Lucas Bell 
It’s been over a week now since General Motors officially announced via a Super Bowl ad that the notorious Hummer would be returning to their portfolio, albeit this time as a GMC product. Fear not environmentalists, as in one of the greatest reversals in brand history, the Hummer name will be returning as an electric pickup truck. While we don’t know a lot about the EV at this point, we now know that it will be available with up to three motors.
The news again comes from GM President Mark Ruess, who suggested that there will be a range of GMC Hummers available to suit the different needs of customers during an earnings call last week. GMC won’t be the first company to offer a multi-motor EV setup, as Tesla has done so in their AWD models for some time now. In fact, Tesla has been developing their own tri-motor setup to slot into the Cybertruck, Model S, Model X and Roadster models.
However, if the GMC Hummer EV is truly the first electric truck to come to market as GM hopes, it will also be the first mainstream EV to carry a tri-motor setup. That being said, Rivian is expected to launch the R1T electric pickup truck later this year in very small numbers, which will carry a quad-motor layout. From a technical perspective, GMC will likely utilize one motor at each rear wheel, while the third motor will power the front wheels, completing the all-wheel drive system.
Furthermore, the figures that GMC put out during that Super Bowl ad-spot likely represent the three-motor equipped truck, as this set-up should offer the highest level battery-draining performance. Official specs include 1,000 horsepower, and a colossus 11,500 lb-ft of torque. That said, that latter power figure is likely a fun marketing exercise stemming from the result of a drive ratio multiple, which we explain in detail here.
At this time there is no information available about what type of range that the GMC Hummer will offer, nor do we know how much the new EV is going to cost. While we likely will have to wait until the truck’s full debut in May for that information, GM is surely going to continue dropping teasers right up until then.
