Although I grew up shifting my dad’s Chevrolet S-10 pickup truck from the passenger seat, I’m not exactly Chevy’s target market. I favor hatchbacks over cargo beds. But after tooling around Detroit for a day in the Silverado EV, I realized that Chevy might make a truck guy out of me yet.
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The Silverado EV drives, well, almost like a car. Yet the bed is massive, its frunk, cavernous. The back seat has enough room for me to cross my cursedly long legs, and the cabin is quiet. It’ll power your house in case of a hurricane, and it’ll haul, tow, and navigate down the freeway without a finger on the steering wheel. Plus it travels over 400 miles on a charge. That should be a dream combination for an American pickup lover.
And yet, it hasn’t exactly been flying out of showrooms. GM sold about 14,000 last year in the U.S. and Canada. The fossil fuel Silverado sells 10 times that in a quarter. After my drive, I’m kind of stumped. GM might have made the perfect American EV, but nobody’s buying it.
Maybe it’s the looks? At a glance, the Silverado EV resembles the old Chevy Avalanche, and whether that’s a good thing depends on how you felt about the original. Like the Avalanche, the Silverado EV has four doors, a short bed that can be extended into the cabin, and a “sail” between the cabin and the bed, a stylistic flourish that helps minimize drag. I thought the EV looked fine, but then, I’m not a truck guy.
Details
Getting in requires a big step up, but once inside, it’s spacious and comfortable. Press the brake and the Silverado EV springs to life, with crisp screens dominating the lower third of your vision. The seats are great, and like many EVs, it’ll surge forward when poked with your right foot. At almost 20 feet long, no one will call the Silverado EV small, but thanks to rear-wheel steering, it’ll wind its way through a parking lot like a tidy hatchback. That is, until you try to wedge it into a na
The Google-powered infotainment system is crisp and clear and commendably responsive. It’s not quite as speedy as an iPhone, but it’s darn close, and the voice commands work well. There are volume and temperature knobs and some HVAC buttons below the vents, which can also be manually directed. Chevy still remembers how to make physical controls, thankfully.
The nav is a Google service, so it works well. When I spoke my destination, it offered a selection of routes, just like Google Maps does on your phone, but with a twist: Below the usual time-to-destination readout, another estimates how long you’ll be able to use Super Cruise, GM’s hands-free driving option. Don’t feel like driving much? Pick the route to maximize time spent in Super Cruise. Over the years, GM has offered many reasons why it excised CarPlay from its EVs, and this might be one of
Analysis
Speaking of Super Cruise, the hands-free, Level 2 advanced driver-assistance system is as good as they say. In March, I drove the Bolt with Super Cruise and came away impressed, though my time with it was short. With the Silverado EV, I traversed the Detroit metro area during peak commuting hours. In a truck of this size, Super Cruise is almost a requirement, making the drive relatively stress free.
It had its downsides, though. Keeping it in its lane can be a bit of a chore. Similar to my time in the Bolt, Super Cruise could be caught off guard by cars speeding up and cutting in from the right.
There was one particular nerve-wracking Super Cruise moment when the Silverado EV nearly plowed into a dirty paint mixer trailer. Perhaps the paint-splattered taillights threw the system? Really, though, the radar should have caught it.
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