{"version": "1.0", "type": "rich", "title": "ESSAY QUESTION\n What political or cultural message is sent by driving a hybrid or all-electric conversion of the Hummer?\u00a0 (You...", "author_name": "kontextmaschine", "author_url": "https://kontextmaschine.com", "provider_name": "kontextmaschine", "provider_url": "https://kontextmaschine.com", "url": "https://kontextmaschine.com/post/185856179588/", "html": "

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mitigatedchaos:

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mitigatedchaos:

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ESSAY QUESTION

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What political or cultural message is sent by driving a hybrid or all-electric conversion of the Hummer?\u00a0 (You may use the H1, H2, or military Humvee in your answer.)\u00a0 Please write at least 500 words.\u00a0 You may choose to focus on any year since 1992 for the context of cultural presentation.

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Submit the essay to your TA for grading before July 4th.\u00a0 (Argumate for sections 201 and 202, or Kontextmaschine for sections 203A and 203B.)

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Really trying to figure out what the professor was thinking with this assignment.

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Could the Hummer be reborn as a rugged electric SUV?

A report from Bloomberg cites sources, choosing not to be named, who said that the Hummer brand had been floated in discussions. At the moment it looks as though it\u2019s an idea for consideration - and GM does still own the Hummer brand.

But at the moment it\u2019s a long way from being any sort of confirmation. Companies are rapidly trying to turn out electric vehicles, with Tesla taking a huge slice out of the car market with its pure electric vehicles.

[pocket-lint]

Well, the real problem is that the Hummer is fucking huge and weighs a ridiculous amount.\u00a0 Okay, okay, the real problem is that it\u2019s fucking huge and weighs over a ton and we want it to have range.

Now, we could\u00a0make it weigh less, maybe just shrink it.

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[YouTube: The Drivers Union]

Adorable.\u00a0 I\u2019ll have one added to the motor pool at Misneyland.\u00a0 Unfortunately, I don\u2019t think it\u2019s quite what the existing Hummer fanbase would like.\u00a0 (And sadly, a civilian market version of the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle is just too large for Hummer customers to support.\u00a0 That\u2019s getting more into the \u201cRecreational Semi-Trucks\u201d sector of the market.)

There are still a number of people out there that want Hummers [CarGurus\u00a0(comments)] but they mostly say that they love the things, not why they love the things.\u00a0 We do get at least one bit: \u201cIt has gotten me out of every major storm in NJ.\u201d\u00a0 Fortunately, someone over at Jalopnik had some friends drive an H1.\u00a0 They generally felt that it was slow, unwieldy, and handled like a boat\u2026 but somehow, most of them enjoyed the feeling of driving such a ridiculous vehicle.\u00a0 [Jalopnik]

So it\u2019s a huge, sturdy-looking vehicle with a lot of ground clearance and possibly an underpowered engine relative to its weight.\u00a0 Did I mention its weight?\u00a0 A 2006 H1 weighs up to 8,117 pounds (3,681 kg).\u00a0 A 2006 Ford Explorer, by comparison, weighs up to 4,706 pounds (2,134 kg).\u00a0 (Of course, the H3 weighs a mere 4,883 pounds, so we have some room to work with here.)

I reckon if we double the mass of a Ford Explorer, we\u2019ll need twice as much force for the same acceleration.\u00a0 (That probably has something to do with the early Hummer models\u2019 10 mpg gas mileage.)\u00a0 Of course, that doesn\u2019t mean a plug-in hybrid electric Hummer can\u2019t be done.\u00a0 In fact, it may already have been done ten years ago, if we can believe the stats on an unreleased vehicle.

[Raser Technologies] unveiled the prototype to the 2009 Society of Automotive Engineers World Congress in Detroit.\u00a0 The E-REV (Extended-Range Electric Vehicle) powertrain technology, was claimed to power the vehicle for up to 40 miles (64 km) on its battery, and then a small 4-cylinder internal combustion engine would start to generate more electricity.

[Wikipedia]

Of course, if our customers merely want a hybrid SUV, they could just get a fuckin\u2019 Toyota Highlander for 28 mpg.\u00a0 But this is Hummer, motherfuckers.\u00a0 We ain\u2019t makin\u2019 no damn Toyota.

So here\u2019s what we\u2019re going to do.\u00a0 Wrightspeed make equipment for converting garbage trucks (~33,000 pounds empty) into turbine-recharging electric vehicles, boosting them from 3 to 6 mpg. [Trucks.com, BBC]\u00a0 They also have smaller versions [Wrightspeed], suitable for converting those 15,000 pound UPS delivery trucks [PostAndParcel].

In another example, an Isuzu NPR, a medium-duty truck that achieves roughly 12mpg with a diesel engine, returned 44mpg after a retrofit by Wrightspeed.

[BBC]

Now, some people might say that micro-turbines just aren\u2019t efficient enough for a small car.\u00a0\u00a0Some people might say that the era of the massive SUV is over, or even that the age of the automobile is coming to a close.\u00a0 But you know what?

Fuck those people.

To turn this company around, we don\u2019t need meaningless defeatist attitudes.\u00a0 We need people with vision.\u00a0 And you know what we need?

Eight thousand pounds of Detroit steel.

Does eight thousand pounds of steel sound fuckin\u2019\u00a0\u201ccar\u201d to any of you?\u00a0 That\u2019s right.\u00a0 This is a truck.\u00a0 Do not ever forget that this is a truck.\u00a0 And it is the last truck that any American will ever need.\u00a0 Pull a house?\u00a0 Climb a mountain?\u00a0 Fight a bear?\u00a0 This is the truck for you.\u00a0 It does it all.

So we are going to take the motive system for a 12,000 pound truck and put it in our new HUMMER H4000.\u00a0 We go wherever we want.\u00a0 We burn whatever fuel we want.\u00a0 We go as fast as we want.\u00a0 No one can stop us.

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We are going to take that Toyota Highlander outside - who the fuck drives a fuckin\u2019 Toyota to a GM meeting - we are going to - no I don\u2019t care if it\u2019s a rental \u2013

We are going to fucking crush that Toyota Highlander.

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Piston-trained mechanics aren’t going to know turbines worth a damn, same reason Mazda eventually gave up on the Wankel engine. The viable examples are fleet vehicles that are serviced in-house.

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