It feels. Premier François Legault and his superminister Pierre Fitzgibbon want to leave a lasting mark of their time at the head of Quebec. This trace will probably be found in Bécancour. And it’s gone to be the trace of a Hummer.
That of a Hummer EV, to be precise. This vehicle is either a pickup truck or an SUV, both electric. They were launched with great fanfare in the spring of 2021 by the General Motors company. The original Hummer was a do-it-all vehicle first designed for the US military, which over the 2000s became the epitome of North American automotive decadence.
Depending on where you stand morally on this question, the Hummer was either the pinnacle of cool vehicle back then, or the pinnacle of ridiculousness and wastefulness.
The Hummer EV plays on the same duality. And if it may represent for some the culmination of American automobile genius, for those who believe less in this kind of marketing, it is the very example of what not to do if we want the decarbonization strategy of Quebec is a success.
Valley of energy waste?
True to its parentage, the Hummer EV echoes the image of excess and exaggeration that led GM to file for bankruptcy in 2009 and then close its Hummer division in 2010. GM is in much better financial shape today. today. And since his Hummer is now electric, we think we can wash away his bad reputation as an unnecessarily energy-intensive vehicle.
Except that, even electric, this vehicle is a waste of energy. In its most superfluous version, the Hummer EV is powered by a 212 kilowatt-hour battery. It is enormous. It has twice the battery size of a comparably sized electric SUV, capable of getting at least the same range. It’s also three times the size of a battery that’s enough to power a Chevrolet Bolt, probably the most affordable electric car on the market and which GM has just withdrawn from its catalog.
Ironically, a Hummer EV was actually on stage in Bécancour last week. He appeared alongside Prime Minister François Legault and all the people who came to inaugurate the Energy Transition Valley, the name given to an innovation zone that will be created in the region between Bécancour, Trois-Rivières and Shawinigan.
GM has also specified that the battery components that will be manufactured in this region by its Bécancour plant – built jointly with the South Korean equipment supplier POSCO and financed to the tune of $300 million by Quebec and Ottawa – will go exclusively to the manufacture of Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet or GMC brand electric vehicles. Including the Hummer.
In his economic vision of the Quebec of tomorrow, François Legault sees Quebec as the green battery of North America. To achieve this, Quebecers will be asked to tighten their belts and reduce their energy consumption. An image repeated by Energy Minister Pierre Fitzgibbon is that of a dishwasher that has to be programmed to run only at night, when the demand for electricity is lower.
Will Quebec households change their electricity consumption habits if it is to allow GM to manufacture Hummers?
Quebec added value
Last year, a senior GM executive was already praising the merits of Bécancour for ensuring the electric transition of the North American automotive sector: it is easily accessible by boat, train and truck. Its industrial park is gigantic, land costs next to nothing, and electricity is abundant and renewable.
That makes it a dream supply hub for Ontario and American factories that will assemble the electric vehicles of tomorrow.
This is probably the best way to transform Quebec’s mining and energy resources into materials that can be quickly exported to the United States, to enter into the composition of vehicles that will be assembled there. In addition to General Motors, we note the interest of the German giant BASF for the region, which also wishes to set up a factory there to also manufacture battery components.
Meanwhile, Quebec manufacturers of buses, trucks and other specialized vehicles are running out of parts — especially battery components — to complete their own vehicles.
Last week, the Quebec Electrical Industry Association said it was delighted with the joint announcement by the Legault government and GM. It will be good for Quebec SMEs, repeated more than once its president, Marie Lapointe, in particular on Radio-Canada radio. One wonders how Mme Lapointe would react if a local SME like Taiga Motors, which is struggling to secure its long-term financing, announced its closure…
At another time, we also boasted of the presence of another factory that GM had in Quebec. We were reminded of the importance of assembling automobiles in the province to ensure the survival of small local equipment manufacturers. Those cars were Chevrolet Camaros and Pontiac Firebirds. Not exactly the best-selling cars on the planet.
And we know how it ended.
At least they weren’t Hummers…