This Is What It’s Like to Own a Chevy Blazer EV | The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

The infamous Edmunds Chevy Blazer EV. Now we loved Chevy's first proper EV. No, not that one, the Bolt. In fact, we liked the Bolt so much that we decided to buy the Blazer about a year ago to see how it stacks up against the competition. Does it blaze a new trail forward for EVs? It's been an interesting year, let's just say that. Much of our Blazer experience has not been relaxing or pleasant for what it's worth. But when it comes to driving this car, it's really, really nice. But don't just take my word for it. Listen to this guy, this incredibly smart and handsome person we have on staff. But what you need to know is that the Blazer EV has some of the best ride quality I've ever experienced in an electric car. And that includes cars from Mercedes, Audi, et cetera. They just nailed it. It's so relaxing to drive. And on that note, it's also quiet in here. There's not a bunch of noise that comes in from the outside. Love that guy, fantastic. But what exactly about the Blazer makes it so relaxing to drive? I really think Chevy did an excellent job in tuning the brake region and the acceleration in the Blazer EV. It's so easy to be smooth, and this goes a long way, especially if you have motion-sensitive passengers on board. Trust me, they appreciate it more than you know. Now, one of the best things about the Blazer is its range. In the Edmunds EV range test, we did 320 miles, which is fantastic. And in the real world, we've regularly done over 300. Real world is key there. That's better than a dual-motor Hyundai IONIQ 5. You know what? The seats are pretty comfy too. I love the Blazer seats. They strike the right balance between firm and cushioned while still being supportive after hours of driving. Also, for as frustrating as this tech can be sometimes, there are some strong points. Hey, Google, what time do the Dodgers play tonight? The Dodgers will play the Yankees in New York today at 5.08 p.m. One more win, one more win. The native Google tech is great. Google Assistant always recognizes my requests on the first try, and when I was on a camping trip, I was able to ask the system when the sun sets so that I could see if I was gonna be setting up camp in the dark. Also, Google Maps, the screen is bigger, the maps are clearer, you can do that pinch-to-zoom thing, and you can see the maps in the gauge cluster, which I really like. Better than the stuff on my phone. We also appreciate that even though it has this ginormous touchscreen, that Chevy still left some physical controls for the things that matter. Your volume, your fan speed, and your temperature control are all something you can touch. More of that, please. The back seat is fantastic too. There's two ports down here to charge my phone, heated seats on the left and right side, and space everywhere. I'm sitting behind myself as the driver right now, and plenty of room to sprawl out. This is really one of those areas where the Blazer EV is better than the Equinox, specifically in the back seat. It's also great if you have kids. The Blazer was also a winner when it came to transporting my daughter. She's two years old, she still uses a rear-facing seat, and in a lot of cases, that means if she's in the back, then the person in front is a little cramped. Blazer, no such problem. Very roomy rear seat, and my wife can sit in the front with no problems whatsoever. So, we have a relaxing driving experience, helpful technology, and a huge back seat. What's not to like? Actually, a lot. A lot is not to like, and that's before we start talking about all the stuff that broke. By the way, if you're shopping for your first EV, or really any car for that matter, head over to edmunds.com for dealer listings, more car buying advice like this, and even a cash offer for your old ride. Now back to the show. You know Apple CarPlay, AKA the thing that everybody wants in their car? You can get it standard on a $20,000 Chevy Trax, but not in a Blazer EV. And it's not that Chevy can't give it to you, it's that they won't give it to you. They've made the decision to keep Apple CarPlay and Android Auto in all of their gas-powered cars, but not include it in their EVs, for a variety of reasons that I don't need to get into. Now the Google integration is great, but you're still missing out on some of those features that we love with CarPlay. Now, that's fine, like Google Maps is great, but say like my buddy sends me a pin, because we're meeting on the street somewhere. I can't put that pin into the Google system on the car. On my phone, I'd be tap, tap, easy, not in the Blazer. It seems like Chevy is trying to be cool and follow the lead of Tesla and Rivian, but we do not approve. Give people the choice. While you're at it, throw in a better sound system too. We paid 60 grand for this thing, and for the money, the stereo is just embarrassing. I honestly think I get a richer, more balanced sound out of my Bluetooth speaker at home. Yikes, but other issues started to pop up when we shifted the car into drive. Safety assist features are good when they work well, but only when they work well. Okay, so one of the quirks that I simply can't stand has to do with the Blazer's pedestrian and bicyclist warning system. So when you're in the car and you have an approaching pedestrian or bicyclist coming up from the rear, the car will alert you to let you know that if you open a door, there might be somebody or something coming up from the rear. Well, this system will go off even if the car has been parked overnight, and I unlock it and I'm the one that's approaching the car, even if there's nobody in the car. So I don't know who it's alerting in the car, but it's really annoying. And although I love having the safety features, the way that it functions right now, it makes me have to turn them off because I just can't simply stand the car beeping at me when I'm the one that's approaching it to get in. Makes no