The 2024 GMC Hummer EV has achieved a dubious distinction: it has the lowest MPGe rating of any EV currently on sale.
The EPA hadn’t previously posted range and MPGe ratings for the Hummer EV, as its testing is designed for passenger cars and light trucks that exceeds this model’s weight. The cutoff for EPA light-duty vehicle emissions and range testing is a gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) of 10,000 pounds, a limit the Hummer EV exceeds with a GVWR of 10,660 pounds for the pickup truck version.
General Motors has previously posted range numbers based on its own unofficial estimates.
However, some official EPA range and MPGe ratings have now been posted to cover versions that land just inside that weight allowance. With the standard tires, both the 2024 GMC Hummer EV Pickup and SUV are rated at 314 miles of range and just 53 MPGe combined (59 MPGe city, 48 MPGe highway).
2024 GMC Hummer EV EPA ratings
With the optional mud-terrain tires—necessary for fulfilling the Hummer EV’s off-road potential—both versions are rated at just 50 MPGe combined (55 MPGe city, 45 MPGe highway) and range drops to 298 miles. GM has said some versions of the Hummer EV will achieve up to 381 miles of range for 2024, but those versions apparently weren’t covered in these EPA tests.
Green Car Reports doesn’t typically cite MPGe, which stands for “miles per gallon equivalent” and, as the name states, is a point of comparison with internal-combustion cars. Calculations aim to equalize the amount of energy an EV can store in its battery pack as electricity with the amount of energy stored in an internal-combustion vehicle’s fuel tank as gas or diesel. It’s not purely a measure of EV efficiency (the Hummer EV does poorly in that metric as well, at less than 1.6 miles per kwh), but rather a way to compare the relative environmental impact of different propulsion types.
2024 GMC Hummer EV SUV
While MPGe doesn’t include the energy involved in generation, it also doesn’t include the energy spent refining and transporting oil and gasoline. Altogether, for instance, UCS says that a Ford F-150 Lightning that achieves about 70 MPGe has the lifetime footprint of an 85-mpg gasoline vehicle, considering California’s energy mix and that EVs keep getting cleaner with the grid.
And while GM hasn’t built very many Hummer EVs so far, the question remains as to whether they will actually help the company build more of its largest gasoline pickups. The Hummer EV’s hefty GVWR means it could be classified as a Class 3 vehicle, allowing GM to generate credits to offset the sale of additional heavy-duty pickups powered by internal-combustion engines.
That said, despite all the excess, the Hummer EV may make sense as an EV halo model, as it’s reaching a crowd that might otherwise be tone-deaf to EVs.
