A 2026 Hummer EV SUV is seen Monday, Nov. 3, 2025, in Detroit.
A 2026 Hummer EV SUV is seen Monday, Nov. 3, 2025, in Detroit.

Earlier generations of Hummers were humongous. The Hummer EV is even bigger.

Weighing around 9,000 pounds depending on the spec you choose, this is one of the biggest road-legal vehicles money can buy. This 4½-ton truck is bigger than everything on the road that is not a semitruck, a school bus, a fire truck or an ambulance. You get the picture.

With a starting MSRP of $99,095, there's a big price tag to match the size of this vehicle.

The truck is too tall, too wide, too heavy and too fast for the average person. So why does a vehicle like this exist, and what is it like to drive one?

My first time driving it

When behind the wheel of this mammoth machine, I constantly peeked into my side-view mirrors to make sure the car was actually inside its lane on the road. I was able to stay in my lane comfortably, but I still had to be extra careful so I didn’t get too close to the other cars around me and scare them.

The visibility of Hummer is interesting, to say the least. As bigger vehicles, they are easy to spot. But for you as the driver, smaller cars can be very hard to see. During a drive in metro Detroit on Woodward Avenue, a Porsche 911 was in the lane next to me, in my blind spot. If I hadn’t seen him earlier, I would easily have missed him.

Cameras placed all around the vehicle help with this problem, but it's important to keep your own eyes open wide rather than relying on the cameras.

Big car, bigger horsepower

The Hummer EV I drove was powered by three electric motors. They supply 830 horsepower and propel the vehicle from 0 to 60 in about 3.5 seconds.

To see what the Hummer was capable of, I checked out the acceleration for myself. The front end rose as I picked up speed. The only sounds I could hear were the robotic battery noises. I wondered why a car this big needs to go this fast; then I remembered that this is the “slower one."

The Hummer EV pickup has a larger battery pack that gives it 1,000 horsepower and supposedly goes 0 to 60 in under 3 seconds. The Watts To Freedom mode, a clever play on "WTF," is the best way to describe a 9,000-pound car faster than most sports cars.

Super Cruise

GM's autonomous driving mode is called Super Cruise and has been available in select vehicles since 2017, with constant improvements over the years. If you wondered what driving a 9,000-pound vehicle is like, imagine being in a car this big while it drives itself.

I was nervous because this was the first autonomous driving mode I’ve ever experienced. The size of the vehicle was a concern, too. Super Cruise on the freeway worked better than I thought. Even though the car was doing all the driving, I took quick glances in the side view mirrors to make sure I was centered in the lanes.

Four-wheel steering to the rescue

The feature that made the truck easy and comfortable to drive was the four-wheel steering. This type of steering works by turning the front wheels in the opposite direction of the rear wheels to make the car easier to maneuver.

It makes the Hummer EV more agile and less intimidating, and I’m not sure I’d want to drive it without it.

There are specialized four-wheel steering driving modes like the CrabWalk and King Crab, but that's another story for another time.

Keenan Thompson is a car culture reporter for the Detroit Free Press. Contact Keenan at kthompson@freepress.com. Follow him on Instagram at @keenanautos. To sign up for our autos newsletter. Become a subscriber.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: I drove 9,000-pound Hummer EV in metro Detroit. Here's how it went

Reporting by Keenan Thompson, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press

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