highest setting for some reason. They’re still big, but don’t seem quite so massive close up, but then I remember the 9000# curb weight… oof.
I mean it also helps that they’re made of right angles – most cars aren’t their max width and height across the entire box.
They’re wider than almost anything else stock out there, but that’s about the only metric where they’re still at the top of the heap.
Also when they came out the average car looked like this:
https://www.carsized.com/en/cars/compare/bmw-3-1997-sedan-vs-hummer-h1-2004-offroader/
(yeah yeah bmw it’s the only one they had from the right years, it’s a normal sized car, that’s the point)
and now it looks like this:
https://www.carsized.com/en/cars/compare/ford-f150-2014-4-door-pickup-supercrew-5.5-vs-hummer-h1-2004-offroader/
So they just don’t hit the same way they used to.
Here’s the thing that bothers me. 85,000 vehicles is a lot of demand… from 2021. How many of those still are actually going to follow through on their order? The car is now 3 years old and they still haven’t made a small dent in the the wait list.
This is going to be like the F150 Lightning. There also had a LOT of interest when it released, but only expensive models were available and then dealers just burned the experience to the ground with excessive markups. Yeah, they had a lot of preorders as well, so Ford was planning less than a year ago to ramp up to three shifts at the plant… but those orders never materialized because the folks that were interested:
(1) Got a different truck, since, you know, they needed one
(2) Were turned off by only top of the line models being available
(3) Were double turned off by the markups by dealers and they just said screw it, I’m never buying.
(4) See the next gen truck is 1-2 years away now, so why buy old technology?
A year ago I never saw an F150 Lightning below MSRP. Now I see lots just languishing on lots as the interested user base has evaporated due to Ford completely screwing up the launch and dealer markups putting the nail in the coffin.
Even if GM could actually start making the Hummer in volume, I seriously doubt they will actually find many of their preorders actually get converted into an order.
Agreed. A coworker put a deposit on one, saw the wait/markup, and went and bought a Frontier and a Bolt instead.
Of course, the Savana is a badge engineered Chevrolet Express, which did sell 7500 copies in Q1, 8,600 vans still seems pretty low for 3 months, but its better than 1,078. Though, at least the development costs were probably all paid off when Clinton was still President.
…bless their hearts.
…wow! Stef speaks (u.s.) Southern!
I never would have guessed by her usual writing (which is usually excellent!)
born and raised [mostly] Texan, y’all
Is it strictly an insult in Texas? Here in the Appalachian South it is sometimes both. My midwest relatives say it earnestly, not as an insult at all.
Not just Texas, but the whole south, too.
It can be earnest, but it can be…not. I wouldn’t trust every instance of midwesterners saying it to be nice, either, haha.
As a New Englander who has spent significant time directly south of the Mason Dixon line and more than a little time in Texas, we usually view Texas (& Florida) as separate from the “South” Texas is probably closer to the core Southern states than Florida, but from my experience the Texas language (except for maybe Hill Country) is somewhat different. I have a relative by marriage in rural Virginia who had family going back to colonial times and you almost needed an interpreter for some of her statements – definitely an experience (in a good way) gossiping with her.
Some parts of TX (particularly east Texas) are very southern, but other parts (west and south Texas) are very much their own thing. There’s a lot that’s shared and we get lumped into the south with an asterisk, but yeah—very much our own thing.