GMC Hummer EV Taillights Cost an Eye-Watering $6,100 To Replace, Plus Labor
One owner found out how unbelievably pricey the new Hummer EV’s parts can be. Call it low-volume, or overly complex, the sticker shock is very real here.
If you're one of the lucky few to score a Hummer EV (hopefully not at a crazy auction price), it might behoove you to protect your tail lights from damage. As one owner in a Hummer EV Facebook group found out, those plastic housings are quite expensive.
This particular owner was quoted $4,040 for just the Hummer's passenger taillight, not including labor. While this might seem like a typo, we can assure you that these taillights truly are expensive. After digging up the part number and giving a few dealers a call ourselves, The Drive was able to confirm GM's list price of $3,045.48 per side, meaning a full set will run nearly $6,100—more than 5% of the Hummer EV's MSRP—before installation.
Now, any dealer-purchased replacement part for a new car is going to be expensive, especially for something that fits in the luxury or premium segment. But the price of the Hummer EV's taillights shocked even the folks at the various parts counters we spoke with. At one joint GMC and Cadillac dealer, the salesperson was flabbergasted to see that the part cost more than even the long rear taillight from a 2022 Cadillac Escalade, which, for comparison, costs $1,3121.89 at list price.
We reached out to General Motors to get the scoop on just why these taillights are so expensive, unfortunately, GM wasn't able to provide us with any specific information about the cost at the time of writing (other than confirming the MSRP is accurate), but we think that we have a pretty good idea.
The taillights in the Hummer EV have small microcontrollers installed within them. These chips control unique lighting functions in their respective lights, like the animations in the headlamps. Earlier this year, GM recalled 10 examples of the Hummer EV because of a software defect that specifically affected the tail lights. Despite being a software defect, GM actually replaced the lamp assemblies entirely and acknowledged that the affected software was embedded in the taillight's microcontrollers.
Additionally, the Hummer EV is a fairly limited-run vehicle thus far, meaning parts are generally more expensive until economies of scale kick in. GM was struggling to produce more than a dozen units of the vehicle per day over the summer and despite continuing to churn through assembly, the automaker wound up stashing hundreds of vehicles in a Flint, Michigan, parking lot—it's unclear if these vehicles were waiting for parts affected by supply chain shortages, or if GM was holding them for a different reason.
Whatever the reason is, $3,045.48 is no small sum of change, especially for a single assembly. I'd hate to be the person rear-ending one of these in something that can actually reach the taillights.
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