The Hummer EV is an insane electric beast. We've already had the opportunity to take a short test drive of one last year and came away really impressed. However, GMC is currently hosting comprehensive first drive events, and our full driving review will be up in early April.
The Fast Lane Truck was another outlet that was invited to the driving event and like us, they cannot post their first-drive impressions just yet, but they were allowed to do a comprehensive feature review and explain the reasons why the Hummer EV, in their eyes, a SuperTruck.
The Fast Lane Truck's Andre Smirnov provides the feature summary in the video and explains that the bar is set very high for a vehicle to be called a SuperTruck, but that the Hummer EV reaches it, and he tells us why he believes so.
Smirnov talks about the Hummer EV's extreme off-road capability and shows off the standard with 18" wheels and 35" tires. He then explains the articulating suspension and how much clearance it offers.
He then hops inside the Hummer EV First Edition and walks us through some of the infotainment features and settings. One of the things he explained is that the Hummer EV allows the operator to manually turn on battery conditioning. Not many EVs allow that, but more should in our opinion. That allows the user to begin to precondition, or warm up the battery if they plan to DC fast charge it soon.
I had some time in a Hummer EV in the fall of last year and even tested out the Watts To Freedom (WTF) mode a couple of times.
Making sure the battery is at the proper temperature is important if you want to charge at the highest speeds (up to 350 kW) that the Hummer EV is capable of accepting. The vehicle will automatically begin to precondition the battery if the destination set in the navigating system is a DC fast charge station, but the manual feature is also a nice addition if you want to warm up the battery without using the navigation system to route you to the charging station. Some EVs will only precondition the battery if you program a DC fast charge station destination into the navigation system.
Smirnov then checks out the various towing settings as well as the different drive modes offered. He explains how the low driving mode increases the regenerative braking force applied when lifting off the accelerator pedal which creates a one-pedal driving effect.
He takes a look at the camera settings and explains how to use Watts To Freedom (WTF) mode. I had the opportunity to do a few WTF mode runs back in October and all I can say is it's really insane. The Tesla Model S Plaid is the only EV I've driven that felt as fast as the Hummer EV off the line. I know the Porsche Taycan Turbo S is actually quicker to 60 mph than the Hummer EV, but that 9,000lb 3-motor beast felt faster to me.
