# GM Defense Unveils Autonomous Silverado 3500HD for Army Logistics Trials in 2027 **Source:** https://glitchwire.com/news/gm-defense-unveils-autonomous-silverado-3500hd-for-army-logistics-trials-in-2027/ **Published:** 2026-10-14T15:19:30.914Z **Author:** Tech Desk ยท Glitchwire **Categories:** Tech, AI ## Summary The unmanned concept truck strips the cabin from a heavy-duty Chevy and adds 8,000 pounds of payload capacity. Functional trials begin next year. ## Article At the Association of the United States Army Annual Meeting and Exposition in Washington on October 12, GM Defense unveiled an Unmanned Ground Vehicle concept built on the Chevrolet Silverado 3500HD. The company, a subsidiary of General Motors that specializes in military hardware, wants to hand the Army a logistics truck that hauls supplies and evacuates casualties with no driver onboard. At first glance, the vehicle still looks like a Silverado. The heavy-duty truck styling is recognizable up front. But GM Defense has stripped away the conventional passenger cabin and replaced the traditional pickup layout with a low-profile flatbed. "The modern defense landscape demands advanced capability, rapid fielding and sustainable scale," said Steve duMont, president of GM Defense. "We do not begin with a blank sheet of paper. By transferring GM's world-class engineering, supply chain and manufacturing scale directly to the service member, we are transforming customer needs into mission-ready capability faster than ever before." ## Specs and Autonomy Stack GM Defense released specs showing a 100-kWh rechargeable energy-storage system and an 8,000-pound maximum payload. The company told CarScoops that the drivetrain uses an internal combustion engine connected to a power take-off unit, which charges the onboard battery for export power. The approach makes it a range-extended series hybrid, not a pure EV. Autonomy comes from [Scout AI's](https://www.scout-ai.com/) Gx Ground Agent driving system. Scout AI is a defense-focused autonomy startup founded in 2024 that calls itself a "frontier lab for defense." Its physical AI system is powered by FURY, a defense-specific Vision-Language-Action model engineered to transform unmanned systems into intelligent, autonomous agents. The company's UGVs and UAVs leverage an autonomy architecture that allows warfighters to command them using simple human language prompts. At the show, GM Defense paired the truck with a LOCUST X3 counter-drone laser weapon and a Squarehead Discovair G2+ acoustic drone-detection sensor. Functional trials are targeted for 2027. ## Bigger ISV Orders The UGV was part of a broader announcement. GM Defense said the Army has expanded orders for the Infantry Squad Vehicle from the initial 649 to nearly 12,000 units, an increase of roughly 1,750%. Using lessons learned from Ukraine, Army officials say the ISV will serve as a platform for newly established Mobile Brigade Combat Teams designed to respond quickly to large-scale combat operations. The original [autonomous vehicle push in the defense sector](/news/figure-ai-announces-index-a-crowdsourced-robot-training-dataset-that-could-resha/) has accelerated over the past two years, driven by asymmetric warfare and the logistical demands of contested supply chains. Separately, the Army awarded ISV-Heavy prototype agreements to GM Defense, Ford, and BC Customs in late June 2026. Each company must deliver three prototype vehicles by March 30, 2027. After that, the Army will run operational assessments to shape a potential buy of about 606 ISV-Heavy trucks. "If there is one area that is changing the game and shaping the way we are building capabilities for our warfighters, it is the area of autonomous robotics," duMont said at the unveiling. ## Speed as Strategy GM Defense also highlighted a 22-day turnaround with Lockheed Martin: the company delivered mission-critical PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhancement housing components just 22 days after signing the contract, which was signed August 6 and delivered August 28. The timeline matters. Traditional defense procurement moves in years, not weeks. The pitch is clear: [GM Defense](https://news.gm.com/home.detail.html/Pages/news/us/en/2026/oct/1012-gm-defense-global-mission-AUSA.html) wants to be the company that turns commercial trucks into battlefield hardware faster than legacy contractors can draft requirements documents. Ford has its own stake in this shift. The automaker's Super Duty platform has already found its way into Army and government testing, and Ford's F-Series trucks have appeared in separate experiments exploring autonomous and driver-assist technology for potential defense use. Whether the autonomous Silverado ends up in operational deployment remains to be seen. Production plans have not been announced. --- **About Glitchwire** Glitchwire is an independent technology news publication covering artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency, science, security, policy, finance, and the broader technology industry. 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