GMC HUMMER EV Debuts with 3-Sec 0-60 MPH, 350 Miles Range, Huge Price Tag

Despite being no stranger to big V8 engines, the HUMMER always felt underpowered. Sure, the H1 and H2 weighed around 6,400 lbs (2,903 kg) or over, with only the H3 managing to cut that significantly - but also lose the HUMMER spirit in the process - yet weight alone can't be their only excuse.

GMC has not released any weight-related spec for the HUMMER EV, but you can imagine it's not light. Even so, the company says it can move, and then some. The big utility vehicle is said to hit the 60 mph (97 kph) benchmark in three seconds with help from something called "Watts to Freedom" mode.

Watts to what? Yes, it's a ridiculous name, but if anything, you can blame Tesla for starting with the Cheetah Stance. The Watts to Freedom mode does pretty much the same thing: it lowers the suspension by roughly two inches, it stiffens the dampers, and... makes the seats rumble and the speakers emit a low-frequency sound. The battery is also prepped, getting ready to increase the electron flow and boosting the activity of the cooling system.

That's cool, but is it any good off-road? Well, considering nobody's seen it anywhere other than the stage floor so far, we can only take what GMC says for granted and speculate on the technical bits. The H EV gets air suspension all-round giving it a standard ground clearance of 10.1 inches (25.6 cm). However, that can go all the way up to 15.9 inches (40.4 cm) using what's called the "Extract Mode". We suspect you won't be able to travel either too far or too quickly at that height, but still, it's impressive.

The HUMMER EV comes equipped with 35-inch Goodyear Wrangler Territory AT tires, but if that's not enough, it's ready to accommodate 37s without any modifications. Add the Crab Mode to all of this as well as the super-stiff body thanks to the large battery sitting in the floor, and you have something that looks like an off-road-ready machine.

It's probably not off-roading where you'll need the 1,000 horsepower the tri-motor setup of the HUMMER EV can put out - actually, that's a definite, not a probable, since peak power is only available during the Watts to Freedom mode we've discussed already, and you won't be doing 0-60 runs over rough terrain.

The three motors, however, do give the HUMMER a great platform for unique all-wheel-drive capabilities. The EV comes with two motors at the back and one at the front. The rear ones operate each wheel individually, with no direct connection between them. That means there's no actual differential there, just two motors each spinning its wheel through a reduction gearbox. The front axle couldn't handle the power of two separate motors, so it only gets one. Here, there is an electronic locking differential to split power between the two wheels.

During the hyping up period, GMC said the HUMMER EV would get 11,500 lb-ft of wheel torque, which sounds massive (and it is, though not as much as that number would suggest). Remember when Tesla unveiled the Roadster and said it had 10,000 lb-ft of torque? Yes, Tesla didn't even mention it was wheel torque, not motor torque, so +1 to GMC.

As it turns out if you take the reduction gearbox ratio into consideration, the combined motor torque for the HUMMER EV should be somewhere around 1,000 lb-ft (1,354 Nm). Again, that's a colossal amount of twist power, but you get the feeling the GMC monster needs it.

Sounds great. Anything pulling it down?

Well, yes: its battery. Quite literally. You'll notice that the manufacturer is tight-lipped about the vehicle's weight, and that's a good thing because we're not sure we'd be ready to hear it. You see, the Hummer EV is supposedly able to travel 350+ miles (563 km) on a single charge (EPA rating pending).

Looking at it (the design is... definitely HUMMER, whatever that means), you don't get the feeling it'll cut through air like a fish through water. So, how can it go that far? The only answer is a large battery pack, and while GMC isn't saying exactly how large, we are reportedly looking at over 200 kWh. That... can't be light.



Before we roll out, let's glance over the interior as well. As you would expect from a vehicle that wants to feel rugged but costs over $100,000 ($112,595 MSRP for the Edition 1, to be more precise), the cabin feels both utilitarian and premium.

There are chunky controls and rubber mats everywhere, but also a 12.3-inch digital instrument cluster and a slightly larger 13.4-inch infotainment central display. The H EV comes equipped with 18 cameras for both on- and off-road use.

As teased previously, the Infinity Roof allows users to remove the roof panels for that convertible feel. The roof parts can comfortably be stored inside the very spacious frunk that also gets a powered lid for ease of access. Speaking of that, the HUMMEREV comes with GM's MultiPro Tailgate, which is one of those things you didn't know you needed until you got it.

Three more trim levels are expected to debut over the following years - HUMMER EV^2 (spring 2024), HUMMER EV^2X (spring 2023), and HUMMER EV^3X (fall 2022) - all with lower starting prices and, naturally, fewer features. The Edition itself 1 will only begin production late next year, so there's still a long time to go until we can see the first real-world test drives. The one thing we can definitely say after all this info is that they can't come soon enough.