2024 Chevrolet Silverado EV In-Depth Review - Is This Electric Pickup Incredible or a Dud?

hey folks and welcome to truck King well the world of electric trucks is coming at us fast and here's the latest edition the allnew 2024 Chevy Silverado EV now in this video we are going to test this thing in every way that we know how we're going to tow a trailer with it we're going to drive on the highway do a bit of super cruising I'm going to climb into it show you all the features and then we're going to decide is this the best electric truck on the market let's jump into it right now [Music] let's start by going over the numbers and they are pretty impressive so this is the rst first addition you have to know that because the numbers do change depending on the trim you get well for this truck we have an overall driving range of 440 miles and it can support 350 KW DC fast charging now if you can find one of those Chargers general motor says you can recoup 100 miles of range in just 10 minutes of charging between 10% and 90% of overall charge now the next impressive number horsepower 750 four of them and this truck will make the jump from 0 to 60 in less than 4 and a half seconds let's talk Towing and payload so I like to check on the door jam sticker for the payload and GM still has the best towing sticker in the industry it tells you your VIN specific payload and Tow numbers so payload here 1 1547 lb tow rating is 10,000 lb this truck as it sits weighs 8,953 lb so it is pretty heavy looking at the business end of the truck this is the only box you're going to get there's no different lengths and we get Chevy's multilex tailgate so you can open just your little gate or open the big gate and then pop the little one and that comes down and makes an excellent step to get up into your bed now this bed has a floor length of 5 foot 11 so a little bit bigger than what you're going to find in a lot of short bed trucks and then it has a party trick the midgate that entire wall folds down and you can uh stretch your floor length out to 10 10 in and the 10 foot 10 number is load stop to load stop up there so if you use that midgate yeah you can really haul some long things with your silver Auto EV now the other party trick here in the bed quite a bit of power that you can utilize so we have three plugs one of which is a 240 volt plug which can put out up to 7 . 2 kilow of Power so if you want to drag your uh dryer outside and dry some clothes you can do that or maybe more realistically you want to put a welder in the back of your truck and run it off the 240 you can do that too and there's a plug up there in the front in what Chevy calls the E trunk I would just call it a regular trunk but they had to put a special name on it but yes there's also a plug up there and plugs in the cab so you can really access your power from all around this truck that's really about it now for features why don't we jump in and go for a drive and now folks we're hitting the road in the Silverado EV and uh right now we actually have a over 5,000 lb box trailer on the back about 16 ft long so you know about half of the truck's capacity but the one thing with any high-sided trailer is aerodynamics come into play too so that's always a bit of a better test frankly for a truck than say a flat deck trailer or something like that and just come through this round about here I'm going to put my foot to the floor and just feel the power really nice I mean typical EV it's that smooth power delivery it just comes on in this wave and absolutely jumps up to speed Silverado EV here does make some pretty cool spaceship noises luckily you can go in and you can adjust how much noise you want pumped into the cab um you could have no noise what whatsoever or you can make it even louder so that is a choice but yes it definitely sounds like a spaceship when you put your foot into it but yeah that acceleration with 5,000 lbs on the back you can't compare it to an IC engine would a big V8 have pulled this as quickly sure but it would have done it with a lot more drama with a lot you know big shifts coming through the transmission and of course high RPM and the all the noise that comes along with it so it's just such a different experi exp erience and I would call it just such a more relaxed experience Towing and especially accelerating with an electric truck and now we're at speed we're moving along here at 55 milph and uh no problem whatsoever in terms of the Dynamics now again I know this isn't pushing us for the weight but still I can barely feel the trailer back there and that is a good thing now a part of that equation is actually the rear wheel steering in this truck so when there's no trailer connected at parking lot speeds you absolutely feel rear wheel steering um you just feel like the back end of the truck is just stepping out a little bit to help you rotate around corners it really does pronounce itself but then I was talking to the engineers and they told me about how the rear wheel steering is acting a little bit differently in to Hall mode once there is a trailer connected and essentially it's not being reactive it's being proactive so it is watching the steering control the yaw of the truck and then working to keep this truck as straight as it can to eliminate any