It must be one of the more dramatic failures of an electric vehicle chronicled thus far. And it could have ended up much worse.
In a video posted on YouTube on Tuesday, Roman Mica, publisher of the website The Fast Lane Truck, recounted how his website had purchased a brand new General Motors Hummer EV. Price: $115,000.
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. In true journalistic fashion, he pulled out his camera and documented what had gone wrong.
The Hummer ceased to budge.
The shifter wouldn’t move. The trunk refused to open.
The only things working during the ordeal were the windshield wipers and the hazard lights.
As if to underscore the absurdity of the situation, Mica recorded himself switching between two dash-mounted LCD panels, flicking through screens, trying to reboot the Hummer out of “safe” mode, to no avail.
Watch the video, which The Fast Lane Truck posted on its popular YouTube channel:
Had it not been for the timely arrival of a police car, the Hummer could have been rear-ended by another vehicle. Fortunately Mica’s son Tommy soon came to the scene. Followed by a tow truck, which had the unenviable task of loading a 9,400 pound vehicle that wouldn’t get in gear.
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The Micas were finally able to get the Hummer rolling again. An article about the incident by The Fast Lane writer Zach Butler described how the team went through a complicated procedure that involved unhooking the battery to force a hard reboot of the system, then rolling the windows down in sequence, while stepping on the brake.
“Fortunately, Tommy and Roman were able to drive the vehicle back to the dealer after getting the Hummer EV out of this dicey situation,” the article states.
Chalk it up as another incident in the already troubled history of the model. The automotive news website Jalopnik reported in August that the supposedly “offroad” Hummer now risks severe malfunction if a car wash goes awry.
According to an article published in March by Elektrek, a website focused on electric vehicles, the Hummer EV also suffers from faulty tail lights caused by bad software. That issue prompted a recall by the manufacturer.
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.
Perhaps General Motors was too hasty in bringing an electric-powered truck to market. It seems that there is an abundance of design issues with the vehicle.
But if some Hummer owners are having buyer’s remorse about buying an electric vehicle, they are far from alone in the EV world.
As Breitbart reported in September, Hoovies Garage, a YouTube channel with 1.4 million subscribers, posted a video about the “total disaster” that came about from testing the new Ford F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck.
In July, the 17-year-old owner of 2014 Ford Focus Electric, purchased used for her by her parents, found out it needed a new battery that would cost $14,000 — more than the $11,000 the car cost in the first place.
In June Toyota issued a recall for its first electric vehicle.
Consumer research group J.D. Power published a study three months ago indicating that EV owners are far less satisfied with their cars than are those who own traditional gas-powered vehicles. And it seems that unreliability of battery power is but one of the issues.
And yet, “progressive” politicians and “green energy” advocates remain obsessed with forcing Americans to buy electric vehicles in spite of the many problems that continue to plague the industry. The most rabid proponents of electric automobiles refuse to let the free market decide if such cars and trucks are truly wanted or even necessary.
Liberals such as President Joe Biden and California Gov. Gavin Newsom believe that they can drag the American people kicking and screaming into buying cars that they cannot afford.
Nobody wants to drive an unreliable car or truck or SUV or minivan. Americans want to buy vehicles they can trust to take them where they need to go, whether it’s getting groceries or going to work, driving to church, or rushing to the hospital with a medical emergency.
Traveling by vehicle — like any activity in life — will always involve risk. But it should not be compounded by turning a car into the physical incarnation of the blue screen of death.
Biden believes that he can “executive order” the American people into defying their own wisdom about purchasing an automobile. He, and many others, are blind to reality. Two million people had power restored in Florida within days of Hurricane Ian. It’s doubtful that many, if any, in the army of out-of-state line workers who helped accomplish that arrived in electric vehicles.
Roman Mica’s experience with a Hummer EV will likely prove to have not been an outlier — just the first of many still to come.
If so-called “progressives” get their way there will be millions of electric vehicles on the road, each one rife with potential “software error” and shorted-out batteries. Countless cars and trucks, waiting to break down without warning. Or conceivably going completely out of control on the highway: Computerized missiles homing in on innocent targets.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
