Living With The Chevy Silverado EV For (Almost) A Week

[R.I.P.]

I was excited for the Silverado .. but man its getting awful reviews. Does a lot of things right, but is just crap to drive apparently.

Care to point me to review that says it's crap to drive? Certainly was not my experience, I preferred the big truck, solid feel over my R1T.

I know the WT has a bit less power, but the RST fixes that. The suspension on the RST just feels so much better built. I could always feel the fragility and flex in Rivian's suspension, Even on the road.

Whether GM's suspension really is more robust or whether it just feels that way is yet to be seen. To be sure, we will find out.

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[R1Tom]

Care to point me to review that says it's crap to drive? Certainly was not my experience, I preferred the big truck, solid feel over my R1T.

I know the WT has a bit less power, but the RST fixes that. The suspension on the RST just feels so much better built. I could always feel the fragility and flex in Rivian's suspension, Even on the road.

Whether GM's suspension really is more robust or whether it just feels that way is yet to be seen. To be sure, we will find out.

Has either of your Rivians had a suspension failure?

 

[R.I.P.]

Has either of your Rivians had a suspension failure?

Not my personal trucks, no. I have seen blown bags, tie rods snapped like twigs, bent/broken control arms and cracked frames on R1s that were abused. Way too much weight on these trucks to run them like a trophy trucks.

 

[R1Tom]

Not my personal trucks, no. I have seen blown bags, tie rods snapped like twigs, bent/broken control arms and cracked frames on R1s that were abused. Way too much weight on these trucks to run them like a trophy trucks.

I would gander those others were probably arguably abused way beyond reasonable. You have driven yours extensively in extreme conditions for years now and endless hours, so if yours didn't break, I am confident that the Rivian suspension isn't fragile or excessively flexible.

 

[R.I.P.]

I would gander those others were probably arguably abused way beyond reasonable. You have driven yours extensively in extreme conditions for years now and endless hours, so if yours didn't break, I am confident that the Rivian suspension isn't fragile or excessively flexible.

Your assumption that these vehicles were abused is certainly accurate LOL.

I seem to take vehicles through a greater variety of challenges than most, but I would like to think that I am careful not to abuse them.

Really, what I was talking about, however, is feel. The Silverado _feels_ more solid to drive; in a good way. It does not suffer some of the bothersome feedback from the suspension many of us experience with Rivian.

This really should not be a surprise to anybody, given how long General Motors has been building trucks.

 

[OUTAGAS]

One thing I found interesting is the display shows instantaneous kwh draw . When flooring it uphill it read a little over 400kwh. Wow.

You may think I'm too picky, but we need to be careful not to confuse power with energy (this is a pet peeve of mine). There is no such thing as "instantaneous kwh draw". Power is expressed as kW (think horsepower), and energy as kWh (think gallons of gasoline). That 400 kW display represented 535 HP--your Rivian is capable of 625 kW.

 

[OUTAGAS]

A gallon of gasoline, BTW, contains 33.7 kWh of energy.

 

[R1Tom]

Your assumption that these vehicles were abused is certainly accurate LOL.

I seem to take vehicles through a greater variety of challenges than most, but I would like to think that I am careful not to abuse them.

Really, what I was talking about, however, is feel. The Silverado _feels_ more solid to drive; in a good way. It does not suffer some of the bothersome feedback from the suspension many of us experience with Rivian.

This really should not be a surprise to anybody, given how long General Motors has been building trucks.

I agree with all that. I have looked closely at all of the suspension components, and with the exception of the early welded subframes, I think everything appears very robust, both design and materials. The NVH could be improved, but I don't see much that needs any increased robustness. Just more isolation in several spots.

After you have your GMC for a while, please come back with some thoughts on it. Will love to hear it!

 

[moosetags]

Your assumption that these vehicles were abused is certainly accurate LOL.

I seem to take vehicles through a greater variety of challenges than most, but I would like to think that I am careful not to abuse them.

Really, what I was talking about, however, is feel. The Silverado _feels_ more solid to drive; in a good way. It does not suffer some of the bothersome feedback from the suspension many of us experience with Rivian.

This really should not be a surprise to anybody, given how long General Motors has been building trucks.

Chevrolet made their first truck in 1918. They should be able to get it right. I look forward to getting my hands on one.

Brian

 

[Robin]

TL;DR: The Chevy Silverado EV is a great choice for anyone who needs all of the range for an electric pickup truck and doesn’t mind a vehicle that’s a bit rough around the edges and not much to look at.

The Long Version

Two weeks ago, I had a chance to spend 6 days living with the Chevy Silverado EV while my R1S was in for service. The service center didn’t have any loaners available, so I got a ride to the nearby Enterprise.