trailer sway so trailer sway control has been around for a long time on modern vehicles but generally it would just use the ABS and the braking system whereas because this truck has the rear wheel steering it can actually counteract those forces with a little bit of rearend input so I think that's just another thing that's adding confidence to this drive and I mean yeah look you know hands off the wheel the thing is just dead straight and dead flat now the next part of that equation is the weight of this truck again about 9,000 lbs this thing weighs and that equals a good Towing experience because the tow vehicle is so planted it's it's kind of counterintuitive because the more weight you take out of your tow vehicle generally the higher payload and higher tow rating you're going to get that was kind of the philosophy with say the F-150 when it went to the aluminum body they went aluminum body the tow rating jumped but the truck got a lot lighter and right away I said you know what I understand on paper that works but in practice in the real world if you have a lighter tow vehicle it's going to get pushed around more by the trailer so that's what I'm feeling here because this thing is so heavy so planted it's got the even weight distribution the battery is down low so the center of gravity is quite low it just feels like even if it was a windy day and the trailer was blowing around a little bit it would not affect the steering the Dynamics of the truck at all and that's why you know towing with an electric truck it's such a good experience because you're getting that combination of the electric torque the way it's delivered 100% of the torque down low plus then you get the weight the center of gravity it all comes together to honestly make one of the most sort of calm peaceful Towing experiences that I think I've ever had and and I am talking kind of generally about electric trucks but especially here in this Silverado because of things like the rear wheel steering yeah I don't think you'd have any issue even if you were pulling up to the 10,000lb mark of course you might want to get an weight equalizing hitch but outside of that I think this thing will tow that 10,000 lb without any issues whatsoever and you know what I actually also had the chance to tow with a truck what they call a 3wt trim truck now that wasn't here in Michigan that was back home in Oshawa but let's roll that clip now and I can talk to you about Towing in that thing and now folks we have a treat for you this is our first time in the Chevy Silverado EV we're here in the 4wt that's the four work truck this thing has over 700 kilm of range over 600 horsepower the numbers here are incredible but numbers aside you know I just want to feel it we have extensively tested the Ford F-150 Lightning that's my personal uh experiences in EV trucks have mostly been in the lightning so I'm going to try and uh compare it to that I have it in tow Hall mode or in trailering mode we're here on the GM test track I'm going to floor it and I have a 5,000lb trailer on the back toll rating here is 10,000 lb so we're half of the rating here we go nice okay so I've been driving it not in trailering mode for a while and now it is it definitely hits harder when you're in trailering mode and that was one of my questions because generally tow Hall mode is changing your shift points changing the RPM mapping uh but of course none of that exists here in the TV so what they told me essentially is trailering mode yeah just allows a little bit more energy into those Motors to get you up and moving now I will say that it doesn't hit hit as hard off the line as the F-150 Lightning there isn't quite as much torque being delivered right away and I'm not going to say that's a bad thing the lightning is frankly maybe a little bit of Overkill that thing is so quick off the line but of course every time you take off that quickly you're sacrificing your range and I think all the brands talk about this but GM today has just keep they keep on harping on the fact that the range numbers that they put out they want them to be accurate actually they they want to under promise and overd deliver on those range estimates and in practice I can feel them doing that based on how this thing accelerates I'm not going to call it slow because it still feels pretty darn quick most EVs do but it just it's obvious that that tuning off the line is maximizing the power without putting too much into the truck so that's the first thing I notice um yeah we're here on an internal test track I only have about 10 minutes to test this out so I can't test the range for you as soon as we get one uh you know back home I absolutely will I can pull up our energy usage numbers here though it's saying we're averaging 2.7 kilomet per kilowatt hour which is interesting and of course there's just different numbers now that you have to get used to there's no miles per gallon lers per 100 kilm none of those things apply anymore and then within energy usage and all EVs do this it tells you what's using the energy is it the climate control that's using the energy is it actually driving down the road that's using the energy so I appreciate that too because again in a vehicle like this especially when you know using air conditioning for example