The GMC Hummer EV Has a Cheeky Jab at the Tesla Cybertruck Hidden in its Dashboard

Graphic: GMC (vehicle photo); Bob Sorokanich (inset image)

I just spent a week driving the GMC Hummer EV, a ridiculously quick and astoundingly huge vehicle that’s nerve-wracking to pilot on the cramped and crowded streets of NYC. The new electric Hummer is genuinely impressive, and I’ll have more to say on it in a future article, but for now I want to talk about something I found buried deep in a sub-menu on the dashboard touchscreen: An icon that shows a Hummer EV driving over a Tesla Cybertruck, labeled VPRWR. Vaporware, get it? Very cheeky, GMC.

See, like a lot of modern off-road vehicles, the Hummer has a bunch of auxiliary switches installed from the factory to control aftermarket stuff you might install on your rig: Off-road lights, winches, tire pumps, stuff like that. But while most automakers achieve this with a row of physical rocker switches, the Hummer’s aux switches are configurable touchscreen buttons accessed via the Off Road page on the infotainment screen.

You can configure each button with a label you type in and an icon chosen from a whole plethora of options. The icons range from practical and predictable — CB radios, air horns, lights — to downright goofy. Fancy a Frankenstein’s monster to control your trailer lights? Perhaps a vintage NASA spacecraft for your radar detector? GMC has you covered.

Just a few of the icons you can choose from.Photo: Bob Sorokanich

My favorite one here is the ejector seat (bottom right), but the Indiana Jones whip next to it is pretty great too. Or the Loch Ness monster (left middle). Photo: Bob Sorokanich

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The very last page of the selectable icons. Note, in addition to a Cybertruck, we see a dinosaur experiencing various indignities. Is it a T-Rex? Is it a raptor? I suppose it’s up to you to decide which domestic truck is being roasted here.Photo: Bob Sorokanich

It’s there, at the very bottom of the button icon palette, that we find this cartoon of a Hummer EV clamoring up the windshield of something that certainly resembles a Tesla Cybertruck.

The squashed Cybertruck is one of a few icons that seem to poke fun at the Hummer’s competitors. You can also choose clipart of a meteor about to strike a dinosaur (hello, Ram TRX), or a Bigfoot-lookin’ character on the trot (gotcha, Ford Bronco Sasquatch package). Remember, this is a vehicle with a launch mode that’s officially named “Watts To Freedom”. Coming from the traditionally strait-laced General Motors, this is an utterly buckwild amount of goofin’. I love it.

This is how the aux buttons were configured when I received the Hummer EV from GM’s press fleet. The “Hood Light” button controlled some dealer-installed aux lights; the rest of these buttons were not connected to anything. Photo: Bob Sorokanich

The configuration options for the aux buttons.Photo: Bob Sorokanich

Now, I have no way of knowing whether the VPRWR button on this particular Hummer was configured that way by a GM employee, or by a fellow automotive journalist who’d borrowed the vehicle before me. Vehicles in an automaker’s media fleet get passed around to a bunch of different folks, and car reviewers often poke around in the most remote sub-menus that don’t get touched by regular drivers.

Whoever set up the VPRWR button got a chuckle out of me. If the Cybertruck ever actually escapes the vaporware curse and goes into production, I won’t be surprised if it has some sort of Easter egg in its touchscreen with a return-fire zing at the Hummer. Maybe it’ll be next to the fart button.