Update: 2025 GMC Hummer EV Review: A Bona Fide Tesla Cybertruck Nemesis

Forbes

18-05-2025

EDMONTON, CANADA APRIL 13: A 2025 GMC Hummer EV 2X SUV on display at the Edmonton Motor Show on ... More April 13, 2025, in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. (Photo by Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
There are two radical, in-your-face EVs in the U.S. One celebrated (or infamous, depending on your point of view), the other the original monster EV. What follows is a brief review of the latter – the 2025 GMC Hummer EV.
The GMC Hummer EV pickup began initial customer deliveries in late 2021. Cybertruck deliveries started in late November 2023. So, the Hummer EV was out there almost two years before Tesla's hotly-anticipated (at the time) electric pickup.
The following is an update to a first-take review – done in November of 2024 – of the 2025 Hummer EV 3X (tri-motor) SUV with the available Extreme Off-Road package. I've put the full specs at the bottom. (Note that I have also test driven an AWD Cybertruck – most recently a few weeks ago.)
Pros: Very tough, fearless off-road EV. Very little can stop this 9,000-pound+ beast. And the 35-inch tires are icing on the cake. It's a Rivian R1S on steroids. Plenty of room to sleep in the back. Surprisingly quick/fast on the highway. The range is rated at 289 miles but I charged it to over 90 percent once and it was close to 300 miles. Cons: It's huge / can be unwieldy in parking lots. It's expensive to charge. Price tag is high, right up there with the Tesla Cyberbeast.
In the past 8 months, I've taken a number of EVs to the Mojave Desert. A Rivian R1S, a Rivian R1T (twice), a Subaru Solterra (twice), a Chevy Silverado EV, a Ford F-150 Lightning, and a Ford Mustang Mach-E GT AWD. While the Silverado EV conquered some of the most treacherous, muddy, and dangerous off-roading I've ever done (and I will forever have unstinting admiration for the Silverado), it's not a Hummer. The Hummer is outrageous. With its extreme ground clearance, extreme power, and sheer size. Let me put it another way: with the Hummer, you feel invincible in the Mojave outback.
While the Hummer easily cut through Mojave's soft sand, it didn't flinch when faced with the many steep grades, treacherous angles, and rocky terrain that the Mojave foothills can throw up in your path. In one spot, about 25 miles north of the town of Mojave, Calif. near Red Rock Canyon State Park, I ran into extremely rocky terrain combined with steep grades that would disembowel lesser off-road vehicles. The Hummer crawled the rocks like it was born for just that purpose.
Amazingly, despite its size and weight, the Hummer EV doubles as a fast and very quick highway car. There's a steep-grade onramp on Interstate 5 north of Castaic, Calif. that is my litmus test for the acceleration needed to outrace the swarms of big rigs bearing down on you when you jump onto 5. The Hummer is like a rocket. And I couldn't help but think that some of those truckers were scratching their heads to see such a big vehicle move so fast.
Super Cruise: the Hummer is available with GM's Super Cruise, a hands-free autonomous driving technology (aka Advanced Driver Assist System or ADAS), which I've used extensively on other GM vehicles. Super Cruise drives the car – steering, acceleration, braking, and lane changes – in most highway situations. I used it as much as possible with the Hummer. It was a little rough in spots (once, it didn't recognize an object along the highway). But GM told me they fixed the latter bug. Though I use ADAS constantly in the EVs I test (including Tesla FSD, Ford BlueCruise, and Rivian Highway Assist) no ADAS is perfect. Like Tesla's FSD, GM is constantly working to improve Super Cruise's ability to deal with unexpected situations and unrecognized objects. Bottom line: an ADAS' practicality and ability to make you a safer driver far outweigh the rare glitches.
Charging the Hummer EV at a Tesla Supercharger in the town of Mojave, Calif.
Charging: charging can get pricey with the Hummer if you take a lot of long trips and use public charging. My humble Chevy Bolt costs, at most, $20 to fully charge from 10 percent to close to a full charge. The Hummer, just to do a partial charge, let's say from 30 percent to 90 percent, can easily top $50. I'm in Southern California so charging these days is expensive. (Not like the good old days when I could fully charge my Bolt at public chargers for about $12.) That said, I got very fast charges at Electrify America 350kW chargers and Tesla Superchargers, peaking at over 300kW. That translates to a very fast charge.
Tesla NACS adapter: The Hummer came with a NACS adapter that let me charge at Tesla Superchargers, which I did frequently. This is a must-have if you travel a lot. Tesla Supercharger locations are typically far superior to other public charging options like Electrify America. The critical difference is redundancy. Every Supercharger location I visited had at least a dozen chargers (often more). That means if a few are down, you still have plenty available. That's not the case at Electrify America, which usually tops out at six chargers (occasionally eight). Though Electrify America has upgraded many of the chargers in Los Angeles in the past year or so, I still have to deal with queues and unavailable chargers at some Electrify America locations.
The 2025 GMC Hummer SUV 3X with Extreme Off-road Package is simultaneously flamboyant, unbreakably tough, and fast. It's a strong alternative if you're looking for a radically muscular off-road EV that doesn't carry any anti-Elon baggage – however irrational that sentiment may be.
2025 GMC Hummer EV 3X SUV (tri-motor) with the available Extreme Off-Road package.This includes 18-inch black aluminum wheels, 35-inch MT tires (Goodyear), front e-lockers with virtual rear lockers, additional underbody protection + skid plates, rocker protectors with assist steps, ball spline half shafts and easy-to-clean rubber flooring. This vehicle also comes with Gen 2 Super Cruise, GM's autonomous vehicle (driver assist) technology. Price as shown above as of October 2024: $120,505.
Video footnote: I did not take video of the most challenging terrain. I was too consumed with driving and in most cases I was alone — hard to drive and take decent video at the same time.