Finished in Thunderstorm Gray, the big electric pickup arrived for a week of everyday driving, trips to work, errands around Utah Valley and, as it turned out, a pretty good opportunity to see whether an electric truck could handle some of the things we normally ask a truck to do.

By the end of the week, we had loaded the bed, hauled equipment, towed trailers and spent plenty of time behind the wheel. The experience left us with a much better understanding of what it is like to live with a large electric pickup when it isn’t being treated like a science experiment.

It is simply being used as a truck.

A lot of miles to work with

The first thing that gets your attention with the Sierra EV Max Range is the amount of energy stored beneath you.

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When we picked up the Sierra, we quickly became interested in how the range would hold up during normal Utah Valley driving. With the battery fully charged, our Sierra was showing more than 520 miles of estimated range.

That is worth explaining because GMC’s current published figure for the 2026 Sierra EV AT4 Max Range is a GM-estimated 478 miles. Our vehicle’s displayed estimate climbed above that number based on its driving history and conditions, so the more-than-520-mile figure was what we actually saw on the truck rather than the official published rating. GMC lists the AT4 Max Range with a 478-mile GM-estimated range. (GMC)

Regardless of which number you use, there is a lot of available range. And during our week, the Sierra did a very good job of making that range feel useful.

We didn’t spend the week driving carefully just to see how many miles we could squeeze out of the battery. We drove it to work, ran errands and used it as we normally would. The range estimate stayed remarkably close to what we expected as the miles accumulated.

That is one of the biggest differences we noticed with this truck. We didn’t spend every trip wondering where the next charging station is going to be.

Home charging takes some patience

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Our home Level 2 charger became the primary fuel station for the week.

We plugged the Sierra in at 37% and let it charge overnight and into the next day. Going from 37% to a full 100% took about 16 hours on our home Level 2 charger.

That sounds like a long time, but it is also important to remember just how much battery we were asking the charger to fill.

For everyday use, we could plug it in when we got home, let it charge overnight and start the next day with plenty of energy. If we needed to add a substantial amount of range quickly, a Level 3 DC fast charger would obviously be the better option.

For us, home charging worked just fine for the week.

Then we put the truck to work

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The real test came Friday.

Craig had the Spanish Fork Wings and Wheels event, where we needed to transport two video walls, speakers and three generators to the event site.

This wasn’t a case of putting a couple of lawn chairs in the back and calling it truck duty.

We loaded the Sierra up with equipment, hooked up a trailer and put the electric pickup to work.

The trailer weighed about 8,000 pounds, and the trip to the event was only about 1.5 miles. Even with that short distance, however, it gave us an opportunity to see what happens when an electric truck knows there is a trailer attached.

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One of the most interesting things happened when we plugged the trailer into the Sierra.

The truck immediately adjusted its estimated range, taking roughly 100 miles off the range displayed on the dash.

At first, that can be a little startling.

Disconnect the trailer, however, and the range estimate comes back, minus the miles actually used. In other words, the truck isn’t simply throwing away 100 miles of battery because a trailer was connected. It is recalculating the expected energy consumption based on the additional load.

That makes sense, because towing an 8,000-pound trailer changes the aerodynamic and rolling demands dramatically.

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Our 1.5-mile trip to the event, towing the loaded trailer, used about 10 miles of indicated range.

We would have loved to have had the opportunity to tow that trailer 100 or 200 miles to really understand how the Sierra would handle long-distance towing. Our short trip simply wasn’t long enough to draw conclusions about highway towing range.

Other Sierra EV testing shows why that would have been an interesting experiment. Capital One’s test of a Sierra EV towing a roughly 3,500-pound race-car trailer saw the estimated range fall from 477 miles to 284 miles after the trailer was connected. Another long-distance towing report involving a Sierra EV and a 30-foot travel trailer covered 152 miles on a leg of the trip, while other real-world tests have shown towing range varies considerably depending on trailer size, speed, terrain and aerodynamics.

That is something anyone considering an electric truck for regular towing should keep in mind.

The Sierra can certainly tow. The question becomes how far you want to tow before charging.

Power isn’t the problem

If there was one thing we never worried about while towing; it was power.

The Sierra EV AT4 uses two electric motors and four-wheel drive. GMC lists up to 725 horsepower and 775 pound-feet of torque for the Max Range AT4, with a maximum tow rating of 10,200 pounds for this particular Max Range configuration.

Our 8,000-pound trailer was well within that capability. The Sierra pulled away smoothly, and there was no feeling that we were asking too much from the truck. Electric power delivery is particularly well suited to towing because the torque is immediately available.

Stopping the loaded trailer was just as uneventful. The truck felt substantial and planted, and the four-wheel steering made the big Sierra surprisingly manageable when maneuvering around parking lots and tighter spaces.

That combination of size, power and maneuverability makes it easy to forget you are driving an electric vehicle.

A truck first

That may actually be our biggest takeaway from the week. The Sierra EV doesn’t feel like an electric vehicle that happens to have a truck bed. It feels like a truck that happens to be electric.

The bed was used for equipment. The trailer hitch was used for towing. The truck carried everything we needed for a work event and then went back to being our everyday transportation.

GMC also gives the Sierra EV some impressive cargo flexibility. The MultiPro tailgate and available MultiPro Midgate allow the truck to handle larger loads than a conventional short-bed configuration might suggest. The Sierra also has an 11-cubic-foot eTrunk up front, giving you another place to put equipment that you don’t want bouncing around in the bed.

For someone who uses a truck for work, recreation or family projects, those features can be just as important as the electric powertrain.

Everyday driving is where it shines

Away from the event, the Sierra settled comfortably into our normal routine.

It is a big truck, but the four-wheel steering helps take some of the intimidation out of parking and maneuvering. The cabin is quiet, as you would expect from an electric vehicle, and the instant power makes merging into traffic almost effortless.

The AT4 also brings a more adventurous personality to the Sierra EV, with additional ground clearance, 35-inch all-terrain tires and an off-road-oriented setup. GMC also includes Super Cruise on the AT4, adding another layer of technology for highway driving.

But we spent much more time driving it on pavement than off it, and that is where the combination of comfort, power and range made the most sense for us.

The future of the work truck?

Our week with the 2026 GMC Sierra EV AT4 Max Range didn’t answer every question about electric trucks. In particular, we still want to know what would happen if we loaded that 8,000-pound trailer and headed from Utah Valley toward St. George, Moab or even farther. Long-distance towing is a very different proposition from towing a trailer 1.5 miles to an event.

But it did answer an important question for us.

Can an electric truck be used like a truck?

Absolutely.

During our week, the Sierra EV carried our everyday loads, took us to work, ran errands and then hauled a trailer full of equipment and generators to a major event. It did all of that while giving us more than 520 miles of indicated range when fully charged and maintaining a range estimate that tracked well with our normal driving.

Base price: $89,600

Destination charge: $2,095

Price as driven: $94,715