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GM reveals Hummer EV: $80k starting price, 200 kWh battery, up to 350 mile range, ‘Crabwalk,’ and more

(Credit: GMC)

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General Motors has officially launched the GMC Hummer EV, the veteran automaker’s answer to the Tesla Cybertruck, the Rivian R1T, and the upcoming Ford F-150 Electric. A look at the features and specs of the massive all-electric truck shows that GM means business.

At first glance, the Hummer EV looks every bit like its namesake, which, ironically enough, was one of the vehicles that ushered in the extinction of the EV1, GM’s modern electric car. It’s a behemoth of a vehicle like Hummers of years past, and it exudes toughness from the ground up. The Hummer EV has an intimidating stance, making it evident that GM is looking to establish the vehicle as a formidable force in the all-electric pickup truck market.

The Hummer EV will be offered in four trims: the Edition 1, the EV3X, the EV2X, and the EV2. The rollout of the vehicle will be done in four phases too, with the Edition 1 rolling out next year and the rest of the lineup being released at a later date — some at a significantly later date.

(Credit: GMC)

Hummer EV Edition 1

The Hummer EV Edition 1 will be equipped with three electric motors that provide the vehicle with 1,000 horsepower and 11,500 pound-feet of torque. The vehicle is fitted with a 200-kWh Ultium battery pack, giving it an estimated range of over 350 miles per charge. Fast charging is supported up to 350 kW thanks to its 800-volt architecture, allowing the Hummer EV to gain 100 miles of range in just 10 minutes.

Performance-wise, the Hummer EV Edition 1 is not a slouch, with GM stating that the all-electric truck will be capable of going from 0-60 mph in just 3.0 seconds thanks to a driving mode that the veteran automaker calls “Watts to Freedom.” The Hummer EV’s massive size does not mean that it’s not nimble either, with GM releasing the vehicle with 4-wheel steering features and a “Crabwalk” function, which would help the truck navigate tight spaces.

Other unique goodies are available on the Edition 1, which as an “Infinity Roof” with modular, transparent sky panels, unique badging in the interior, and a white exterior.

The Hummer EV Edition 1 starts at $112,595.

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(Credit: GMC)

Hummer EV3X

After the Edition 1 rolls out next year, the Hummer EV3X will be released in the fall of 2022. The EV3X, just like the Edition 1, will be fitted with three electric motors, but it is estimated to have only 300+ miles of range per charge. While the vehicle is not listed with the Edition 1’s “Watts to Freedom” driving mode, it is still an impressive truck with 800 horsepower and 9,500 lb-ft of torque.

Features like Crabwalk, adaptive air suspension, torque vectoring, “Adrenaline Mode,” 4-wheel steering, and GM’s SuperCruise are standard on the Hummer EV3X.

The Hummer EV3X starts at $99,995.

(Credit: GMC)

Hummer EV2X

The Hummer EV2X is expected to be available on Spring 2023. Unlike the EV3X and the Edition 1, the Hummer EV2X will only be equipped with two electric motors that enable 625 horsepower and 7,400 lb-ft of torque. Similar to its EV3X sibling, the EV2X is estimated to have a range of 300+ miles per charge.

The EV2X is still quite robust with features, with still having features like Crabwalk, 4-wheel steering, and an adaptive air suspension system that allows the truck to navigate tricky, off-road terrain. It does, however, not have torque vectoring features.

The Hummer EV2X starts at $89,995.

Hummer EV2

The base Hummer EV2 will not be available until Spring 2024, making it over three years away. Like the EV2X, the EV2 has two electric motors that produce 625 horsepower and 7,400 lb-ft of torque. Despite its entry-level status, the Hummer EV2 is still well-equipped with features as well, including Supercruise, an “Adrenaline Mode” and 22″ wheels with 35″ tires.

The EV2, however, has the least range in the Hummer EV lineup, with the vehicle having a rather conservative 250+ miles of range per charge. It also lacks some key features that make the EV2X, EV3X, and Edition 1 very compelling, such as Crabwalk, adaptive air suspension, and 4-wheel steering.

