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If you guessed that the US Army’s long awaited, next-generation M1E3 Abrams tank is a hybrid electric vehicle, run right out and buy yourself a cigar. Yes, it is. The Army has been taking a long, slow, roundabout journey to the all-electric fleet of the future, but it has been nothing if not persistent despite last year’s sharp U-turn in federal EV policy.
The Abrams Tank Lumbers Into An EV Future
The Army’s interest in EVs, or at least hybrid EVs, has grown apace with the considerable amount of electronic gear layering onto combat operations. For tactical vehicles that spend most of their time sitting still in idle mode, running a conventional engine to power that equipment creates a fat, juicy heat signature for targeting by whatever enemy happens to be in the area. The noise factor also adds another element to exposure risks.
Some early hints about electrifying parts of the venerable Abrams series began to surface on the CleanTechnica radar back in 2010, with hydrogen fuel cells among the technologies in the running. The idea of diverting the vehicle’s copious waste heat into thermoelectric generating systems also made an appearance.
