The GMC Hummer EV is the biggest, boldest and most powerful electric pickup on the market, and it comes from an established automotive giant, yet it is not without its problems. Roman from The Fast Lane Truck was driving a brand new example when the vehicle displayed an error message, then when he attempted to restart the Hummer, the vehicle bricked itself and it would not go into neutral or drive, thus leaving him stranded on a busy road with no way to move.
Before this occurred, he saw the vehicle briefly display a message that it may have a steering rack malfunction and that it should immediately be taken to a dealer. Upon seeing this, Roman attempted to do something sensible - to restart the Hummer EV hoping the error would go away - but when he tried to start it, nothing happened. The screens were functional and showing correct information, but some of the vehicle’s functions were limited and booting up the infotainment in safe mode didn’t really help.
The location where this occurred was quite unfortunate, given that it was on the left turn lane just ahead of a busy intersection with traffic lights - basically, it was in the middle of the road. As you’ll see in the video, that was quite a dangerous spot to stop in as there was a lot of traffic around and an accident could have occurred at any moment.
Thankfully, a helpful policeman parked a patrol car behind the stranded Hummer EV, in order to make it even more visible than it was (even though it’s frankly so big and brash that it was hard not to notice).
They also called a tow truck, but it wasn’t really needed in the end as they found the manual release for the front trunk that gave them access to the 12-volt battery. Disconnecting and reconnecting that is akin to a hard reboot, and it did help, as it finally allowed the vehicle to be put into neutral and then into drive.
What was somewhat peculiar was that after they reconnected the battery and tried to start the vehicle, it kept asking the driver to open and close the electric side windows individually before making the gear selector operational. Afterward, the vehicle appeared to run normally, but they took no chances and drove it back to GMC to have it inspected.
We have reached out to GMC for comments and we heard back that the company views this as an isolated incident and the affected vehicle "has already been restored" and is back in the customer's possession and on the road.
