We test drive the 2023 GMC Hummer EV both on the streets and highways around Phoenix, Arizona, as well as dirt trails outside of town. With 1,000 horsepower, 1,200 pound-feet of torque, a 329-mile range, huge mud-terrain tires and adjustable suspension, the Hummer offers incredible capability. The capabilities of the pickup truck certainly seem to justify the six-figure price tag. There are other excellent qualities such as the superb infotainment system, spacious cabin and fun features such as the removable roof panels. That being said, the truck has some drawbacks such as its weight, some disappointing materials and some lack of refinement on pavement. Watch the video for all our detailed impressions on this supertruck. #hummer #hummerev #gmchummerev #gmc #ev #trucks
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JOEL STOCKSDALE: So we're out in the desert a little outside of Phoenix putting the GMC Hummer EV Edition 1 through its off-road paces. We've been cruising it around on gravel roads with some washboard sections and up and down some trails. And so far, as one might expect from a pickup truck with 35-inch off road tires and air suspension that can lift it up by multiple inches, it does pretty well.
Some of the things that are pretty impressive about it, it rides quite well. We're actually zipping along kind of around 20 miles an hour or so. Granted, larger bumps are going to knock you around a little bit. But for the most part, it's really quite comfortable and feels very stable and controllable. And on the topic of controllability, something that has been fantastic out here is the four-wheel steering.
This is a big truck. And having the rear wheels steer you around corners makes this feel like a much smaller vehicle. It makes it really maneuverable. In fact, if it didn't have four-wheel steering, these roads would probably be a bit of a bear. We've been through some areas with trees and rocks right up close to the vehicle that would have been a pain with just a normal truck of this size.
Of course, being as big as it is, it does have some drawbacks. We've been brushing up against stuff all day long because it's a really wide vehicle. It's right up there with the F-150 SVT Raptor. So something to keep in mind when you're driving your six-figure truck off road is there's a good chance you're going to be getting some trail pinstripes.
Besides being comfortable, the Hummer feels like it's got a really stiff chassis and body. We've been hearing a little bit of kind of creaking and rattling from the removable roof panels, which is to be expected. Anybody that's driven a Wrangler or a Bronco knows that's going to be an issue. But it's not super noticeable. And the rest of it feels rock-solid.
Now, the Hummer has a number of driving modes. It has two of them that are dedicated for off road use. There's one that is aptly named off-road, and that's used mainly for slightly higher speed off road driving. So going down dirt roads and paths where you can carry speeds of like 20 plus miles per hour. In addition, there is a terrain mode that's more specific for trail driving like very low speed under 10 miles an hour type driving.
These modes change a lot of aspects of the vehicle. They change the throttle response, the regenerative braking, the steering feel, even the responsiveness of the rear wheel steering. In terrain mode, it's particularly noticeable, especially when you have the vehicle in the low mode, which increases battery regen significantly.
And in terrain mode, it also implements a lot of braking from the physical brakes to help keep the vehicle under control, to help keep it from rolling down too quickly in descents. And it allows you to basically drive one pedal over obstacles, which makes them really easy to cruise over because you're not having to worry about modulating the brake in addition to your throttle and jumping from pedal to pedal or having to do left foot braking.
And with all the torque and the careful throttle tuning, you can be really, really precise. You can just inch it up and over rocks and things. In fact, in terrain mode, it utilizes some of the functions from the watts to freedom mode. It will condition the motors and battery to the correct temperature to help get a little extra torque boost so that you can climb up and over obstacles.
In addition to things like the drive modes and all of the torque from the electric motors of which the Edition 1 has three, it has a single motor for the front and two in the rear, you can lock both front and rear axles. The front axle, since that is just one motor uses a typical locking differential, whereas in the back, both motors will lock to the same speed. They don't physically connect, but they operate as kind of one unit to become a locked axle.
However, we really haven't had a need to use them. We've been in a couple of spots where we've seen some of the other vehicles slip their wheels a little bit. But the truck seems to have enough torque and enough traction from the off-road tires and a smart enough kind of braking and throttle system that so far, we haven't needed to use the lockers.
We're sure that there are situations where things get like extra muddy or some really nasty rocks that you may still want to activate the lockers now and then. But you probably won't need to use them all that often. The steering actually offers a decent amount of feedback out here on these roads, which is nice for helping you kind of feel out what's going on underneath you. And it's a good weight. It's not too heavy and it's not too light.
Also helpful for figuring out where things are the multitude of cameras on board. It has 18 view options that show the vehicle from the top, from the front, from the rear, and even underneath. And it has washers even for the underneath ones so that you always have a clear view. Makes it great for making sure that you don't have to use the skid plates that are equipped, as well.
