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GMC Hummer EV coming to Extreme E with Chip Ganassi Racing

The electric off-road racing series Extreme E is getting another famous face. This time it's not a person, but rather a vehicle: the GMC Hummer EV. GMC announced that it will be the main sponsor for the Chip Ganassi Racing Extreme E team. With the sponsorship, GMC gets to tweak the Extreme E Odyssey 21 race SUV to look more like the Hummer EV pickup and SUV that starts production late this year. The changes are subtle but effective, with the nose getting a full-width light-bar motif. Of course the race SUV is vastly more rounded than the road-going truck. It also features a standardized chassis from Spark Racing and a battery pack from Williams. The team is able to provide its own electric motor, though, which the series limits to 550 horsepower. The GMC Hummer EV race SUV will make its competition debut alongside several other pedigree teams at the first Extreme E event in Saudi Arabia this April. Three teams are operated by Formula One drivers including Sir Lewis Hamilton, Nico Rosberg and Jenson Button, the latter of whom will be driving. Andretti United will also field a team, a familiar competitor to Chip Ganassi in other racing series such as IndyCar. As for drivers, two World Rally Championship champions will compete: Carlos Sainz and nine-time consecutive champion Sebastien Loeb. The series will feature five races and with the way the competition is shaping up, they should be very interesting to watch. Related video:

Hummer EV to be sold at only about half of GMC dealerships

The new 1,000-horsepower Hummer EV will be sold under the GMC brand, but you won't find it in every GMC showroom. Currently, just about half of GMC's dealers have agreed to take on the electric truck, Buick GMC VP Duncan Aldred told investors on a conference call last week. According to Muscle Cars and Trucks, there are a number of reasons for the irregular availability. For one, there's the cost of upgrading dealerships to sell and service a fully electric vehicle. Stores would need to be upgraded with charging stations, and service centers would require new tools and training to work on an EV. Then there's the customer experience. At $112,595, the initial Hummer EV Edition 1 caters to a different clientele than the traditional GMC truck. The planned EV3X trim level that arrives in late 2022 and EV2X arriving in spring 2023 will start at just below $100,000 and $90,000, respectively. Some sellers believe that customers paying six figures for a vehicle will expect certain niceties that will necessitate showroom upgrades as well. Complimentary doughnuts, at least. Furthermore, not all GMC dealerships are located in areas with customers willing to shell out that much cabbage for a new vehicle, especially an EV. An $80,000 base trim will be available in 2024, so perhaps more dealers will be willing to take on the truck by then. Finally, there's the Hummer EV's no-haggle pricing. Aldred was adamant on the call that customers see the same price on the internet as they do on the paperwork. It's part of the premium dealership experience that GMC wants to provide for its well-heeled clientele. Still, GMC appears to have no problem moving all the Hummer EVs it can build. Even with its lofty price tag, all Edition 1 trucks were sold out 10 minutes after GMC's announcement. Related Video:

GM Design shows another early Hummer EV sketch

Like a new mother who's still so excited about her one-year-old baby that she can't stop showing ultrasound photos, General Motors is so excited about its biggest new baby, the battery-electric GMC Hummer, that it can't stop showing off development design sketches. The off-road monster with the 200-kWh Ultium battery pack debuted online on October 21 last year. The next day, the GM Design Instagram page posted some of the Hummer's early "theme sketches" leading to the production version. These had a conceptual flair to them, but were rather restrained. A month later, GM uncovered a series of development renderings showing off a much wilder truck bursting with more angles than a geometry text book. The archives have opened up again with a new "ideation sketch," this one between the first believable sketches and the second truck that Master Chief and Doomguy share on their days off.  All three sets of drawings show similar three-box proportions, it's the details that got a ton of love. On this newest sketch, the fenders flare a touch more than on the production truck, but the wheel wells are cut with the kind of clearance found on a Baja 1000 Trophy Truck. Out back, save for the tow hooks, the rear end is totally different than production. The sketch puts illuminated Hummer script across a narrow tailgate flanked by small square, taillights housing six individual elements. Beneath that, a bumper-less rear end puts nothing more than a sloped bash pate between the truck and the rocks it's just scrambled over. To our eyes, this is the best blend of production-ready comfort from the first sketches and zoot suit angles from the second that we've seen so far.  First deliveries of the GMC Hummer EV Edition 1 are expected before the year is out. When we get a chance to absorb the truck in its native habitats, we'll know whether there's cause for disappointment at what could have been. If so, with all this hunger among the monied for something different, we feel like restomodders have been given the perfect head starts on custom rebodied Hummers that would make things right. Related video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.