Those old enough to remember the original civilian Hummers (1992-2009) may recall that they were huge, fuel-wasting beasts – the surest way to get yourself kicked off the Sierra Club Christmas card list.
You may have heard that GMC has resurrected the Hummer name for a pair of electric SUVs. That is true, but the Hummer is not now an avatar of a gentler, greener world.
It’s like a superhero origin story turned inside out. Finding itself with enormous power that doesn’t pollute, the Hummer decides it’s going to use as much of that power as possible to get from point A to point B as quickly as it can while putting two and a half times the weight of a typical car on the pavement and taking up as much of the road as it can.
That might seem harsh, but the numbers don’t lie. The GMC Hummer EV 3X SUV is 17.1 feet long, six-and-a-half feet tall, so wide (93.7 inches including the mirrors) that the Department of Transportation requires marker lights on its roof, and it still seats fewer people, gives second-row passengers 3.6 inches less legroom and has 36.6 cubic feet less cargo space behind the second row than the Chevy Tahoe/GMC Yukon, which is half a foot longer than the Hummer but smaller in every other dimension.
The Hummer 3X SUV has three electric motors, 830 horsepower, 11,500 lb-ft of torque, rockets from 0 to 60 miles per hour in 3.4 seconds and can go 314 miles on a charge.
At first, that combination of speed and range seems like an achievement. A breakthrough in tech, perhaps?
Nope. Sheer size. The battery pack alone weighs 3,600 pounds – 234 pounds more than an entire 2026 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray. That battery pack weight pushes the total curb weight of the 2026 GMC Hummer EV 3X SUV to 9,000 pounds (not a typo – nine thousand pounds).
The Hummer may not be wasting gasoline, but electricity is energy, too, and efficiency is an important metric. A typical electric vehicle can travel between three and four miles per kilowatt hour (kWh). I couldn’t do better than 1.8 and I was driving it gently. The EPA gives the GMC Hummer EV 3X SUV an efficiency rating of 52 MPGe (a miles per gallon equivalent for EVs). The EPA also says typical electric SUVs can get up to 100 MPGe.
It’s surprisingly easy to drive for (as the late P.J. O’Rourke once said about the Chevy Suburban) something as tall as a fish story and as long as an excuse. After a few minutes, I’m kinda enjoying it. And that’s a problem, because it’s the same effect that lulls every driver of a ridiculously oversized vehicle into thinking that because they’re okay, everyone else around them should be too. Even the ones that are in front of them and less than 48 inches tall (that’s how high the top of the hood is).
The 2026 Hummer EV 3X SUV’s pricing rides high, as well. Base price $105,300 ($107,995 with destination). You get three-zone climate control, heated and ventilated front seats, an “infinity roof” with opaque panels, a healthy suite of active safety features and a 14-speaker Bose premium surround sound audio system, but you can’t have Apple CarPlay or Android Auto because GM is discontinuing those popular interfaces on all of its vehicles.
Our test vehicle has a couple of extra cost options, as well, including the Extreme Off-Road Package (18-inch black aluminum wheels, rocker protectors with assist steps, a full underbody skid plate, front and rear underbody cameras and driver-selectable front and rear electronic differentials) for $9,995 and $275 for an adaptor that allows the use of Tesla Supercharger stations in addition to standard public DC fast chargers.
Total price as tested: $118,265.
Look, the streets of the Peninsula are filled with flashy vehicular displays of conspicuous consumption. This is another one. The perversity of the wasteful EV is just a new wrinkle.
