Emerging rapidly out of dense foliage, a truck swings around a bend on a washboard gravel road, but the only sound is the crunch of gravel beneath tires and the occasional ping of a rock hitting its underside.
The truck is a new hybrid vehicle that GM Defense has developed to show the Army what is possible for a Humvee-type capability that meets the needs of modern warfare. The Army does not yet have a requirement for a new Humvee, or High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle, or something else to replace the 40-year-old vehicle with 50-year-old technology.
But the Humvee, while a longtime workhorse for the Army, is becoming an increasingly unsafe platform. Rollovers have plagued the fleet, resulting in a rise in deaths from the accidents in recent years, which spurred the implementation of some safety measures. The Army has replaced some Humvees with the newer Joint Light Tactical Vehicles, but the service wants to retain a slightly smaller vehicle akin to the Humvee in its inventory, scaling back plans to go whole hog on JLTV within the vehicle size segment.
GM Defense has designed what it’s calling the Next-Generation Tactical Vehicle, taking the Chevy Silverado truck and the same Duramax engine used in the U.S. Army’s Infantry Squad Vehicle and pairing it with an electric battery capable of producing roughly 300 kilowatt hours of power output and a 15-gallon fuel tank.
“Think about the technology that was the foundation for Humvee,” JD Johnson, GM Defense vice president of business development, said in a recent interview at General Motors Milford Proving Ground. “The automotive industry has moved way on from that and our soldiers deserve [more], not just from the driveability and performance, but from the ability to support all their various missions.”
Silverados come off the production line every 54 seconds. The company added an offroad package to the truck and maximized commercial-off-the-shelf features, according to Pete Johnson, GM Defense vice president of business development for integrated vehicles.
GM also integrated “a myriad” of different advanced technologies from some of its electric vehicle programs, including the Hummer EV, and incorporated lessons garnered from its successful rapid production of the Infantry Squad Vehicle, which used a Chevy Colorado chassis, Pete Johnson added.
While the vehicle still uses an engine now familiar to U.S. soldiers, it incorporates energy storage and the ability to use that energy to both drive and power other systems to enhance the Army both from an operational and sustainment perspective, Pete Johnson said.
Because of the electric-power capabilities, the vehicle can operate at low thermal and acoustic signatures.
“If you look at Ukraine, the fight going on right now, one of the risks is if they find you, they can kill you,” Pete Johnson said. Ukrainian soldiers started evacuating casualties from the frontlines with non-tactical vehicles because they were quieter than military vehicles, the company learned from those on the ground, he added.
The technology in GM’s new ride allows for silent drive, Pete Johnson said, meaning the vehicle is able to power systems without idling an engine. In the vehicle, the driver can switch between “silent mode” and regular engine mode with the flip of a switch.
The electric battery also helps decrease the battery requirements for units on the battlefield. The Army has gone from a platoon carrying roughly 48 lbs of batteries in Desert Storm and Desert Shield to carrying 1,200 lbs of batteries. “It’s unreal, the amount of kit now that requires energy,” Pete Johnson said.
The company has also incorporated instantaneous torque technology that allows for effective and agile offroad capability, according to Pete Johnson. The design reduces sustainment burdens and logistics tails because hybrid electric vehicles use fewer parts and less fuel and other batteries on the battlefield, he added.
The company also took safety into account in a number of ways, Pete Johnson said. “We’re disheartened every time we read an article where a soldier, marine, sailor is killed by a rollover … but we’re taking the best modern technology … and we’re building integrated rollover protection systems,” he said.
The Infantry Squad Vehicle already has that capability.
While electronic stability control and antilock brakes are in every single vehicle produced since 2012, “there’s almost no military vehicles that have that,” Pete Johnson said. While the Army has been applying add-on kits to Humvees, that DNA is embedded in the proposed Next-Generation Tactical Vehicle, he said.
The vehicle is transportable in a C-130 and C-17 aircraft and can be sling-loaded by a CH-47 Chinook cargo helicopter or an MH-53 King Stallion helicopter.
GM Defense is showing the vehicle at the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual conference in Washington. The floor model incorporates a Kongsberg remote weapon station, a Lockheed Martin Javelin anti-tank missile launcher and a Drone Buster to counter unmanned aircraft system threats in the back along with a Hoverfly tethered drone for reconnaissance.
“All of that is one platform that you really couldn’t do today” with the power sources onboard vehicles, Pete Johnson said.
Jen Judson is an award-winning journalist covering land warfare for Defense News. She has also worked for Politico and Inside Defense. She holds a Master of Science degree in journalism from Boston University and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Kenyon College.
