Here's How the Hummer EV Performs on Real-World Off-Road Trails
While the new GMC Hummer EV might be an all-electric pickup truck, the model features many similarities with its archaic ancestors. It’s a large and inefficient machine by any metric, but one that promises to deliver substantial off-road capabilities. Now we have a chance to watch one of these electric trucks join a group of Hummer H1s on some narrow off-road trails to see how it fares when stacked up against less than ideal trail conditions.
The video comes to us by way of YouTuber user 4 Low Mode, whose channel focuses on off-roading Hummer vehicles. This particular clip features a pair of Hummer H1s as well as the Hummer EV as they take on a green-rated scenic trail. The electric Hummer appears to be entirely stock aside from some bitchin’ American flag graphics on the door, while the H1s have clearly been worked over by their owners. The hood-mounted brush guards featured on the H1s appear to have made the trucks slightly wider than their original 86.5-inch measurement. The stock Hummer EV fares even worse in that regard, as the electric truck is a monumental 86.7-inches wide. The EV is also quite a bit longer than an H1, measuring in at 216.8-inches. Most of the off-road trails around the country aren’t meant to accommodate vehicles of this size. This becomes quickly apparent.
We first get to watch as one of the Hummer H1s tries to navigate a narrow but rather common type of tree obstacle. The truck is able to push its way through with some help from the spotters in the group, but it doesn’t do so without ripping some bark off of one of the smaller trees. The Hummer EV makes quicker work of this obstacle, which the group credits to the truck’s competent rear-wheel steering system. That said, we do get a look at one of the Hummer EV’s potential shortcomings during this first challenge.
Throughout the clip the Hummer EV appears to have difficulty feeding in horsepower in a smooth manner. You can watch as jolts of sudden acceleration upset the vehicle as it tries to crawl through some of the tighter sections, creating a ton of secondary body motion. This isn’t the sort of thing you want out of an off-roader, particularly when larger obstacles get involved. In a traditional off-road vehicle, you might try to avoid these motions by utilizing both the brake and the throttle pedal at the same time, using the brake as almost a pseudo clutch. That’s because this sort of rocking could easily shuffle the Hummer EV off of a boulder, which could result in a rather nasty underbody impact. That’s particularly troubling when you remember that this is a machine that weighs over 9000 pounds. The truck’s off-road driving mode should help to smooth out those throttle inputs, though it is unclear whether or not the driver was utilizing that bit of tech.
The team featured in the clip ended up taking over an hour and a half to make it through the three tight spots highlighted in the clip. That’s a lot of time to spend picking a line on a green trail, which is supposed to be the most basic of off-roading endeavors. That alone is enough to highlight why width isn’t a virtue in the woods, and why the Hummer EV might not be the perfect off-road tool if you aren’t near the desert or dunes.
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