I can’t imagine a more durable electric vehicle than the 2025 GMC Hummer EV. Despite this, Tesla is the Cyber ​​Monster.

Below is a brief initial review of the 2025 Hummer EV 3X (tri-motor) SUV with the available Extreme Off-Road package. General Motors graciously gave me the opportunity to drive it for a week in Los Angeles and the Mojave Desert. I have written all its features below. (Note that I test drove an AWD Cybertruck but not the Cyberbeast.)

Disclaimer: I don’t do “extreme” off-roading (e.g. the Rubicon Trail in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains). This is a small part of those who go off-roading. I fall into a larger group of casual off-roaders. But I sometimes encounter extreme conditions when trying to traverse vast uninhabited wilderness in places like the Mojave Desert.

TLDR:

Pros: Very solid, fearless off-road EV. Little can stop this 30,000-pound beast. And 35-inch tires are the icing on the cake. It’s a Rivian R1S on steroids. There’s plenty of room in the back for sleeping. (Comparable to some studio apartments I’ve rented.) Surprisingly fast/fast on the highway. Range is rated at 289 miles but I charged it to over 90 percent once and it was close to 300 miles. Cons: Too big/can be cumbersome in parking lots. Charging is expensive.

Mojave Desert:

I’ve taken four vehicles to the Mojave Desert in the past few months. A Rivian R1S, a Rivian R1T, a Subaru Solterra, and a Ford Mustang Mach-E GT AWD. Let me put it this way: The Rivian is a durable, highly competent off-road EV. But this isn’t a Hummer. (It’s not fair to compare Subaru to Mach-E.) Hummer is ugly. With 35-inch tires, outstanding ground clearance, extraordinary power and huge size. Let me put it another way: With a Hummer, you feel invincible even when you encounter the most extreme terrain in the Mojave backcountry.

While the Hummer cut through the Mojave’s soft sand with ease, more importantly, it didn’t flinch when faced with the many steep inclines, treacherous angles and rocky terrain the Mojave foothills could throw your way. About 25 miles north of Mojave, California, at a spot near Red Rock Canyon State Park, I encountered extremely rocky terrain with steep inclines that would gut the interior of a lesser off-road vehicle. The Hummer crawled over the rocks as if it was born just for that purpose. (I stupidly forgot to use the crab walk. Apologies to the GM! But I didn’t really need it.)

Highway:

Surprisingly, despite its size and weight, the Hummer EV doubles as a fast and very fast highway car. There is a steep ramp on Interstate 5 north of Castaic, California; This is my litmus test for the momentum needed to get past the pack of big trucks coming at you when you jump into 5. Hummer is like a rocket. And I couldn’t help but think that some truckers were scratching their heads to see such a large vehicle moving so fast. (I was scratching my head too.)

Other stuff (Super Trip and charging):

Super Trip: The Hummer is available with GM’s Super Cruise, hands-free autonomous driving technology (Level 2), I have also used it extensively on other GM vehicles. Super Cruise essentially drives the car in most highway situations. It does acceleration, braking, changing lanes and steering. I used it as much as possible in the Hummer. It was a little rough in places (sometimes failing to recognize objects on the highway) and occasionally disengaging unnecessarily. But GM told me they fixed the second bug and Tesla’s FSDGM is constantly working to improve Super Cruise’s ability to handle unexpected situations.

Charge: Charging in a Hummer can definitely get expensive if you’re going on very long trips and using public charging. It costs $20 at most for my humble Chevy Bolt to get from 10 percent to close to a full charge. The Hummer can easily go over $40 to do a partial charge, say from 30 percent to 90 percent. Since I’m in Southern California, charging can be expensive these days. (It’s 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 from the Electrify America 350kW chargers and got over 300kW. This means very fast charging.

Tesla NACS adapter: The Hummer came with a NACS adapter that allowed me to charge it at Tesla Superchargers, which I do frequently. This is a must if you travel a lot. Tesla Supercharger locations are generally 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 (usually more). This means you still have plenty available if you’re running low on a few. That’s not the case at Electrify America, which typically tops out with six (sometimes eight) chargers. Even though Electrify America has replaced most of its chargers in Los Angeles over the past year, I still have to deal with lines and unavailable chargers at some Electrify America locations.

Conclusion:

The 2025 GMC Hummer SUV 3X with the Extreme Off-road Package is sleek, unbreakably tough, and fast all at once.

Full Features:

2025 GMC Hummer EV 3X SUV (tri-motor) with available Extreme Off-Road package. This includes 18-inch black aluminum wheels, 35-inch MT tires (Goodyear), front e-lockers with virtual rear locks and additional underbody protection. + skid plates, rocker arm guards with auxiliary steps, half shafts with ball splines and easy-to-clean rubber floor. This vehicle also comes with Gen 2 Super Cruise, GM’s autonomous vehicle (driver assist) technology. Price shown above as of October 2024: $120,505.

Video footnote: I did not take videos of the most difficult terrains. I was so tired of driving and alone most of the time; It was difficult to both drive and shoot decent video.