An Early Look At Chevy’s New Silverado EV, and A Move To The Future.
GM’s best selling truck, the mighty Chevrolet Silverado, goes full EV next year. In the wake of the Ford F-150 Lightning, GM has created two versions of the Silverado, both impressive and for Silverado lovers, it’s the answer to a prayer. They’re coming, but not here quite yet — pre-order now, production begins in 2023, GM said the basic ‘work truck’ will start at $39,900, followed by a fully loaded $105,000 RST limited first edition model next fall. The Silverado EV will now do battle with Ford’s electric F-150 Lightning pickup, which is expected to arrive this spring starting at $39,974.
GM has completely re-imagined the 664-horsepower Silverado EV, while it still has the rugged, ready-to-go-to-work stance, it’s been reshaped and streamlined. There’s just enough of the old internal-combustion testosterone styling to keep it the Silverado we love. But under its skin, the Silverado EV breaks definitively with the past.
Interestingly, the Silverado EV will be built on GM’s new Ultium battery platform (along with the Hummer EV pickup, which will be built in the same location). GM proclaims the Ultium platform will “bring new power, new force and new flexibility to the Silverado”. But the big news is the range — 400 miles on a single charge.
The electric Silverado will be head-snapping quick, able to race from 0 to 60 mph in less than 4.5 seconds — quicker than the RWD single-motor Cybertruck and about on par with the Ford F-150 Lightning and the tri-motor Cybertruck. (Tesla says the quad-motor truck will be able to hit 60 mph in 2.9 seconds.) The RST version sounds like it could easily knock the wind out of you, with 485kW of total power (664 horsepower) and 780 pound-feet of torque while in the Silverado’s Wide Open Watts Mode.
The 2024 Chevrolet Silverado electric truck is roughly the same size outside as its crew-cab/short-box combustion-powered counterpart, but it’s considerably larger inside. Substantial differences in width and length between the Silverado electric and the GMC Hummer EV serve to illustrate the GM Ultium platform’s range of adjustability. The Silverado EV’s 145.7-inch wheelbase is 10.1 inches longer than the Hummer pickup’s and 1.7 inches shorter than a comparable crew-cab, short-box Silverado—while sharing the costly-to-develop crash safety structures. Varying the width of the suspension crossmembers and length of the control arms alters the track width affordably.
The Silverado EV is GM’s second electric truck, following the GMC Hummer EV, which went into production last year. But when it comes out in late 2023, the electric Silverado will be one of the flagship vehicles in the company’s investment in electric vehicles, as well as the first electric truck for the automaker’s Chevy brand.