sense to me. Anyways, fix it in a software update, please, Chevy, because that's annoying. One day while I was backing out of my driveway, the automatic reverse braking system just decided to start slamming on the brakes, and it kept doing it a couple of times. It was only that one day. There was nothing behind the car. I don't know what set it off. It was really annoying. And there's one very important feature that's missing from this car, SuperCruise. I cannot believe that Chevy's first proper electric SUV, their technological flagship, does not have SuperCruise as standard. SuperCruise, I'm sure you know, is their hands-free driving system. It's terrific. You can sit on the highway for half an hour with your hands in your lap, but you could not get it in this Blazer when we ordered one, and even now it's not standard. It's a $3,000 option. I'm not mad. I'm disappointed. Do you hear that? It's loud in here, and not because of an engine, obviously. It's the noise. All EVs are mandated to make a noise at low speed so that you don't hit pedestrians. But for some reason, the one in the Blazer is way louder than it needs to be. And the weird thing is, it stays on even when you're stopped at a stoplight in your driveway, doesn't matter. And the only way to get rid of it is by putting it in park. The problem started early, just a few weeks into owning the car. So one day we got into the Blazer EV and the touch screen was completely blank. So we had no control over navigation, no control over the radio, which meant I couldn't use the navigation to get to my destination. We were going to a new place, and I promised my kids that we would play a certain type of music, and I couldn't control that because it was stuck on some smooth jazz station. Super annoying, but again, like I said, it was a one-time thing. Hopefully it never comes back again. Then after just two months with only 1,400 miles on the odometer, things started to go very, very wrong. So I'm driving home from San Diego from a Blazer EV drive event when things really started to go haywire. First, the window switches stopped working, and then the infotainment system got stuck in a boot loop. I pulled off the freeway, turned it off, turned it back on, and that solved the issue for about 10 minutes. Then it started to happen all over again. And then as we got closer to home, we started to get error messages like service the car soon, service the 12-volt system, service the high-voltage system. And then the infotainment screen died completely. I got home, parked it up, decided to leave it, and just figure it out tomorrow. I come back out to the car later that night to grab some dinner, and we get even more error messages. One of them says charging had failed even though it wasn't even charging. And then we get two more. One says reduced acceleration, and the other one says drive with care. All of this happened in less than a quarter of a day. It was staggering. All of that after just a few weeks. Remember, this isn't a startup. This is a legacy automaker. So we were hoping for more. Our Blazer was at the dealer for over a month. And while it was there, they did some serious work on it. They replaced the entire touchscreen, the entire instrument cluster, all of the window switches, and they had to reprogram a bunch of the modules that were draining the 12-volt battery. And then it gets real good. Just two days after we published our story detailing all of these issues, Chevy issued a stop sale on the Blazer that lasted for two months. They offered to buy back the vehicle from us, but we declined because we wanted to tell the story of the ownership experience, problems and all. After the stop sale was lifted, Chevy issued a firmware update that was supposed to be super comprehensive. Our car spent two days at the dealership to have it installed. Even after that, the issues continued. Specifically in the touchscreen. And remember, this is our second one. There's red and blue and green colors that were bleeding all over the screen, and it was glitching like crazy. Sometimes it would work, but a lot of the times, you couldn't actually access anything because it was freaking out. But not everything was specific to the touchscreen. One of our editors was driving this thing home and got a warning all of a sudden that the all-wheel drive system was not working. And at the same time, the regenerative braking stopped completely. He had to pull over, reset the car to get everything moving again. And then we get to the safety systems. On more than one occasion, we've gotten inexplicable warnings that the Blazer thinks it's getting into a car crash that just wasn't happening. One week, a whole week that I was in our Blazer, the voice control button on the steering wheel didn't do anything. Short press, long press, just jabbing it over and over again, nothing. The last piece of the puzzle is to see what our Blazer's value is after a year of ownership and about 8,000 miles. Our trade-in offer was just below $29,000. For some context, we bought the Blazer a year ago for 60 grand, but then received a $5,600 rebate from Chevy soon after when they lowered the car's starting price. So in roughly 12 months, the Blazer lost a bit less than half of its overall value. It's worth mentioning that we bought one of the very first Blazer EVs in the country. And that could be the causation of why we've had so many problems with this car. But maybe there's a lesson in that. It's not always best to be first in line. Our ownership experience with the Blazer EV has been kind of weird, to be honest with you. This car just got off on the wrong foot and never completely recovered from it. There are things that we like about it. Don't get me wrong. But after a year of ownership, we can tell you that there are just better options out there, including the cheaper Equinox EV. But I wanna hear from you. Do you own this car? Has it been a dream? Has it been a nightmare? Let me know in the comments. And as always, thanks for watching.