2025 GMC Hummer EV SUV Review: Big Price, Big Battery, But Where's The Range?

You can't understand the true ridiculousness of the GMC Hummer EV, without first revisiting a little history of the Hummer brand. The "original" civilian Hummer from the 1990s, also called the H1, was essentially a road-going version of the military Humvee, complete with endorsement from The Terminator himself. 

The Hummer H2 got rid of the military underpinnings in favor of a GM truck chassis, yet it cranked up the machismo a significant degree. It was the Largest and In-Chargest vehicle you could get in the era (at least in spirit) and it perfectly encapsulated the Huge Ostentatious Suburban SUV stereotype. Later, the Hummer H3 toned things down a bit, and then the brand died out entirely.

Now, in the age of the General Motors Ultium EV platform, the Hummer is back, this time branded as a GMC and an electric car. It's bigger, heavier, faster, and way sillier than any Hummer from the past. Given the brand's history, my overall obsession with weird GM products, and the Hummer's reputation, I was eager to try out the greener Hummer of the 2020s.

I was tasked with stomping around Pennsylvania and Maryland in a 2025 GMC Hummer 3X SUV. The EV Hummer first launched as a truck, reminiscent of the Chevy Avalanche and Cadillac Escalade EXT. Later, it was given the big SUV treatment, fit for all of your sports-utility needs.

Under the "hood" (well, not quite, but you know what I mean), it rides on the "electric skateboard" architecture that is shared with the Chevy Silverado EV and GMC Sierra EV. It has a three motor electric drive system that throws down 830 horsepower to all four wheels. That number makes the Hummer EV the highest horsepower and most powerful car I have ever driven. 

That same electric platform allows all four wheels to steer, a feature GMC will never let you forget is called "Crabwalk," athropod iconography and all. On the realistic end, it does allow the Hummer to have a surprisingly small turn radius given its size. "Crabwalking" lets the Hummer to drive diagonally, but more on that later.

Immediately upon delivery, the Hummer made itself known. It's wider than most of the parking spots in my apartment complex, and it's a full several feet taller than just about every other vehicle in a significant radius. The front windshield has three wiper blades. I'm fairly tall, and the Hummer was towering over me. The huge "grille" lights spell out "HUMMER" with illumination bright enough to signal aircraft (and you could probably land a small plane on the roof). The wheels look like they could fit on an armored personnel carrier, and take a shot from an anti-tank rifle and keep going.

Hoisting myself into the seat and behind the steering wheel, I was greeted with a frankly confusing interior. The Hummer is billed as a supertruck, in the same vein as the similarly angular Tesla Cybertruck and Rivian R1S. You'd expect an interior to match the attention grabbing exterior, but that was not the case. It was actually fairly pedestrian.

Aside from the military-esque buttons that cover nearly every surface, the interior really isn't that impressive. It doesn't have leather seats and you feel like you're sitting inside of a coffin with how relatively cramped it is, despite the outside dimensions. At the same time, you and the front seat passenger are seated in a way that it feels like you're miles apart.

It's deeply weird. As far as comfort is concerned, the inside feels somewhere between a PlaySkool car and a run of the mill Chevy SUV; that's to say, it wasn't hateful, but it definitely didn't match the definition of plush like the Escalade IQ. Unlike the rest of the vehicle, the Hummer's interior really didn't stand out at all. There is a larger "Sign and Signified" debate here on what the Hummer represents as a vehicle versus what it actually is. However, I know that most people want me to talk about the crabwalking monster of an SUV.

The Hummer's Crustacean-based party trick is arguably its best-known feature. I refer to it as a "trick" because I cannot think of a practical application for crab-walking, apart from some very specific parking scenarios and whether or not you think mildly scaring your passengers as a "practical application." I gave a lot of friends and family rides in the Hummer as it attracted more attention than most other vehicles I've reviewed, and everyone wanted to see it crab walk. Most people immediately thought it was cool, if a little bit freaky that an office building of an SUV was driving diagonally. I try to keep my cynicism at the door when reviewing cars and I even thought it was a hilarious feature.

Crab-walking brings up my major problem with the Hummer and that's practicality. On paper, it's monstrously capable, with more power than most other cars on the road, huge mud tires, skid plates everywhere, auxiliary power ports, and lot of little cubbies and storage compartments for all of your stuff. It's billed as an off-road vehicle and I have no concerns about whether or not it can tackle tough terrain. 

However–and this is a big "however"–when was the last time you saw an electric car charger out in the middle of the desert or tundra the Hummer presumably calls home? It's well known that EV powertrains and battery systems don't always perform the best in cold weather. The 300 miles of estimated range on the battery according to General Motors was conservative in my estimate, and that figure was significantly lower in the cold weather of Maryland and Pennsylvania.

Performance-wise, it's a rocket. GMC says it will do the zero to 60 sprint in 3.5 seconds. Those are sports car numbers and nearly a full second faster than GM's other super-SUV, the resolutely gas-guzzling Cadillac Escalade V-Series. It's also important to note that the Hummer weighs north of 8,500 pounds.

It's the automotive equivalent of a Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser moving at the speed of sound. I'll leave the discussion of moving that much weight, that quickly, in populated areas between you and your moral framework, but it's definitely something to consider. It fits into the same conversation of ridiculous vehicles like the aforementioned Escalade, the Tesla Cybertruck, and about a dozen other big, heavy, and really fast SUVs. 

Honestly speaking, I can't think of a way that speed would be of service to anyone in any application apart from pulling off from a stoplight to scare the kid parked next to you in a Bullitt Ford Mustang.

Now, there's the price. It's not inexpensive. You already knew that, and Hummer fans from two decades ago already knew that. To break it down, the 2025 GMC Hummer 3X SUV starts at $104,650. For that, you get the self-satisfaction of owning a vehicle that will likely gain the admiration of a very select few people and the confused looks and scoffs of much more. The Hummer I had was equipped with the "Extreme Off-Road Package" which, GMC admitted, has a notable impact on the range. I'm no engineer or scientist, but I can imagine that 35-inch mud tires aren't great for efficiency. 

The off-road package also gives you skid plates, rear and front locking differentials, underbody cameras, and rock guards. It's a $9,995 option. This particular SUV was bedazzled in $625 "Meteorite Metallic" paint and came with a $350 charging cord. Add in the destination charge of $2,295, and you're looking at $117,915.

The Hummer is big, expensive, fast, and probably extremely capable in specific scenarios. It's also really goofy, completely impractical if you want to actually take it anywhere "off-the-grid," lacks a special interior, and is full of features that don't have any real benefit apart from looking like something from the Decopada order of invertebrates.

I honestly wasn't thrilled with the EV Hummer. I like big, outlandish vehicles and I like EVs, but the combination that is the Hummer wasn't executed in a way that was seriously compelling outside of sheer spectacle. In a lot of categories, there a better vehicles than the GMC. As it turns out, you can in fact have too much of a good thing: the Hummer is too big, too fast, too goofy, too expensive, and too heavy.

In fact, I don't really know what the Hummer is for, exactly. If you just want to make everyone mad with a car, get a Cybertruck; if you want a huge General Motors branded off-roader, there's roughly a century's worth of vehicles to choose from. If you want a capable electric SUV with decent range, the Ford Mach-E, Tesla Model Y, and Kia EV9 will fit the bill. For something so big, and launched with such fanfare, I'm just not sure where the Hummer fits apart from its own extremely tiny niche.