As we were pulling into the Enterprise lot, I noticed two black Chevy Silverados with the blue “≡” symbol in the name on the side. When I got inside, they asked if I wanted to have on of those since I was probably interested in an EV and those were the only EVs they had available. Both had just been delivered and had never been rented out before. None of the staff had any of the details about what spec the trucks were or knew much about how they worked so they wished me well and sent me on my way.

Getting Started

There are a ton, and I mean a ton, of prompts when starting this car. There are various acknowledgments of safety features, prompts about allowing the car to send diagnostics, and using the connectivity features the car has. After those I was excited to set up CarPlay because that’s the feature I miss most switching from our old car to the R1S. The Silv≡rado has wireless CarPlay, setup was quick and easy once you figure out that’s available through the generic Bluetooth menu (thanks, p. 168 of the owners manual). Using CarPlay for those 6 days again highlights just how far behind Rivian’s navigation system is behind both Apple and Google Maps, not to mention the lack of easy integration with any third party music or podcast apps, except Spotify, Amazon, and Tidal (lol).

At this point, the Silv≡rado had 66 miles on the odometer, an estimated range of 383 miles and 73% battery in the tank.

First Drive

It’s going to be a recurring theme, but the Silv≡rado is designed to make you forget you’re driving an EV. The first instance of that is that regen was completely turned off when I first started the car. Getting coming from my R1S with its regen turned up all the way, this complete lack of regen came as a bit of a surprise so after I overcame the confusion about needing to use that other pedal, I pulled over and hunted through the menus to find where I could turn on the one pedal driving. I turned that up as high as it would go and would say it is probably about 80% of the Rivian’s maximum setting. In other words, I think it would be great if Chevy added some more levels of regen and turned the high end up more.

Driving the car you quickly notice that handling and ride feel is very much like a lot of other Ford or Chevy trucks. Driving straight, the (extremely thick) steering wheel has about 2” of play off of center before you start to actually move the car. Going around corners requires actual physical force, it’s not at all like the Rivian which can turn with one or two fingers on the wheel.

The ride quality is very floaty and soft—it’s not a Cadillac or an S Class, but it’s not too far off either. If there’s a way to adjust that on this car, I never figured it out but I honestly didn’t try too hard to figure out if it had multiple suspension modes. Acceleration is not as quick as the R1S but if you put your foot down, it’s one of the few times you realize it’s an EV because it is quick to 60mph.

Parking the Silv≡rado is a project because this. truck. is. huge. While it’s the same width as the R1S, it’s 1” taller and it’s 32” longer than the R1S (16” longer than the R1T). The next problem about parking the Silv≡rado is its camera system. While it’s got a backup camera and a top down view, the quality of all the cameras is about on par with my Motorola RAZR from 2004. The cameras a so poor that they are practically unusable and feel dangerous. There are also no guide lines on the screen when backing up, which feels like it should be a must for a vehicle this big.

By the end of my first day with the Silv≡rado, the odometer was at 103 miles and 67% in the tank (without plugging in). The estimated range was 350, so it seems the estimates are very conservative.

The Silv≡rado Hauls

The next day I decided to pick up some soil and large pots, since I had a pickup I figured I might as well use it. The load height of the Silv≡rado is a bit on the high but still very usable (I’m 5’ 9”). With the entire bed full of bags of soil and heavy cement planters, the truck didn’t drive any different than it did empty. This was impressive and Chevy definitely built this truck to be just as utilitarian as its ICE counterpart. I only drove about 15 miles with the full load and the impact on range seemed to be minimal over an empty bed.

By the end of the second day, the odometer was at 138, the estimated range was 318, and the battery was at 60%.

Charging

On the morning of Day 3 I decided to plug in and charge up at the ChargePoint DC fast charger at work. The first dispenser was very confused by the car after going through all the prompts on the charger and in the App and ended the charging session immediately after starting it. The second dispenser did something similar but took 3x longer to begin the seconds long charging session. Next I tried the free ChargePoint dispensers across the lot but those either didn’t work at all or did not recognize the car, the dialog on the screens made it impossible to tell where the failure point was. Charging finally worked at an Electrify America charger.

While charing there, I overheard a couple approaching their ID.4 and saying to each other “what kind of dick blocks a charger in this giant parking…woah! That things electric?!?” Again, the Silv≡rado is aimed at people who are buying their second, third, or seventh Chevy truck, not someone who is considering the Ioniq 5 or a Prius. It identifies as truck much more than it identifies as an EV.

