It’s time for us to put the all-new GMC Hummer EV truck to the real-world test. First up is a 20-80% charging test. The new Hummer is over the top in many ways. It’s physically huge. It has three motors for a combined 1,000 horsepower. It has a height-adjustable suspension and four-wheel steering. It has locking differentials and up to 16 inches of ground clearance in a special “extract” mode. It also has a giant battery with an estimated capacity of 212 kWh. The truck weighs over 9,000 lbs. This First Edition model has a sticker price of just over $110,000. How quickly can you replenish its energy? Let’s find out.
Roman and Tommy to a local EVgo public fast-charger that is capable of up to 350 kW of charging speed. GMC says the new Hummer can accept up to 350 kW of charging. While driving to the charger, the guys put it into a “Fast Charging Battery Conditioning” mode. They arrived with 18% of charge, they plugged in and the charging speed quickly went up to 300 kW. Yes, this is the fastest-charging EV we have ever tested. The truck never reached the advertised 350 kW speed, but it was briefly over 300 kW. The charging rate dropped significantly after a 53% state of charge.
In the end, the guys spent about 57 minutes at the charger to get up to 80% of charge from 18%. The truck estimated that they added about 212 miles of range during this time. Let’s do some more calculations.
The truck gained about 62% of the battery during this session. Assuming a total of 212 kWh of usable capacity – this equates to about 131.5 kWh of energy gained. The truck estimated 212 miles gained, so the truck is assuming about a 1.6 mi/kWh efficiency. Indeed, the GMC Hummer EV is one of the largest and heaviest electric (non-commercial) vehicles that are currently on sale. This is why the efficiency is so low.
We will do more range testing, but some of our casual drives in this Hummer are showing 1.7-1.9 mi/kWh averages. This is about the same efficiency as we were getting in a fully loaded F-150 Lightning extended range truck with a Four Wheel Camper shell on top.