is really going to suck down on your range well you want to be aware of how your energy is being used so that's something that's common in EVS but still I like to see it here in the truck I know that range anxiety is an issue when towing I know that Towing is going to cut your range usually in half but outside of that experience and the charging experience pulling a trailer with this silver Auto EV um it's just honestly more confidence inspiring I would say than pulling a trailer with an equivalent gas-powered pickup truck so there's still some hurdles that they have to clear you know charging stations meant for trailers is the first big one in my mind they need to build more pull through Chargers where they have a lot more space but yeah that is all coming we're still early days even though we're into this thing now for a number of years we're still in early days once the infrastructure gets better that will solve the other half of the equation but the actual Vehicles themselves for towing for doing hard work feel so good so back here in the rst and one of the biggest differences between that 3wt and this truck that I drove is the power delivery the 3wt just doesn't come on as quickly not as aggressively it doesn't hit as hard down low whereas this rst yeah the power really does come on as a punch and you know what especially when you activate wide openen Watts mode yes that is wow mode and uh we got a chance to run the truck in WoW mode as well you can see it here okay folks we're in WoW mode 0 to 60 in under 4 and a half seconds let's feel [Music] it and stop yeah wow wow is a fair uh description again especially for a vehicle that's so heavy and you feel the weight behind you just jumping up to speed like that is uh is fairly ridiculous now I will say I did feel sort of halfway down there you know between 50 and 60 MPH at Full Throttle the steering wheel was pulling a little bit one way or the other you really did have to drive it a little bit but in terms of the acceleration yeah it's uh it's quite incredible certainly feels like it's in that 4 second range for sure my last word on Towing I do have to mention we do have all of the towing Tech you'd like here there is an integrated trailer brake controller you are getting trailer profiles so you can save for instance your trailer brake gain and make sure that it's pulled up next time you hook the trailer up and you have the automatic light check so it'll check your lights for you and it flash your lights so you can check them yourselves plus the gross combined weight alert so this thing will actually use essentially torque that is placed onto the motors it can feel the load and then using that it can extrapolate whether or not your overweight that's something that the internal combustion trucks do as well and it's here too so yes all the technology you want for towing is also here now my very last word is to just mention uh driving empty cuz I did that quite a bit today too the truck is comfortable it still has that planted feeling like I mentioned I think the one thing that pronounced itself to me were the 24 in Wheels you're getting massive Wheels small sidewalls cruising on a flat Interstate it feels okay the second you get onto secondary roads or roads around Detroit that we were on with a bunch of broken pavement the wheels tend to hit kind of hard and feel sort of stiff so there is definitely a downside moving up to those big 24s and we drove work truck that had smaller wheels on it 18s I believe they might have even been 20s but it was a noticeable difference they just didn't have that hard jarring hit when you went through sort of the broken pavement stuff however for the most part I will still say it is a comfortable ride but yeah the tires and the wheels do pronounce themselves let's look a little bit more inside this truck now so again what we're in here rst first edition this is top-of the line fully loaded 17.7 in screen here in theer Center stack a little over 11in digital gauge cluster up here I also have a full head-up display so you're getting all of that technology that you could want and then when it comes to the interior appointments here in the rst it's supposed to be you know the sporty trim so we're getting the kind of red and blue stitching the dash is sort of covered in more of a material with some texture to it than just being straight plastic I don't necessarily dislike it but here is sort of one of my first big complaints in this review I do feel like if this is your top trim truck and you know in Canada you're asking over $110,000 in the states you're asking about $95,000 I actually feel like this interior is a little bit plain and maybe it's just because I'm spoiled you know I just got out of a Sierra Denali ultimate but these days these top trim luxury trucks are so gorgeous the seats are so comfortable and then I got in here and just felt like yeah the inter interior it could have gone a little bit further if you really wanted this to be your first kind of wow moment to impress everyone in the industry I just think there's too much black plastic too many plain surfaces yeah the interior could have gone a little bit further of course you know what I will admit though this is obviously subjective this is just what I'm feeling about the