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SEMA 2010: Zero South Biodiesel Electric Hummer shows its guts

Zero South Biodiesel Electric Hummer - Click above for high-res image gallery
Zero South, a company that popped up at SEMA in 2008, is back again with its Biodiesel Electric Hummer. The heavily modified H1 rides on tracks at all four corners - a necessary modification, since this Hummer is designed for an expedition to the South Pole.
The trip is going to be documented by Chris Paine, who's best known for the film Who Killed the Electric Car? It was reported back in 2008 that the vehicle was going to be driven by Buzz Aldrin and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. The film is called Drive Around the World and was shot in 3D. Drive Around the World is also the name of an organization that works to inspire an urge to explore while raising money for various charities. The H1 shown above is Zero South's vehicle for participating in these expeditions.

2024 GMC Hummer EV SUV Edition 1 back on the market after charity auction

The charity auctions at this year's Barrett-Jackson event in Arizona pulled in the usual millions for good causes. Nevertheless, there were no shocking result among the sales like the 2023 Chevrolet Corvette VIN 001 that hammered for $3.7 million in 2022 or the 2022 GMC Hummer EV pickup VIN 001 that hammered for $2.5 million in 2021. In fact, the best result for hammer prices this year was a GMC Hummer EV SUV VIN001 that brought in $500,000, quite a ways down on its bedded sibling. Seems the purchaser decided a little bit of battery-electric arbitrage might be the play, because the SUV is going back up for sale. As caught by CarBuzz, a new member to the Hummer Chat forum started a thread, "Barrett Jackson VIN #1 SUV available." According to the poster who calls himself Bill, "Tread Lightly, the charity organization that the funds went to, aligns well with our company and we were excited to participate with them, however, the Hummer should go to a true enthusiast or collector." The post says Barrett-Jackson "is interested in" putting the Hummer in front of audiences at the Palm Beach auction event April 13-15 or at the Vegas event June 22-24. The vehicle's apparently been built and will be titled in Arizona. It's a loaded Edition 1 in Moonshot Green Matte with a Lunar Shadow interior and three motors making roughly 830 horsepower. There are transparent sky panels that open to create the open-air "Infinity Roof," 14-speaker Bose audio, Super Cruise, Crab Walk and Watts to Freedom mode. Naturally, the seller is willing to part with this bit of history before April and at first said he is ready to "consider a reasonable offer for the vehicle." We're not sure if that means more than $500,000. If so, and without the charity component — the reason these vehicles bring in so much money so often — we suspect such an asking price would be a tough draw. A look at Cars & Bids results for GMC Hummer EV pickups in Edition 1 trim shows prices that regularly surpassed $200,000 last summer are now down to around $160,000. However, two posts later, Bill says his company is "open to all offers."  The Hummer EV SUV Edition 1 retail version will reach begin reaching owners by the end of Q1 this year, which isn't far away. It cost $105,595 when it could be reserved.

General Motors has tried to cast Hummer in a greener light before

Rumors claim General Motors will resurrect the Hummer name on an electric pickup truck by 2022, and GM allegedly will preview the model with an ad starring basketball star LeBron James during the 2020 Super Bowl. If accurate, the move would represent a stunning 180-degree turn for a nameplate long associated with war-like gas-guzzlers. It wouldn't be the first time the automaker has tried to cast Hummer in a greener light, however. In 2004, when mass electrification looked as realistic as George Jetson's flying car, Hummer collaborated with Quantum Technologies to build a one-off H2 SUT named H2H powered by hydrogen. Engineers modified the stock H2's 6.0-liter V8 to run on compressed hydrogen stored in three carbon fiber tanks, and added a supercharger to offset the loss of power. The eight-cylinder made 180 horsepower, compared to 325 horsepower in the gasoline-powered model, and the truck's 12-pound hydrogen storage capacity gave it a 60-mile range. "The H2H was created for two purposes. It brings focus and attention to the journey to a hydrogen economy, and it will provide GM with key learnings on hydrogen storage, hydrogen delivery systems, and hydrogen refueling infrastructure development," explained Elizabeth Lowery, the company's then-vice president of environment and energy. She emphasized the H2H's experimental vocation and said there were no plans to bring it to production. Actor, then-California governor, and devout Hummer fan Arnold Schwarzenegger celebrated the H2H as a vision of the future after taking it for a spin. It didn't have much of a future, as it turns out, and it remained a prototype. Fast-forward to 2009, less than a year before Hummer shut down after the Chinese government vetoed a proposed sale to Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Company. General Motors teetered on the brink of bankruptcy, it had much bigger worries than Hummer's fuel economy, so the task of making a greener truck fell into the lap of suppliers. FEV and Raser joined forces to build a plug-in hybrid prototype based on the H3. Its powertrain was built around a turbocharged, 2.0-liter EcoTec engine related to the unit found in the Chevrolet HHR SS and the Pontiac Solstice GXP, among other cars. In this application, it powered a 100-kilowatt generator that zapped a 268-horsepower electric motor into motion. Output traveled through the H3's stock four-speed automatic transmission and four-wheel-drive system, including the transfer case.