The suspension is something else that's adjusted with the different modes, and it can be adjusted independently. And it can adjust the ride height by multiple levels. It's a fully independent air suspension setup. And in the highest mode, it can forward more than two feet of water and can climb over vertical obstacles of 18 inches.
Cameras are useful too because outward visibility is a bit of a mixed bag. You do sit up fairly high, and you can't see the corners of the truck fairly well. But the pillars are pretty thick, especially towards the bed so having those cameras really does help out, especially the front one for going up over blind hills.
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The Hummer's interior is an interesting thing. And I don't mean that in a bad way. But for a six-figure truck, it's not quite what you would expect. There aren't really fancy leathers and wood trim and real metal and things that you typically associate with a luxury SUV. It's really been designed for ruggedness and off-road ability and being something that holds up and can get dirty and be cleaned off pretty easily.
There's kind of rubbery fabrics and stuff on the door panels, and hard wearing plastics all over the place. It's very clearly designed with off-roading in mind. And that's not necessarily a bad thing, especially if you are really going to be off roading it, kind of like a Jeep or something. But it is an interesting decision for something that does cost over $100,000 because you might imagine that some people are going to cross shop this with say a Mercedes G Wagon, and maybe expecting something a little bit more high end.
That being said, what it does with its plastics is really pretty good. It's got lots of nice interesting textures on the fabrics and on the plastics. The bronze accents in this Edition 1 are particularly sharp. And it's got great kind of beveled textures on the switches and on the frame around the screen that all give it kind of a rugged look that also rings up the feel of what are otherwise fairly low grade materials. It doesn't feel cheap, but it doesn't feel luxurious either.
Now, what does feel really high end is the infotainment and the instrument cluster. Both screens measure over a foot diagonally. They're extremely sharp and clear and have some gorgeous graphics. As GMC likes to brag, it is all running on the Unreal Engine, which powers a variety of video games with fancy graphics. And not only does it feature really cool graphics, it's super, super responsive. It feels as good as what you would find on like an Apple iPad.
And the touchscreen features large icons that are easy to see and easy to touch. It even has shortcut ones that stay available on all screens that can be customized to whatever you're using most frequently whether that's off-road modes or radio controls, things like that. And they're positioned on the driver's side of the screen so that you don't have to reach very far.
The climate controls use physical switches, which is very handy, as do some of the driver aids and even features such as the front and rear lockers. And for those of you with an aversion to touchscreen controls, it does have a physical volume knob, which is much appreciated. Although a tuning knob would be nice too, but we'll take what we can get.
The interior is also extremely spacious. I'm sitting a bit low in the vehicle. But even so, I've got at least half a foot of headroom, and I've got loads of elbow space too. The rear seat is really roomy as well. It would be really difficult to be uncomfortable in this vehicle. And speaking of comfort, the seats are great too. They've got deep thick cushioning. They're wide, and they've got solid bolstering so it's comfortable for long road trips and also helps keep you in place at least a little bit when you're off-roading.
The removable panels are also interesting. It is really cool that you can lift them all off for an open air atmosphere, and the rear window slides down as well. There's also a T bar up front that can be removed, although it requires a tool to unbolt it. So we imagine most people will just be latching the roof panels and stowing them and probably not bothering with the T bar since removing it doesn't really add that much to the experience.
What's also convenient about the glass panels is that all four of them will stow in the front trunk. They each have their own individual tray that they fall into, and they all stack up conveniently. What's interesting about it though, is that all of the panels are glass, and they don't have any kind of shades. They are tinted to help keep light from being too much of a bother, but we wouldn't mind having something to block the sun a little bit more in certain situations.
We've had a couple of moments where the sun has basically been shining right in our eyes through the roof since the windshield is so far forward. So on whole, the Hummer interior is a very comfortable very practical and very usable place to be. It just doesn't quite have the level of fanciness that you might expect from a six-figure truck.
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So one of the first things that you're going to notice about the GMC Hummer EV is, it's big. The Edition 1s are all white, so it's the great white whale of whatever parking lot that you're going to be in. And the size is a little bit deceptive because it is actually roughly the size of your typical full-size pickup truck. The difference is that it's maybe a little bit shorter and it's also quite a bit wider.
Just like the F-150 Raptor, it's wide enough that it requires clearance lights on the top and on the sides to indicate that it is a particularly wide road vehicle. But once you get past the overall size of the Hummer, it's got a lot of really cool design cues. Up front, the full width light bar is really neat, and it's got the name emblazoned all the way across it.