interior so please take a look at it here and uh weigh in in the comments do you think this interior looks like it's worth the price tag I'd be curious to hear your thoughts now talking about the functionality of the Interior everything in here is great first of all we get this conf reconfigurable Center storage down here so the cup holders slide back or forward depending on where you want them you can open up this lid right here and get access to the storage down there you can hide the cup holders fully I like having options because it depends on what you want to put in there is it a computer a laptop a cooler a purse these are all different size things so it's nice to be able to yeah switch it up for whatever works best for you now the other thing in the interior which is interesting to me is here in the rst first edition you have to get this fully glass roof and no it doesn't open it's not a sunroof and there is no shade you cannot actually cover it up so you just have the full glass roof at all times now it is heavily tinted I will say that but again to me I just think you should have the option to be able to close it if you don't want it the sun and it is a pretty hot day today the sun you feel it when you're sitting inside it's not blazing hot but it's definitely there so that's one thing I would have uh expected is to have the option to maybe roll a sun shade back but GM didn't do that so again that's going to be up to your own personal preference and if you don't go for this if you go for one of the work trucks well then you don't get the glass roof so that's going to be up to you now the next thing I got to tell you about is the back seat it is absolutely massive I fit back there behind my driving position with tons of space to spare so that's something you're not going to have to worry about is getting in and out of the back seat hauling full-size adults everybody is going to fit in this truck and again that's what most trucks prioritize these days that's why we've ended up where we are where a lot of trucks come with a short bed and a big cab and that's the only way you can get it that's the same here as the so Auto EV there's no other cab or bet options this is the only way you can get it and it does definitely prioritize having space inside over having a longer bed but again the cool thing here is the midgate Chevy has their own solution to sort of offer you that flexibility if you want to haul long stuff you can you just got to give up your back seats still I like having those choices more choice is always better another electric vehicle feature that is here is one pedal drive essentially the moment you lift off the gas pedal the vehicle uses its regenerative braking to slow you down right away so the idea is when you're approaching a light or a stop sign you just start to lift off it starts to slow down and technically you would actually never need to use your brake pedal now don't get me wrong I am a fan of one pedal drive especially once you get used to it but I also think that coting you know when you have one pedal drive on you never Coast whereas I think coasting can still be a more efficient way of driving if I'm not planning to slow down coasting actually makes the most sense because you keep your momentum rather than slowing down and having to speed back up and you know use that power that you just scrub back from the brakes so here in the Chevy you have regular one pedal a high one pedal which essentially is more aggressive but then what I really like is there's a paddle shifter over here at my left hand so what I've been doing today is leaving one pedal drive off so then I'm able to Coast like I'm used to like I like but then as I'm coming somewhere where I know I have to stop you can grab this paddle over here and bring yourself to a stop stop using the regenerative brakes and my favorite part about it it it is pressure sensitive kind of like a brake pedal if you grab it really hard the truck slows down really hard if you grab it soft the truck slows down soft and it's a little finicky because it's not a lot of travel in there but once you get good at it yeah you're essentially breaking the truck just using your left hand and you can become very smooth with it so you're coming up to a slop and you just slow down essentially like normal you know what I keep saying this but I have to say it again more choice is always better if you don't like one pedal like me and you'd rather just do it this way well you have the option to do that so yes having sort of the regen on demand over here with this left paddle I think is a brilliant solution Chevy's not the only brand to do this but this is sort of the best implementation I've seen of it especially because you know of that pressure sensitivity so I've been appreciating that and when you use it the brake lights do come on that is something that every EV should do I believe most of them do but it's still worth noting that yes when you're you anytime the vehicle is decelerating the brake light should come on and here in the Silverado they do of course the next natural question especially when towing a trailer is you know how is the efficiency affected well driving empty today I was regularly seeing 2 miles per kilowatt hour and now I'm in this rst which has been Towing for basically the entire day it's running about 1. 