• by Tanya Gazdik , Staff Writer, December 9, 2024

I’ve been stalking the GMC Sierra EV Denali and its sibling Chevrolet Silverado EV at one of the fast chargers near my house for about a year. 

That’s the beauty of living in Detroit — you get to see the vehicles on the road being tested before they are available for purchase or even for the media to test-drive. 

GMC’s engineers used both state-of-the-art virtual techniques as well as decades of real-world experience to develop these vehicles. General Motors’ electric pickup program, which includes the Sierra EV Denali Edition 1, was developed and tested for 17.5 million virtual miles and the equivalent of nearly a million real world road miles.

I was charging another vehicle and struck up a conversation with the employee test driver. I asked if the vehicle’s range (the miles it can go on a full battery charge) was really as good as the speculation at the time. “It’s even better,” he confided. “Wow,” was all I could say. At that point the rumors were circulating that it would top out art about 350 miles.

He did not mislead me.

After a week in the GMC Sierra EV Denali, I can say unequivocally that I never once felt a smidgen of “range anxiety,” even after driving roundtrip from Detroit to Swanton, Ohio — about 195 miles. 

When the 2024 model year Edition 1 debuted in the spring, GMC created a long-form video to show off the truck's features. GMC is now offering the 2025 model year of the all-electric pickup in both an extended range version with 390 miles of range, and the available Max Range version with 460 miles of GM-estimated range. I test drove the Max range. 

And it’s not skimping on power, either. Features for the 2025 Sierra EV Denali include 760 horsepower and 785 lb.-ft. of torque in Max Power mode. Even more impressive, the 800 Volt DC battery is public fast charging-capable at up to 350kW, allowing drivers to add up to 100 miles of range in approximately 10 minutes. 

I am not usually a fan of huge trucks since I find them impractical to drive in the city. But this vehicle rides more like a car than any other full-size pickup I have driven as of late. I didn’t even realize how high up I was sitting until I was inside a low parking garage and started to wonder if I was going to scrape the ceiling (I didn’t.) Air ride adaptive suspension provides the ability to raise or lower the truck by about 2 inches, while also offering a more comfortable ride.

The multiPro midGate expandable bed offers room for hauling items nearly 11 feet in length, while still leaving room for a rear-seat passenger. If towing is your thing, the vehicle offers an available 10,500 pounds max towing.

The adage “you get what you pay for” definitely holds true with the Sierra. The 2025 GMC Sierra EV Denali with the extended range starts at $91,995, and the Max Range starts at $100,495. Yes, that’s a lot of money. But this is a lot of truck.

In the first half of 2025, GMC expects to expand the GMC Sierra EV lineup with the addition of the lower priced Elevation and AT4 models.

Like the Equinox EV I test drove last week, the Sierra was equipped with hands-free Super Cruise. It once again behaved nearly flawlessly. The system wasn’t a fan of the heavy rain I had to drive in early this morning before sunrise. It would not engage, instead alerting me that the sensors could not adequately make out the lanes on the highway. 

That did not surprise or disappoint me. It’s conditions like that where a driver should be in control. Driving technology is like AI — there’s a time and a place for it, but human proficiency will never become obsolete. 

Since it was my second week in a GM EV, I got a little more used to not having Apple CarPlay and managed to turn on settings so that my text messages generated on the screen. But unlike CarPlay, if you don’t respond to prompts to listen and reply immediately, it disappears from the screen.  

I once again downloaded Waze from Google Play store and it was glitchy -- it didn’t always want to connect immediately. I had to toggle back and forth between the home page and the icon before it would finally open. 

I do appreciate the ability of the native navigation system to give me data like what percent of charge the vehicle will be at upon arriving at my destination AND upon arriving back home from it. The preconditioning of the battery when you program in a charging station is also useful. 

No vehicle is perfect, but the Sierra checks a lot of the boxes that have been lacking in EVs.