I spent a weekend with the 2024 Chevy Blazer EV in the hopes that I’d develop some solid opinions on it. And oh, boy howdy, did I. There’s a disappointing mix of positive and negatives to unpack about GM’s new all-electric mass-market crossover.
Most EVs I’ve gotten behind the wheel of have been a pleasure to drive. They’re smooth, torquey, solid and comfortable almost by their very nature. Tesla has been getting this right even without air suspension from the very first traditionally-sprung vehicles they made, even on base models. The Blazer has fairly alright power delivery – it gets up and goes easily, but when it came time to stop, I found the car rocking back and forth for several seconds at every stop sign, every traffic signal, every single full stop. As though an earthquake were occurring, or like I was floating on a calm lake. One Mississippi, two Mississippi… 2-3 solid seconds of rocking back and forth like the struts just couldn’t arrest the motion. I am quite familiar with the EV stop-n-rock, but this was excessive and made one friend I gave a ride to a tad motion sick.
Power was adequate – from a dead stop, it has a good amount of torque, though not enough to wow anyone. I would compare it to a strong V6. That includes the power curve – the Blazer has noticeably less pull at 45+mph, where a Tesla would continue to pull hard for much longer. The feeling of running out of power so quickly was unexpected, and disappointing on the RS trim of this EV.
Driving the Blazer EV, and evaluating the handling, was hampered by the overall wide and blocky feeling from behind the wheel. It felt like very little consideration went into the inside-out feel of the Blazer EV, and I do mean from the inside to the outside. Starting from the inside, the Blazer EV feels like someone haphazardly tossed interior components in the general direction of their intended locations, borrowing air vents from Mercedes and “accidentally” misplacing CarPlay/Android Auto along the way. I’ll come back to that later.
My 6’1″ frame is tall, but far from the extremities of human height. At a comfortable seating position (which was not at the top of the seat height adjustment), I was unable to adjust the steering wheel at enough of an upward angle, even with telescoping, to see the entirety of the gauge cluster screen. This was also about the time I realized that the remaining battery life of the car is not a permanent element on either the cluster or infotainment screens. This became the least of my issues, though – the Blazer EV feels unwieldy and wide. The way it is constructed is simply difficult to acclimate to for reasons I cannot explain. It feels like the car is incredibly wide, even though it is hardly any wider than any other common passenger vehicle. It feels like there are tons of cladding and excess body bulk between the driver and the sides of the car – the end result was that I had a hard time getting a feel for where the corners of the Blazer EV were, always felt like I was going to encounter the edge of the road or roadside obstacles and was generally hesitant to push limits due to feeling like I was never able to get a feel for the car.
GM’s adaptive cruise control was exactly the way I like it – out of the way, but very good. It is integrated into the HUD shown on the windshield and provides a reassuring icon to let you know that it is aware of the car ahead. In stopped traffic, it remained engaged, only requiring user input if the vehicle stays stopped for too long – the driver then has to simply push the accelerator to tell cruise control to resume. No auto-steering on the EV, but it did nudge me back toward my lane if I let a wheel over the line – along with a vibration in the seat to make sure I realized my mistake. My only complaint about the safety features was its tendency to beep and vibrate when any vehicle was approaching alongside with the signal engaged – for example, waiting in the right of two left turn lanes.
The Blazer EV is the embodiment of GM’s mass-market attitudes, and unfortunately that includes their recent decision to omit CarPlay and Android Auto in favor of their own infotainment system with Android apps for cars. I can forgive (but not applaud) this move for automakers who have created a good enough infotainment system to justify it, like Tesla. GM has not earned this forgiveness. It’s the little things – I cannot shuffle my YouTube Music playlists in the native app, for example. Not to mention that in my area, where all cell carriers have excellent reception, the Blazer EV’s own cellular connection routinely took a long time to buffer songs. It would often be 30 seconds until the first song, or the next song played after the last ended, an issue that is simply a non-issue when letting my phone do the heavy lifting. And for an extra subscription fee, to boot. All to have a worse experience listening to music while sitting in a driver’s seat that feels like the very cheapest of board-shaped airline seats.
One area I can give the Blazer EV credit is looks. Even though it is an egg-shaped crossover, its styling is aggressive in a way I enjoyed, without having obvious EV styling cues. This is how it ought to be, since EVs are simply cars like any other, so there’s no reason to make them purposely different-looking. It is still a bit confusing that the Blazer EV is different in every way from the regular ICE Blazer.
Even the interior is heavily stylized, and neat-looking, if disjointed in places:
The Blazer EV is behind the most advanced EVs, still using a 400v system, severely limited charge rate. This puts it behind more advanced EVs like the Hyundai Ioniq 5, or Chevy Silverado EV, negatively affecting its road-tripping abilities. Other tech is a bit more up-to-date in the Blazer EV. Even though its rearview mirror is perfectly usable, GM still gave it the ability to display a rear-mounted camera. This came in handy during my offroad test, when the rear windshield became caked in dust but I was still able to view a crystal-clear image of the dust I was kicking up.
I’ve driven a lot of cars, and many of them have been EVs. I know better than to compare an EV to an ICE vehicle when the technology dictates it to be certain things – large, heavy, usually pricey. But for a mass-market crossover that starts at $48k, the Blazer EV disappoints despite its good looks.
Some final notes on a more overarching POV – GM has really fallen down the mass-market, stock-number-go-up slippery slope as most have probably noticed. Where Dodge and Ford have been (until recently) keeping legendary models alive in their true forms, GM has slapped one of their old-school trademarks on a boring crossover with enough cargo capacity for as much disappointment as you can carry. It is an automaker which does whatever they think will tap into buyer demand the very most, and unfortunately that does not translate into excitement or quality.
A big swing and a miss from GM, the company who at one point brought us the innovative, revolutionary and attractive Volt, only to swap it out for the cheap-looking Bolt hatchback. This is the work of the opposite of car enthusiasts. Companies are companies and will do as companies do – but even as companies go, the Blazer EV demonstrates that GM lost what remained of its soul many years ago.