What looked like kind of the main lights feature really nifty sequential turn signals, and they also double as charging indicators when the truck is plugged in. The whole body looks beveled. It's got just really nice crisp angles and creases all across it with just gentle curves that give it a feeling of strength and rigidity. It hides its bulk in the middle where the batteries are and where the tall cabin is quite well because of the black trim down on the bottom, which is also further covered up by the sidesteps.
It looks very off-road-ready. It's got short overhangs that are handy off road and also helped give it a butch stance. It's a really neat-looking truck with a lot of great details. The Hummer EV is clearly designed primarily for off road purposes. But the fact of the matter is that like any other off-road-oriented truck, it's going to spend most of its life on pavement whether it's commuting to work or even just driving to an off-road park somewhere.
And as a result, it's important that it still be a reasonable vehicle to drive on road. The reality is, it's kind of a mixed bag on pavement. It certainly has good aspects. One of them, of course, is the 1,000 horsepower and 1,200 pound feet of torque. It is hilarious to mash the throttle in this truck. Not only does it pin you to the seat, it accelerates with a lot of drama. Even numbers-wise, it's fast. It gets to 60 in 3 seconds.
That being said, when you keep your foot in it, you do start to notice the fact that this is a really heavy truck. It weighs more than 9,000 pounds. No amount of electrons is going to change the fact that that's a lot of mass that's hard to keep moving. And so the longer you keep your foot down, you notice that it's not pulling as hard as that initial launch.
And the weight also shows up quite a bit when you get onto the brakes. When you're driving in normal mode without much regen, it takes quite a bit of pedal travel to start getting this truck hauled down. It does get hauled down, and the brakes are quite effective. And in fact, when you switch it to the high regenerative braking modes, they're actually quite aggressive and it's really easy to drive one pedal.
But that, the acceleration, and also when you're making turns, there's a fair bit of body roll, and you can just feel that there's a lot of heft to this truck. There's no hiding the fact, it's a big heavy vehicle. The steering is not too bad either. It's weighted really nicely. It's light at low speeds, and it picks up heft as you continue along. And it's actually got a decent a bit of feedback.
It's a little bit vague on center, so you'll find yourself correcting just a little bit when you're cruising along on the highway. But overall, the steering is not too bad. Speaking of cruising, the Hummer EV is equipped with the latest version of Super Cruise, which in addition to allowing hands free cruise control on the highway, it now features the ability to execute lane changes.
It can do them at the request of a press of the turn signal or it'll do it on its own. If you are on the highway and there's a car in front of you that's going slower than your selected speed, it will look for an opening to your side. And when there's an opening, it will automatically change over there to accelerate around the car. And then once it's passed, it will look for a free space and it will move back over.
The car stays centered. It doesn't do anything that feels stranger and comfortable. While it is odd to be in a moving car without touching the wheel, once you get used to it, it feels really natural. While we've been on Arizona pavement for a lot of this drive, which is extremely smooth and not exactly a challenge for the suspension, our time off-road has shown that it does a really good job absorbing bumps, which is something that you would hope and expect when you've got huge 35-inch tires and loads of suspension travel and air suspension on top of that.
Really, most of on-road driving experience in the Hummer is pretty good. But there's one thing that's really frustrating, and that's the noise. While we've been driving, we've been noticing a lot of wind noise all around the cabin. And on top of that, the big off-road tires have a constant, dull roar as you're moving at highway speed. It definitely ruins the quiet soothing effects of being in an electric vehicle.
It's a good thing that the Hummer is pretty comfortable because it has the capability to drive quite long distances. The Edition 1's battery pack is good for 329 miles. It also is capable of 350 kilowatt fast charging. You can get up to 100 miles of charge in about 12 minutes according to General Motors.
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So is the Hummer EV a super truck like GMC claims? Absolutely. It does so much. And it does it all with such exuberance that it is absolutely a super truck. It goes super fast. It can go off-road with great aplomb. It has tons of space. It can tow. It's got a really long range. It does it all.
Now, is it something that you want to spend six figures on? That's a slightly tougher question. The technology and the capability that you're getting I think can justify that price tag. But there are some genuine compromises to get that kind of capability.
It's a very heavy vehicle. It drives very much like a truck. The interior doesn't have the nicest materials and it's noisy. That's six-figure price tag can get you something really genuinely luxurious and cosseting and comfortable. So it really comes down to what you're looking for. If you're looking for just another luxury vehicle, even an electric one, you may want to skip the Hummer.
But if you're looking for the biggest, the baddest, the fastest, the most off-road-capable outrageous pickup truck you can find, you can't do much better than the Hummer. It is a super truck with all of the benefits and the compromises that that entails.
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