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The base Hummer EV starts at $79,995.

Watch GM’s unveiling of the Hummer EV in the video below.

https://youtu.be/MjMhZKmHKGk

Maria--aka "M"-- is an experienced writer and book editor. She's written about several topics including health, tech, and politics. As a book editor, she's worked with authors who write Sci-Fi, Romance, and Dark Fantasy. M loves hearing from TESLARATI readers. If you have any tips or article ideas, contact her at maria@teslarati.com or via X, @Writer_01001101.

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Investor's Corner

New drone video shows Tesla’s Optimus Factory reaching a turning point

New drone footage shows Tesla’s dedicated Optimus factory steel frame nearing completion at Giga Texas.

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Tesla’s dedicated Optimus factory at Gigafactory Texas is closing in on a finished steel frame, according to drone footage posted Thursday afternoon by longtime site observer Joe Tegtmeyer. In the video, Tegtmeyer said structural steel assembly is now about five column grids away from reaching the building’s north perimeter beam, putting the primary skeleton in its final stretch roughly six months after Tesla broke ground on the North Campus site in late March.

Tegtmeyer’s footage shows concrete already going in on three upper floors while crews continue laying rebar and pouring grade beam footings at ground level. That kind of parallel work, steel rising at one end of the site while concrete sets at the other, is a scheduling approach Tesla used at the original Giga Texas building and appears to be repeating here to save time before the plant’s targeted 2027 production start.

Teslarati has tracked the building’s progress since Tesla confirmed construction was officially underway in May, when the first steel structure went up on what was then bare, reclaimed land. The facility is part of a more than 5.2 million square foot expansion of Giga Texas’s North Campus that Tesla has said will eventually run nearly the length of the existing vehicle factory, over 4,000 feet, while sitting somewhat narrower. Musk has pegged the long term output target at 10 million Optimus units a year once the line is running at full capacity, a volume that would dwarf the one million unit pilot line Tesla is standing up separately at its Fremont, California factory.

Tesla Giga Texas to feature massive Optimus V4 production line

The Texas facility sits alongside another major buildout on the same campus. Terafab, the joint Tesla and SpaceX chip fabrication plant that will eventually supply the silicon running Optimus units in the field. Housing robot assembly and chip production on the same grounds is a deliberate supply chain decision, cutting down on the shipping and lead time that would otherwise sit between the two.

Tesla has not given an updated timeline beyond its previously stated goal of bringing high volume Optimus production online at the site in the summer of 2027. Fremont’s smaller pilot line began mass producing the current Gen 3 robot in January, with that plant expected to build tens of thousands of units this year primarily to generate the real world data Tesla needs to refine the robot’s software before Giga Texas ramps up. Six months of visible construction progress, tracked almost entirely through Tegtmeyer’s recurring drone flights, gives the clearest outside look yet at how seriously Tesla is treating that 2027 deadline.

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Tesla and SpaceX take “Terafab” Trademark fight to Federal Court

Tesla and SpaceX sue a small Illinois firm after cease and desist letters over Terafab.

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SpaceX Terafab rendering

Tesla and SpaceX are asking a federal judge to rule that their planned Terafab chip factory does not infringe a small Illinois company’s trademark, a request that arrives only after months of quiet negotiation broke down this summer.

The dispute traces to May 18, when Tesla filed three U.S. trademark applications for “Terafab” and “Tesla Terafab,” covering semiconductor chips and related chip making services. TERA-print LLC, a nanotechnology company that has held a federal trademark for “Tera-Fab” since 2021, responded five days later with a cease and desist letter. According to the lawsuit, first reported by Reuters, TERA-print argued that Tesla and SpaceX’s use of “Terafab” would confuse consumers familiar with its own trademark, which covers a desktop photolithography printer sold to researchers for sensor and bioengineering work.

