Back in July, we told you about GMC’s plan to slowly ramp up production of its highly anticipated Hummer EV SUV. At the time, the truckmaker was making 12 a day. That sounded like a good idea to, you know, get it right and make sure there were no quality glitches. We’re now eight months beyond that, and GMC has ramped up production to… 12 Hummers a day. 

How many Hummer EV orders are there?

That’s right, Hummer production is at the same number since July, according to the Wall Street Journal. There are lots of questions we have about why this is happening. The most pressing is what GMC is telling the 90,000 reservation holders. Because based on our arithmetic, at its current production pace, those reservations will take 25 years to fulfill.

Right now, GMC says it is not taking reservations for the next two years. Fulfilling all 90,000 orders in two years only happens if it can go from 12 a day to approximately 150. This is based on six days a week for two years, and factoring in two weeks a year of downtime. 

Would more shifts or more assembly workers help?

We don’t know if the 12-a-day number is one, two, or three shifts. So there are many variables to our figures. And if it could produce Hummers 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for all 52 weeks a year, the figures would go down slightly. 

Still, unless production ramps up exceedingly fast, most reservation holders will never get their GMC Hummer EV. It’s not going to happen. But it raises some heavy concerns about GM’s ability to jump into the electrification universe it has big plans for. 

What about other GM EVs?

Both the Cadillac Lyriq and Celestiq are in the queue for production. We know that the Celestiq is virtually hand-built with an estimated price tag of $300,000. But the Lyriq is expected to be a moneymaker, which translates to a fairly high-volume EV. 

Cadillac has been building the Lyriq for over a year, and in that time only 1,000 have found their way to buyers. If it faces the same snail’s pace as the Hummer, there is no way that GM can accomplish its big future electric plans. Neither with the Hummer nor the Lyriq. 

Why are some Hummer EVs under a sales freeze?

And keep in mind that a Chevrolet Silverado EV and a mainstream GMC EV truck are set to go on sale by 2025. They’re based on the Hummer, which indicates there could be EV truck bottlenecks a-plenty. 

Back to the Hummer, the other troubling news out of the WSJ is that many are sitting at dealerships under a sales freeze. Since October, GM has been addressing water leaks inside battery packs. GMC says the slow roll of production Hummers will magically hit speed in the second half of this year. 

We hope so, as GM is banking on EVs for all future products with billions of dollars being spent on development, new factories, and investigations into the next phase of electrification beyond lithium-ion batteries, not to mansion its reputation.