1997 Hummer H1 on 2040-cars

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Team Miller Fisher finishes the 20th Anniversary Rallye A"icha des Gazelles

Team Miller Fisher finishes the Rallye Aïcha des Gazelles - Click above for high-res image gallery
Team Miller Fisher has crossed the finish line of the Rallye Aïcha des Gazelles - in a Hummer H3 driven off a Parisian dealer's lot - and battled from 51st to 12th out of 98 teams after a mistake on the first leg. The Rallye Aïcha, a six-stage trek through the desert, allows no use of GPS, no pace notes, no cell phones, and no binoculars. Pilots and co-pilots find their way between checkpoints with maps, compasses and pencils, and whoever completes the journey in the shortest distance, wins.
The race was made even harder this year by using not the 1:100,000-scale maps of years past, but scraps of paper with increasingly less route information as the race went on. Olympic skier and co-pilot Wendy Fisher wrote to say, "This continues to be the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. An unbelievably tough event. Days were SO long, almost impossible to get all of the checkpoints."

Report: GM temporarily restarts Saturn Outlook, Hummer H3 production

Saturn Outlook - Click above for high-res image gallery
Even though both the Saturn and Hummer brands are being phased out, General Motors has reportedly revived production of both the Outlook crossover and H3 SUV to meet consumer demands.
Last month, GM assembled 1,037 Outlooks at its Lansing, Michigan facility, which is where the crossover's Lamda platform stablemates (Buick Enclave, Chevrolet Traverse and GMC Acadia) are built. A spokesperson for GM states that production was reinstated to utilize the rest of the Saturn-specific material at the facility, and that the automaker will continue to assemble the Outlook for a few more weeks.

GM to accelerate its EV strategy — Cadillac could be all-electric by 2025

General Motors will roll out details of an expanded and accelerated electric vehicle strategy on Thursday in an effort to convince investors it can be a serious competitor to Tesla, people familiar with the plans said. GM Chief Executive Mary Barra, who is scheduled to speak at a conference hosted by Barclays, is expected to say the automaker is ready to spend more on electric models by 2025 than the $20 billion previously outlined, the sources said. Supplier sources said previous plans to make the Cadillac brand all-electric by 2030 are being sped up, possibly to 2025, and other sources said that acceleration will be repeated in other brands and in segments such as commercial vans. Asked about the Thursday appearance, a GM spokeswoman called talk of increased spending speculative and declined to give details. The Detroit automaker is also expected to discuss a new timeline for many of the EVs to follow those already identified, such as the GMC Hummer EV pickup and Cadillac Lyriq crossover, people familiar with the plans said. Lyriq (shown above) is slated to go into production in late 2022, but GM officials have been stung by criticism the automaker was bringing the vehicle to market too late, one source said. "The pull-ahead in programs is real and the organization is really doubling down on speeding up product development," the source said. Barra and other GM executives have been signaling the automaker's EV acceleration plans. She said earlier this month GM would boost capital spending over the next three years to speed EV development and was talking with other automakers about partnerships to develop more vehicles using GM's battery technology. Last week, a GM executive said the company had pulled forward the rollout of two "major" EV programs, and GM officials have touted the faster 18-month development time for the Hummer truck. Tesla's soaring market capitalization, and growing pressure from regulators to phase out carbon-emitting engines, has put pressure on established automakers to respond to investors who view their internal combustion lineups as outmoded and doomed in the long run. A critical part of GM's pitch to investors has been its new Ultium batteries, which it estimates will offer an electric driving range of 400 miles or more on a single charge. It is building a battery plant with Korean battery maker LG Chem in northeast Ohio.