Getting in the truck while it was charging gave me a start because the horn blared as soon as I shut the door. This might have been some attempt at a warning so you don’t drive off while plugged in, or it was a glitch, it wasn’t clear. With that over, the car did not display anything on the center screen while charging so it took a second to figure out that touching the brake pedal turns the infotainment on. The Silv≡rado helpfully wants to conserve power by shutting off about every 5 minutes while you’re sitting there waiting for the massive battery to charge. This is annoying but overcome by touching the brake every few minutes if you want to keep your podcast running. The in-car experience while sitting at a charger is definitely not as polished as it is in a Rivian or a Tesla.

Roadtrip

The indicated range was 416 miles after charging to 99%, plenty for a 230 mile round trip to Lake Tahoe and immediately back.

About halfway up the mountain I made it into an unseasonably late snow storm. The truck handled great on its stock tires, the wipers kept the window clear, and the heater absolutely ripped the entire way.

By the time I got to the top of the top of the mountain to my destination, the odometer was at 260 miles and the battery was at 55%. This translates to 44% of the battery used to drive 115 miles almost entirely up hill. On the way back down, watching the range estimate felt like I’d discovered perpetual motion because it just kept going up and up. By the time I made it back to Sacramento, the battery was at 53% so driving the 230 mile round trip up and down the Sierra Nevada ate through 46% of the battery.

Final Days

The last couple days with the Silv≡rado were mostly driving around town and nothing remarkable happened aside from a massive water leak. The day after the Tahoe roadtrip, I was out running errands while it was raining. After getting into the car in the rain I noticed some drips in the dash to the left of the steering wheel. Figuring that happened from having the door open when getting in, I wiped the dash, drove off. When I started driving drops of water started coming off the A pillar from the side of the windshield. So much water was coming in that it was running down the dash and into the air vents. Looking at the windshield more closely when I stopped, the leak seemed to be coming from a few spots along the left side of the windshield where the glass seemed to have been attached with blobily applied black adhesive. Hopefully this was an early production quirk and not a sign of issues to come.

By the end of my time with the Silv≡rado, I knew I was going to miss CarPlay but missed my R1S more. On balance, the Silv≡rado is a good vehicle with some high highs and low lows.

Pros

• Excellent range
• CarPlay / Android Auto
• Doesn’t strain under load
• Great acceleration
• Strong regenerative braking
• Comfortable seats
• WT trim has an all plastic interior so no carpeting to fuss over with all weather mats
• Should appeal to a broad audience of truck owners that might not have otherwise considered an EV

Cons

• Cameras are objectively terrible
• Charging takes forever (once you find a charger that the truck actually plays nice with)
• Built in infotainment system is not intuitive and very ugly
• Not much ground clearance because of the massive battery pack
• Steering sucks
• Frunk is relatively small despite a large the front end
• WT trim does not have the removable back wall that extends the bed into the rear seats

Awesome review, the Silverado was my first choice before before the Rivian

 

[Robin]

Thanks for the writeup. I had a 2007 Chevy Avalanche and put my deposit down on the Silverado EV last year in January. Then I had health complications and ended up having quadruple bypass surgery in March, 2023. After that, I didn't want to wait until Summer '24 for the Silverado RST to come out and stumbled onto Rivian. Time is too short to waste. May 25th marks 1 year of ownership of my R1T, which I have put 20K miles on it! Best decision ever!

 

[Robin]

I didn’t really think to take too many pictures because when I had the car I didn’t think it was anything too special. It wasn’t until a couple days after I returned it that I realized there weren’t too many out there yet and that prompted me to do the write up in case it helped people make a decision one way or another about checking the Silverado out.

Here are the pictures I did take:

 

[Monkey]

I was excited for the Silverado .. but man its getting awful reviews. Does a lot of things right, but is just crap to drive apparently.

I only got to spend 45 minutes with one, but compared to my Lightning (Lariat ER), the Silverado 4WT was sluggish and floaty and just felt heavy — because it is. The bigger battery is nice for the added range, but it leads to many compromises.

I like the styling of the Sierra variant more, but haven’t paid much attention to how the GM labeled offerings will compare with the Silverado versions, particularly the RST. I don’t have a reservation. I figure this one needs to mature a bit and GM needs to figure out how to seriously manufacture EVs in quantity before I get all excited. Aside from handling like an overweight Cadillac El Dorado, being sluggish due to the extra mass, lesser ground clearance than R1T or Lightning, etc…. It still feels like a very capable truck and the extra range will definitely sway some of those sitting on the fence.

 

[KootenayEV]

I thought when you put "9000 lbs" for the weight that was a quote for the GVWR... but a bit of searching shows curb weight around 8500 lbs for the RST, which seems pretty crazy. I know it has almost 100kWh more capacity than my Large pack (roughly 800 lbs), but it weighs almost 2,000 lbs more.

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