Truth is, most cars are designed based on an analysis of the market, with committees coming up with the name, specs, and trim levels. Occasionally a vehicle has a more colorful backstory, like Jeep, which was created during WWII for the US Army as a 4x4 with high ground clearance, simple mechanics, and high reliability. Zoom forward 40 years and the US Army again requested a vehicle be built, this time a High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV). The "Humvee" contract was awarded in 1983 to a subsidiary of American Motors. Civilian interest propelled the launch of the Hummer H1 in 1992, most famously driven by action star Arnold Schwarzenegger. General Motors bought Hummer from American Motors and introduced the H2 and H3 models early in the 'oughts.
It was during the pandemic that GMC surprised everyone by reinventing the Hummer as an EV, transforming it from a famously fuel-inefficient gas guzzler to an electric supertruck. It's built on the GM Ultium platform, has startlingly good performance for a vehicle of its size, and weighs in at a daunting 9,063 pounds. That's almost double the weight of an average midsize pickup.
When GMC offered me the chance to drive a 2025 GMC Hummer EV 3X Pickup, I was eager to climb in and give it a whirl. What I didn't expect was just how enormous this vehicle is in person. If you're coming from a subcompact, it's laughably large, like going from a rowboat to a superyacht. Here's what I drove for the week, in Graphite Blue Metallic with a Lunar Horizon interior:
It's so big that you have to figure out how to get into the vehicle; you don't slip into a Hummer, you pull yourself in. Mostly that was easy enough, but parking lots were a challenge because if you can't open the door all the way, it gets to be an awkward Twister move to get comfortably into the driver's seat. One reason that I found myself parking at the further corners of lots. The other reason? It's just darn big, so big that it typically was line-to-line in width meaning there was no slack for doors opening and closing.
Did you notice that it has three front windshield wipers, not two?
The timing of this loaner vehicle was great too because as I'm in the midst of moving to a new house, I had various things that needed to be hauled around to my children's houses. My daughter's bike fit neatly - it's a modest 5-foot bed - and my other daughter's chest of drawers and small bookshelf were a perfect fit too. The back seat is expansive so that was also utilized for cargo. It was great and while nothing we loaded was particularly heavy, it had zero impact on the drive experience, suggesting that we could have put quite a bit more and towed a trailer without changing the drive experience. Impressive.
Since the vehicle is high up off the ground (going back to the original design specs) it was easier to move things into the bed but not so easy to climb up onto the bed to help maneuver things in place. You can't tell in the above photo, but the wealth of tie-downs was a great help; I always wonder why some pickup trucks lack them in the default configuration.
Climbing into the cab, it's quite spacious and well-appointed:
The preponderance of stark rectangular elements (like the air vents in the center) are very masculine in design, and more than once I felt I needed to have bigger biceps and a few tattoos to really fit with the Hummer. Then I remembered it was an EV and figured I could get by without looking like Arnie in Predator after all.
The dash is dominated by the 13.4" infotainment screen, featuring wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. I found it to be entirely functional, though a few features were a bit more difficult to find than I would have preferred. More on that in a bit. Being at the top end of GMC pricing, the Hummer EV 3X also includes 3 years of OnStar Premium and 8 years of OnStar Basic, helpful if you're going to go way off-road and might need assistance. If you're in a collision, though, the sheer bulk of this vehicle suggests you'll be just fine even in the worst of situations.
Looking a bit more closely at the Infotainment screen, it's split into three sections: Hummer controls on the left, CarPlay/Android Auto in the center portion, and additional display on the right side. I did not find an option to stretch CarPlay to encompass the right display, which would be a great feature. Underneath the screen is the climate control area, managed with toggles just below the indicators. The big, easily read target temperature numbers were a highlight of the functional design.
Below that are various drive modes and safety features, along with the steering wheel heater control. The air vents were not so easily adjusted and could probably do with a redesign. This is true with the vertical air vent on the left side of the driver's control cluster too.
The steering wheel controls were standard GMC, with the mystery volume / track control buttons on the back of the steering wheel bar. I've complained about those controls in the past, and will just say that if they do have hidden controls, perhaps there could be some way to denote on the front what they actually are controlling.
If you like complexity, the main gauge display will be just your thing. It shows a lot of interesting information, including pitch and roll so you can see if you're going uphill / downhill or at a tilt. The right portion has driving directions from my iPhone, and you can see by the mileage on the very bottom - 4497 - that I was one of the first people to drive this behemoth. Most important is the charge level indicator: it has 209 miles of available range on the charge.
Let's talk about the EV side of things. Because the Hummer EV is so heavy, it requires a lot of power to move, which is compensated for with larger batteries. This model had the 24-module Ultium battery upgrade ($10K) which gave it an impressive range of about 350 miles. What you can't do, however, is use low powered charging options. I tried plugging the charging cable into my 110V outlet and it gained 1 mile of range per hour of charge. Yes, you read that correctly. Plugged into a 150kWh Electrify America charger, however, and it charged up like a kitten lapping up milk.
This led to a new EV experience for me: Going to a charging station and finding that all the chargers were in use. Worse, two of them were at 95% or higher charge (not great for battery longevity) but their drivers were nowhere to be found. The icing on the proverbial cake was that there was a Nissan Ariya already queued up for the next available charger. I bailed and went to the next closest, about 10 miles away. But what if I'd been on a road trip and there wasn't a charger that close?
The center console offered two convenient cup holders, a Qi wireless charging slot (that rarely worked with my iPhone 15 Pro, in or out of its MagSafe case), a drive mode control dial, and a solid and easily understood gearshift. Worthy of note are the very attractive seats:
Surprisingly elegant for such a rugged vehicle, and I'm sure this wasn't the seat design of the original Humvee!
The 2025 GMC Hummer EV 3X Pickup isn't just a two-seater and there's ample room in the back for three adults:
The above is with the front seat just about all the way back, so if you aren't big and tall, there'd be even more legroom for rear passengers. I both had a passenger in the back for one drive and miscellaneous boxes in the back otherwise and in both instances, it was comfortable and convenient. They too, however, have to figure out how to get into and out of the vehicle given its height off the ground.
More fun was that this model has a "frunk", a trunk in the front of the vehicle where you'd expect the engine:
This was where the charging cables were stored. Notice also the tow hooks on the front, handy if you get stuck in mud or similar, but what vehicle has the power and winch to pull out a 9,000-pound Hummer?
Lots to consider with this beast of a vehicle, but what I haven't talked about is how fun it was to drive. it's really ridiculously large and offers up the sense that you could handle any weather, any road conditions, even pushing other vehicles out of the way so you could get through a snarl. Come the apocalypse, this is the vehicle you'll want (well, once you figure out how to charge it without a national power grid). Even in a region with lots of big pickup trucks, the Hummer stands out as bigger, more rugged, and more aggressive. If that's your thing, this is a vehicle to consider.
2025 GMC Hummer EV 3X Pickup in Graphite Blue Metallic. BASE PRICE: $104,650.00. Options Included: 24-Module Ultium Battery, Extreme Off-Road Package, Soft Roll-Up Tonneau Cover, Premium Paint, Dual Level Charge Cord. AS DRIVEN: $128,760.00.
Disclosure: GMC loaned me the Hummer EV for a week in return for this write-up. This article originally appeared on PlanetDave.com with the title The Ridiculous (and Fun) 2025 Hummer EV 3X Pickup and is republished with permission.
