GM’s new Hummer challenges Musk, jolts Big Oil’s fuel-centric foundation

General Motors brought its new all-electric Hummer to Texas for a dog and pony show last week, firing a warning shot across the bow of Texas’ wealthiest man and its economic mainstay.

The fourdoor, white and black pickup references the old design inspired by the military’s High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle, but without the steroidal bulges that turned the Hummer H2 into a punchline about toxic masculinity.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk should be nervous. Oil companies should be terrified.

The Hummer is a goodlooking truck with a 350-mile range and is a step in GM’s plan to produce only electric vehicles by 2035. A Silverado EV will come out later this year and compete with the extremely popular Ford F-150 Lightning.

The EV revolution is coming faster than anyone thought.

EV sales in the U.S. jumped by two-thirds in 2022 to take 5.8 percent of the market, according to Motor Intelligence. Tesla sold 65 percent of the 807,180 fully electric vehicles delivered last year, down from 72 percent in 2021, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Musk is facing growing competition not only from

Ford and General Motors, but from Hyundai, Kia, Volkswagen, Nissan and a slew of startups. Tesla is no longer the world’s sole-source provider of innovative electrified transportation.

Tesla’s range is looking limited with only four models,

the S, 3, X and Y, which reveal Musk’s sense of humor. Investors recognize Tesla’s vulnerability, leading the company’s stock price to drop 66 percent and wipe out $700 billion in shareholder value.

Musk is no longer the wealthiest man in the world, though he is still the richest in Texas. But his pioneering and normalizing of EV technology is also bad news for his adopted state, which relies on oil and natural gas for up to a third of GDP and a good portion of state revenue.

To boost EV sales, GM’s vice president for EV Ecosystem, Hoss Hassani, said new models address Americans’ most pressing concern: range.

“Three hundred miles of range is the tipping point for somebody to go from not considering

an EV to considering one,” he said. “So, we have the Hummer EV that has a 350mile range, and later this year, a Silverado EV variant will have over 400 miles.”

GM has also launched a live video channel for the EVcurious to ask questions and explore the technology without sales pressure. Instead of emailing me questions, you can click on evlive.gm.com.

Support systems are also falling into place.

Battery manufacturing is rising, with companies investing $73 billion in U.S. facilities in 2022. The Department of Energy announced Tuesday it would spend $42 million to support 12 projects to strengthen the nation’s battery material supply chain.

Private companies are accepting

grants and tax credits to build charging stations and to improve software that allows rapid charging without damaging EV batteries.

For Texans worried about the impact on the electric grid, EVs are part of the solution. Higher demand at night, when most people charge, will make existing power plants more profitable and encourage new sources, including wind, solar and storage.

When the electricity supply gets tight on winter nights, EVs can provide backup power. GM, Ford, Google and solar energy companies announced Monday they would partner to create the Virtual Power

Plants Initiative to make grids more weather resilient.

The losers will be oil companies that sell more than 70 percent of their product as transportation fuels. Estimates vary depending on the forecaster, but most economists predict peak oil demand is either upon us or within a decade.

Climate scientists insist we need to move faster if we want to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Since burning petroleum for transportation is the nation’s largest source of carbon emissions, we need to begin lowering oil consumption by 2030.

The chief executives of most major oil companies recognize their fuel products have a limited future. Most are talking about capturing carbon emissions so they can continue producing oil. Others are exploring new uses that don’t require combustion.

Texas’ leaders must focus on diversifying the economy rather than trying to save a shrinking fossil fuel industry. The world will need more energy than ever before, and Texas can lead the way in producing and storing it cleanly.

Musk is doing his part.

Tesla plans to spend $775 million to build at least five projects and expand its presence in Austin by 1.5 million square feet. The company is building a battery facility in Angleton and has signed a lease for 1 million square feet in Brookshire, on the outskirts of Houston.

The future runs on electricity, not petroleum.

Chris Tomlinson/Staff General Motors’ Hummer EV is a good-looking vehicle that adds to a dynamic lineup of models that are rolling in the EV revolution much earlier than thought.