The Army is spending $127 million on 545 more humvees three months after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered a stop on future buys of the vehicle under the Army Transformation Initiative.
The order, awarded June 28 but announced on Tuesday, will source funds from the Army’s fiscal year 2025 “other procurement” account, which saw big congressional increases for humvee spending that appropriators wrote into spending guidance tables they sent the Pentagon under the yearlong continuing resolution.
“The $126.5M was FY-25 Congressional add dollars that were awarded to procure 545 vehicles in compliance with the Army Transformation Initiative (ATI),” Army Spokesperson Ellen Lovett told Inside Defense in an email. “The Army will continue to support the ATI, as directed.”
That comes after service leaders pledged to not spend more money 224025 on “excess ground vehicles” like humvee and the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle after years of congressional funding boosts that senior leaders have argued divert dollars from capabilities the Army needs.
The service had originally only requested $5.3 million for the humvee in FY-25; congressional appropriators added $50 million to that line item and another $90 million to an Army National Guard humvee modernization program line item, which the service had originally budgeted zero dollars for.
Lawmakers also tacked on $50 million to retrofit humvee anti-lock braking systems and electronic stability control kits and $100 million for a maintenance variant of the vehicle, the FY-25 spending guidance shows.
This latest purchase, geared toward the M1165A1B3 variant of the humvee designed for special operations, brings the total value of the Army’s original contract with manufacturer AM General up above $3 billion, according to the contract announcement.
The 545 humvees will be produced at AM General’s South Bend, IN, facility, with work set to complete on Aug. 28, 2027, according to the DOD announcement.
A spokesperson for AM General did not immediately respond to questions from Inside Defense this week.
It’s not yet clear whether Congress will task the Army with spending more money on humvees going forward, as the House and Senate appropriations committees’ FY-26 spending bills differ in their requirements.
Senate appropriators, in their recently marked-up version of the defense spending bill, have left the humvee funding line blank, while House appropriators in June added another $100 million under the Army National Guard humvee modernization program; they also added a small $4.6 million bump to the humvee line item.
Congressional authorizers, meanwhile, seem to be in line with the Army’s plan to halt future buys, as neither of the House or Senate Armed Services committees include a humvee authorization line in their FY-26 defense policy bill drafts.
Originally published Inside Defense