4 miles per kilowatt hour and again the trailer does have high sides but it's not all that heavy so uh yeah we did lose about a quarter of our range if the trailer gets heavier bigger Longer easily you could lose up to half your range and that's still one of the biggest downsides to towing with an electric truck all of the actual kind of physical attributes are here to make it such a good Towing experience but if you have to stop in charge for let's say 40 minutes plus every 200 mil or less yeah going a long long distance still will be annoying now I think we're getting better the ranges are going up there's being a lot more attention paid by automakers to charging stations pull through charging stations are becoming a thing I did also notice that on this truck the charging port is on the rear quarter panel which means you're going to have to back into a charger of course with a trailer on that's basically not possible so if you have have to back in you're going to have to go disconnect your trailer so those pain points absolutely still exist and the automakers are aware of it and they're hoping especially with public infrastructure as it keeps on changing and evolving that slowly but surely we get to more of a parody just when it comes to Lifestyle with the gas truck now you may have noticed another thing hands free we are actually super cruising right now as well uh super Cruise of course rolled out on interstates and major highways but now it's coming coming to secondary roads this is uh what is this called Highway 52 here in Michigan just outside of Ann Arbor and it's not even a divided highway I have traffic right there on the left of me and so far super Cru is doing a great job now I've super cruised with the trailer on quite a bit now and I think my biggest uh Pro about it is just the way it actually steers the vehicle you know I was always taught when towing shout out to Dad slow input everything needs to be slow and cautious and measured if you put sharp inputs into a vehicle with a trailer on you're going to mess up the weight distribution and you can you know get into trouble really quickly and that's what I feel from Super cruise with the trailer that as it's coming around corners as it's navigating the road everything is this nice slow calm input and that then provides confidence to me and makes me feel better about allowing it to just yeah drive itself while I pay attention so super cruising with the trailer on so so far I'm actually a big fan of the system and it has to be said that as of today this is the only brand that will allow you to go handsfree when you have a trailer hooked up so uh yeah that is a unique technology to General Motors and on especially a long road trip it's going to take some of the stress out of the drive well folks we are coming to the end of this video now look electric vehicles in general but especially electric trucks we're still early days but it's feeling like we are making making strides we are making steps to make sure that these vehicles when you go from an internal combustion engine over to an EV there's not a ton of pain points getting that longer range 440 miles even 450 on some of these trims that just makes this more desirable and it means that you have to change your lifestyle less and General Motors understands that a lot of people don't want to go to EVS because of all of those pain points so they are working on them for sure now when it comes to doing truck stuff hauling and towing this thing is excellent the torque from the motors is epic and then having all that weight download just gives you that planted feeling so yes actually going out on the road it feels incredible once we get more and better public charging that's when I think electric trucks especially when you're towing a trailer will really become a viable solution where you can go from your old truck to your new electric truck and not change your lifestyle one bit we're not quite there yet but we are getting there and this truck is helping us so you know what folks like I said that's it for this one please now I need to hear from you what are your thoughts do you like electric trucks do you like the Silverado do you like the way it looks I want to hear everything you have to say about it so drop into the comments right now and let me know oh yeah and while you're down there leaving that comment don't forget to hit that like button hit subscribe hit the notification Bell so you never miss a truck King video heck hit the join button become a member of our Channel and then come right back here to truck King to see see what we're testing next see you [Music]

Channel: Truck King

Views: 10,624

Keywords: trucks, pickup trucks, truck reviews, silverado ev, chevy silverado ev, chevrolet silverado ev, 2024 chevrolet silverado ev rst, 2024 chevrolet silverado ev, silverado ev truck, ev silverado, 2024 silverado ev, 2024 chevy silverado ev, chevrolet silverado ev wt, silverado ev rst, 2024 chevy silverado ev rst, chevrolet silverado, silverado electric, chevy silverado electric, electric silverado, chevy silverado, 2024 chevy silverado ev towing, chevy silverado ev work truck

Id: 6DCiRl7oWMU

Length: 27min 11sec (1631 seconds)

Published: Thu May 23 2024