Chevrolet’s Late-Arriving 2024 Blazer EV

The Blazer EV is General Motors’ sharp-looking, high-tech EV. As a sporty two-row, five-seat SUV, it is positioned solidly in the middle of what promises to become a huge market. The Blazer’s use of GM’s Ultium electric drivetrain technology promises to provide an advantage over rivals like Ford’s Mustang Mach E, which was built using readily available, earlier-generation technology.

The question is, does that promised advantage materialize in the real world. And has GM exterminated the bugs that led the company to pull the Blazer EV from the market weeks after it went on sale last year due to software problems?

In a week of driving, I didn’t experience any of those issues that paused Blazer EV sales, so that is a good, if brief, snapshot. Regrettably, GM isn’t providing any transparency with regard to the specifics of those problems or the company’s solutions to them that could provide more confidence that they fully understand and have addressed the issues.

When asked for those details, a GM spokesman only pointed to the official statement from March, when the Blazer EV went back on sale: “We resumed Chevrolet Blazer EV sales during the first quarter, and we have made significant software updates that will improve features and functionality to deliver on the high expectations of our customers. We’re carrying learnings over to other products in GM’s lineup. We appreciate our customers' patience as we worked to solve their concerns. We are excited to have the Chevrolet Blazer EV available again, with a more affordable price, enhanced features and functionality and qualifying for full consumer tax credit.”

Perhaps that price is more affordable, but it remains high. The as-tested bottom line for my 2024 Blazer EV RS AWD test vehicle was $60,215, including destination charges. After the $7,500 federal tax rebate, the true price comes to $52,715. Which is still a lot of money, especially for a mid-size crossover SUV from a mass-market brand. Worse, this is Cadillac Lyriq territory, which is basically a nicer version of the Blazer EV for not much more money.

But let’s talk about the Blazer. It looks great, don’t you think? Crisp, modern styling that doesn’t err by trying too hard. The Blazer’s Ultium battery packs 85 kilowatt-hours of juice, which the U.S. EPA estimates is good for 279 miles of driving range.

An 86-mile highway drive with the cruise control set to 70 mph consumed 32 percent of the battery’s capacity while driving in 100-degree summer heat. That extrapolates to 269 miles of driving range, if you were foolish enough to run the vehicle until it stopped. That is a pretty reasonable distance for that speed.

Recharging didn’t go as well. I plugged into a brand-new EVGo 350-kilowatt DC fast-charging station with a 39 percent state of charge. That’s right in the sweet spot for maximum charging and I was sure to put the charging destination into the navigation system so that the car would pre-condition the battery for the fastest possible charging. It started off at a respectable 130 kW charge rate, but when the battery reached half full, the charging slowed. This normally doesn’t happen to a significant degree until an 80 percent state of charge, which is why carmakers often quote the time to charge from 20 percent to 80 percent.

In the Blazer’s case, the charger slowed to just 96 kW at 59 percent battery charge and by 71 percent state of charge the rate slowed to a paltry 35 kW. The charge from 39 percent to 71 percent took 31 minutes while the Blazer was the only vehicle plugged in at a quartet of new chargers (chargers can slow down when they are all in use), meaning that it recovered 32 percent of its charge during that time, representing an estimated 96 miles of driving range.

This compares to Chevy’s claim that the tested all-wheel-drive Blazer can add 68 miles of range in ten minutes. It may well have done that, right before it slowed the charging rate, but the total charging experience was poor. I had a similar experience with the Mustang Mach-E and attributed that to Ford’s use of older technology, but GM’s done no better with the Blazer and customers are likely to be dismayed when they discover this.
For home charging, the Blazer can charge as fast as 11.5 kW, and my experience on my own home 9.6-kW ChargePoint charger was good, with the Blazer using the charger’s full capability as it should.

The Blazer is comfortable to drive, with only a bit of the ride harshness that so many EVs suffer as  a consequence of high spring rates to support the massive load of the battery pack and the fashionably large-diameter wheels with their low-profile tires the provide virtually no cushioning from sharp road impacts.

The rate of regeneration when the driver lifts all the accelerator pedal is something that each driver has different thoughts about. GM wisely lets drivers choose no regeneration, normal regeneration, or high regeneration. I generally prefer high regeneration, but when driving on the highway, normal mode is a little smoother and easier so fortunately it is easy to switch.

The Blazer’s regeneration is the sort that brings the vehicle to a complete stop without touching the brake pedal. Chevy has done a good job calibrating the system so that it is not too hard to park the car close to an object ahead. Often, cars that stop by themselves stop short of the desired position and then lunge forward when the accelerator is applied, threatening to crash into the car or garage wall ahead. That isn’t the case here.

Additionally, stopping even shorter than the expected coast-down spot is easy to do thanks to the paddle on the left side of the steering wheel. What would be a downshift paddle on a combustion vehicle with steering wheel-mounted paddle shifters is instead a maximum-regeneration paddle on the Blazer EV, letting driver slow the vehicle even more without using the brake pedal.

The Blazer’s interior design mirrors the exterior, with a typically “high-tech” appearance that is pleasant without being distracting. There is a prominent, easy-to-reach volume knob for the infotainment and GM uses back-of-the-wheel buttons on the steering wheel for easy volume changes without the driver moving their hands at all. A cool feature here is that there is a circular graphic around the physical volume knob on the dashboard that shows the volume level when making adjustments, even when using the steering wheel-mounted buttons.

The Blazer EV has a 17-inch central touchscreen for the infotainment system and an 11-inch display for the instruments ahead of the driver. GM has made the strategic decision to eschew Apple CarPlay and Android Auto in favor of its own apps, a decision that will be a deal-breaker for some prospective buyers.

My issue was with the displays. They look good during the day, but at night when I turn down the brightness to minimize the dazzling light in the cabin instead of turning darker black, they turn to a dishwater gray while still emitting too much light. Higher-quality displays like the ones in the Cadillac Lyriq avoid this problem, though I’d also like the ability to easily switch off the central display entirely for more cabin darkness in nighttime highway driving.

In total, the Blazer is an attractive-looking vehicle with decent EV specifications, but with competition from Cadillac on the one hand and the value offered by the Korean competitors mean that drivers will need to weigh their choices before buying.