What stands out in the filing is the timing of TERA-print’s own paperwork. One day before sending that cease and desist letter, on May 22, TERA-print applied to expand its existing registration to cover semiconductor materials, silicon chips, nanoelectronic devices and AI design services, categories it had not previously claimed. Tesla and SpaceX call that filing opportunistic in their complaint, noting it arrived two months after Tesla’s public Terafab announcement and just days after Tesla’s own trademark applications went in.

Elon Musk launches TERAFAB: The $25B Tesla-SpaceXAI chip factory that will rewire the AI industry

By June 10, TERA-print was threatening to sue for federal trademark infringement, false designation of origin and unfair competition, the complaint states. Rather than wait to be sued, Tesla, SpaceX and SpaceXAI met with TERA-print six separate times between June and August trying to resolve the dispute directly. Those talks collapsed, and the companies filed for declaratory judgment this week in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, asking a judge to find that “Terafab” does not infringe TERA-print’s mark before TERA-print can file a claim of its own.

TERA-print isn’t backing down. The company told PCMag it discussed a settlement with Tesla as recently as September 2 and feels misled by what it called Tesla’s professed interest in settling. Its CTO, Andrey Ivankin, said TERA-print holds a Defense Department contract to fabricate semiconductors and partially owns Mattiq Inc., an AI company built on TERA-print’s products, and that the company will vigorously defend its rights.

Tesla and SpaceX argue the overlap is superficial. Terafab is planned as a $16.8 billion complex spanning roughly 100 million square feet at the Grimes County site SpaceX confirmed last month, built to produce chips for Optimus robots, Tesla’s AI computing needs and SpaceX’s orbital data center ambitions, a scale and purpose the companies say no reasonable consumer would confuse with a tabletop lab printer. TERA-print’s product line has stayed focused on lithography tools for biological and sensor research since it registered its mark in 2021.

The trademark fight is the second legal dispute tied to the Terafab project in the past week, following a separate SpaceX suit aimed at keeping company records about the facility out of public view, as KBTX reported. Whether construction proceeds under the Terafab name now depends on a federal judge in Austin.

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NHTSA just escalated its Tesla Cybercab investigation in a big way

NHTSA escalated its Cybercab audit into a sworn Special Order with a September 30 deadline.

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Federal regulators have moved from asking Tesla questions about its Cybercab to demanding sworn answers. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration issued a Special Order that requires a Tesla officer to sign an affidavit attesting to the completeness of the company’s responses, with a deadline of September 30.

The order builds on Audit Query AQ26002, which NHTSA opened on September 3, the same day Tesla began commercial Cybercab service in Austin. Teslarati covered that initial inquiry when it surfaced, noting the agency wanted to understand how Tesla certified a vehicle with no permanently attached steering wheel, pedals, or mirrors as compliant with Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards. A Special Order is a different tool and converts a fact finding review into a legally enforceable demand, the same mechanism NHTSA used against Tesla in 2023 during its Autopilot investigation.

Several of the 21 requests target a specific gap in Cybercab’s design. One asks whether Tesla used temporarily attached human controls at any point to help certify the vehicle, and if so, which standards depended on that equipment being present. Another quotes an existing rule directly: “The service brakes shall be activated by means of a foot control.” Cybercab has no foot pedal. NHTSA wants a detailed explanation of how the vehicle satisfies that requirement, and how it complies without the kind of exemption granted to Zoox in July under Part 555, the regulatory pathway built for steering wheel free vehicles.

The order does not claim Cybercab is unsafe or that Tesla broke a rule. It requires Tesla to explain, under oath, the reasoning behind decisions the company already made when it self-certified the vehicle. That distinction matters, but so does the exposure. Motor1’s reporting, summarized here, put potential civil penalty exposure as high as $139 million if NHTSA later finds the certification was flawed, on top of whatever criminal risk comes with a false sworn statement.

Tesla has not said publicly how it plans to respond. Cybercab is still carrying passengers in Austin through the Robotaxi app while the September 30 deadline approaches, and the company has continued expanding the vehicle’s footprint even as the regulatory question remains open. The Special Order does not pause any of that and just sets a date by which Tesla has to put its certification logic on the record, with a company officer’s name attached to it.

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