A new ad for the GMC Hummer EV lets the model's spokesperson LeBron James shine the spotlight on the vehicle's CrabWalk mode. The humorous commercial lets thousands of crabs show their approval for the system.
The ad starts with a single, yellow crab climbing over a rock, and there are thousands of red crabs coming out of the sea in the background. Missy Elliott's Get Ur Freak On begins playing. The creatures arrive in a town, and these clever crustaceans are smart enough to wait at an intersection until the sign tells them it is safe to cross the road.
Gallery: 2022 GMC Hummer EV
The herd travels through a shopping district, and the creatures are shocked to see a server bringing a two-tier tower of cooked shrimp to a table. The crabs also distract a runner, travel across a pool, and interrupt a dog going for a walk.
Finally, the crustaceans reach the Hummer EV. LeBron is in the electric pickup. He gives a grin to the camera and activates CrabWalk mode. The front and rear wheels turn in the same direction. He drives away, and the crabs raise their claws seemingly to celebrate the vehicle.
GMC positions CrabWalk as using the Hummer EV's four-wheel steering in a way to improve maneuverability in certain conditions like when driving diagonally. In the first drive report from our colleagues at Inside EVs, Tom Moloughney wrote:
"The CrabWalk feature feels so unnatural because the vehicle really moves sideways as well as forward. It's not gradual - it really "slides" to the side in the direction that you're steering and my first instinct was to stop the vehicle to process the directional movement.
"But CrabWalk isn't meant to be used to drive down a long road as I was doing. It's really just meant to get you out of a tight situation - and I can definitely see how it would be capable of doing just that."
A massive number of crabs taking over a town isn't without precedent. The Australian territory Christmas Island is famous for the annual migration where millions of them emerge from the forests and go to the ocean.
Deliveries of the Hummer EV are now underway, albeit slowly. In Q4 2021, the company sent just one of them to a dealer. GMC has 59,000 reservations to fulfill for the electric truck.
