It’s fair to say the Army has been driving green vehicles for sometime – after all, that’s the colour of most of their camouflage. However, when it comes to making an environmentally friendly choice, the US Army in Germany has decided that electric cars just don’t cut it.
Six months ago, the Army based at Grafenwohr began trialling three GEM neighbourhood electric vehicles but have now decided they aren’t good enough. They have deemed the range simply insufficient and also decided that they suffer from reliability problems as well.
In a military working environment, a vehicle that breaks down too much and can’t be relied on to travel long distances simply wasn’t good enough. As such, the Army has rejected adding the GEM vehicles to its fleet.
Nevertheless, it has not completely turned its back on electric vehicles and has said that improved batteries supplying better range would give them reason to try again.
