GM Built a Driverless Silverado HD for the Army — and It’s Late to the Contest
GM Defense’s unmanned Silverado 3500HD concept can carry 8,000 pounds with no cab and no driver. The company admits it missed the Army’s first round of robot-truck awards.
General Motors' military arm has stripped the cab off a Chevrolet Silverado 3500HD and turned what's left into a driverless supply truck. GM Defense showed the Unmanned Ground Vehicle concept on October 12 at the Association of the United States Army's annual meeting in Washington, D.C., and says functional trials are targeted for 2027.
The concept rides on a dual-rear-wheel "skateboard" chassis taken from the heavy-duty Silverado, according to the company's announcement. GM Defense describes its job as silent logistics and casualty evacuation, not combat.
What the truck can do
GM's release is thin on numbers. Company executives filled in some of them for Defense Daily: a payload of up to 8,000 pounds, 102 kWh of onboard energy storage based on GM's Ultium battery technology, and a self-driving system supplied by Scout AI. The battery can also power equipment while the truck is parked.
That makes it a very different machine from the diesel pickup it started as. The civilian Silverado HD is getting the new 8.3-liter Duramax for 2027. The military concept shares its frame and little else that GM has disclosed.
There's a catch. The Army picked five companies in July to build prototypes for Project Sustainment, its robot supply-truck effort, and GM Defense wasn't one of them. Pete Johnson, the unit's vice president of business development for integrated vehicles, told Defense Daily the company "wasn't ready" for that round and called it "a first follower." Work on the concept only began in late spring or early summer, and a technology demonstrator is due by June 2027.
The bigger number: 12,000 trucks
The driverless Silverado is the eye-catcher, but the business case is the Infantry Squad Vehicle. GM Defense says the Army's planned requirement has grown from about 649 vehicles to nearly 12,000, roughly 18 times the original order.
The ISV is a Chevrolet Colorado ZR2 underneath. When the Army awarded the $214.3 million production contract in 2020, GM said about 90 percent of the parts were commercial, including a 186-hp 2.8-liter Duramax diesel, Military Times reported at the time. As recently as 2023 the Army's official target was 2,593 vehicles, according to the Congressional Research Service.
Part of the growth comes from a new five-soldier variant, the ISV Utility. GM Defense says it paid for development itself and handed the Army seven prototypes at no cost. The variant is now expected to go to 39 active-duty and National Guard brigades.
The company also showed EPIQ Hybrid, a 60-kW, 100-kWh battery pack with its own generator, meant to power field camps with less heat and noise than a diesel generator running alone.
What GM hasn't said
There is no Army contract for the unmanned truck, no price, and no range figure. GM hasn't said whether its self-driving work for soldiers shares anything with GM's eyes-off driving plans for customer vehicles; the military truck uses an outside supplier.
The pitch is speed. "We do not begin with a blank sheet of paper," GM Defense president Steve duMont said. As proof, the company points to missile-housing parts it delivered to Lockheed Martin 22 days after signing a contract in August.
