Taking A Quick Spin In The 2024 Chevrolet Silverado EV Work Truck

Just before Christmas 2021, Chevrolet invited media and analysts to a studio space near its Warren, Michigan Technical Center. There we got a briefing and our first look at the Chevrolet Silverado EV in physical form. We’d seen sketches during an EV day GM held up the road at its design dome in March 2020 in the last in-person event I attended before lockdown. The Silverado was meant to be unveiled a couple of weeks after our in-depth briefing during CES 2022, but the Omicron variant of Covid put a stop to that. Now 18 months later, GM is slowly building production Silverados at its Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant as it works toward getting sign-off to ship these trucks to fleet customers.

We were invited to a farm southwest of Ann Arbor to get a more detailed look at these early production trucks and even spend a few minutes behind the wheel. While the fundamentals of the Silverado EV haven’t changed since we first laid eyes and hands on it, some specs have changed (all for the better!) and we now have a better understanding of the design approach to this truck.

The first thing that became apparent when we walked into the studio in 2021 was that Chevrolet seemed to be returning to design concepts from the long-discontinued Avalanche pickup. There was a unitized cab and bed with substantial sail panels, and even a mid-gate, just like the Avalanche. But the rationale was more complex than simply reviving an old visual identity.

Where’s the frame?

Like all of the other pickups and large SUVs that GM has built, the Avalanche was a body on frame architecture. The unitized cab and bed were actually derived from the Suburban SUV rather than Silverado pickup of the time. Unlike the other currently available electric pickups from Ford and Rivian, the new Silverado EV (along with the GMC Hummer it shares much with has no separate frame rails. It is designed from the ground up as an EV. The frame rails are actually an integral part of the body. Unlike the typical truck frame that is mounted inboard of the bodysides, the Silverado rails are near the outer edge.

This design allowed GM engineers to use a significantly wider battery pack than the one found in the Ford F-150 Lightning with nearly double the total capacity in its largest variant. Unlike most battery pack cases, this one is a core part of the structure of the Silverado and is made of steel rather than the typical aluminum and composites.

While this overall architecture makes the Silverado very stiff, it also contributes to a significantly higher weight than its current competitors. A Lightning, even in its most loaded Platinum trim weighs just under 6,900-lbs and the Rivian R1T is about 7,300-lbs. The curb weight of the Silverado work truck is 8,568-lbs. While that’s less than the 9,200-lbs of a Hummer pickup, the luxury RST trim will probably crack that 9,000-lb barrier. The 9,990-lb maximum gross weight keeps it just under the limit for a class 2B truck making this technically a light duty, but just barely. However, that GVWR means the Silverado only has 1,400-lb payload capacity, about 800-lbs less than the most capacious Lightning.

Not tying themselves to using the standard cab structure of the ICE Silverado did provide the EV designers with the opportunity to make it visually distinct and significantly improve the aerodynamics. Back when developing the original Chevrolet Volt in 2007, GM designers came to realize just how significant aero performance is on an electric vehicle. One of the ways to maximize the driving range is to recover as much kinetic energy as possible during braking by turning the drive motors into generators. However, the more aerodynamic drag a vehicle has, the more the atmosphere will soak up that energy when coasting rather than allowing the motors to recoup it.

Not having to account for an engine, allowed the designers to lower the hood height and also move the cab forward compared to the ICE truck. Eliminating the gap between the cab and bed improves the airflow down the sides and the Avalanche-like sail panels behind the cab allow for better control of the airflow around the back of the cab. The result is a drag coefficient of 0.331, which compares favorably with the 0.38 of the gas Silverado, 0.44 of the Lightning and 0.5 of the Hummer pickup.

While it has very similar overall dimensions to the ICE Silverado, moving the cowl forward and down has had several positive knock-on effects. The cab itself has nearly the same dimensions as the gas truck but it has moved forward several inches. Anyone that has driven a modern truck knows that forward visibility has become a real issue, especially if anyone is walking in front of the truck. From the driver’s seat, the Silverado EV has noticeably better visibility than any other current full-size truck and while it’s still much worse than any car, any improvement is appreciated.

Despite Chevrolet officials spoke effusively about the cabin space, perusing the spec sheets of the gas and electric Silverado and Lightning show the numbers to be nearly identical so nothing has really been gained here by going electric. Modern pickup cabs all sit well above the transmission anyway so they all have flat rear floors and the crew cab variants have nearly limo-like rear space. So while nothing has been gained, nothing is lost either. While the lower hood does help visibility and aerodynamics, it does mean the front trunk is smaller than the 14 cubic feet of the Lightning at just 10.7 cubic feet.

When the Hummer EV pickup was launched, it gained some notoriety for being the most inefficient EV on the market. When I drove one earlier this year, it barely managed about 1.2 miles/kWh and the Hummer is rated at about 329 miles of range. The approximately 650-lb weight savings in the Silverado work truck certainly help its range, but so does the aerodynamic advantage, and a variety of other changes. Unlike the huge all-terrain tires on the Hummer, the Chevy truck has all-season tires with much less rolling resistance and a range of software improvements in the battery management and propulsion control that contribute to the 450 mile range.

Where the forward shift of the cab and absence of a gap between the cab and bed helps is the bed length. At 5-feet-11-inches, the Silverado’s bed is six-inches longer than the Lightning with the tailgate closed and 17-inches longer than the Rivian R1T. Unfortunately, the mid-gate that will be in the consumer RST that launches late this year won’t be in the work truck.

Like its chief competitor, the Silverado is offering bidirectional charging capabilities and off-board power. There’s 10-kW of power available to run tools and equipment at a work site or essentials in the home during a power outage after an ice storm. The outlets are spread between the bed, front trunk and a special power strip that plugs into the charge port.

Similar to the Lightning the Silverado work truck is only being offered in a dual motor configuration although with only 510-hp and 615 lb-ft of torque compared to the 580-hp and 775 lb-ft of the Ford. Despite that reduced output, there’s still plenty of performance to tow up to 10,000-lbs with the Chevy, matching the Ford’s maximum. In a foot to the floor acceleration run, the lower power and heavier weight means the Chevy doesn’t leap off the line like the Ford, but it’s more than adequate for a work truck.

Aside from the bed length, the Silverado does have two major advantages over the Lightning. While that massive battery is certainly heavy, the 450 mile range means that this truck will have much more usability when towing longer distances. A Lighting with a 10,000 camper trailer can often struggle to cover 100 miles before needing a charge. The Silverado should be able to get much closer to 200 miles under the same conditions.

The Silverado EV can also charge up much more rapidly. The Lightning has a peak charging power of only 150-kW and can add about 54 miles (based on normal driving rather than towing) of range in 10 minutes. The dual layer battery of the Silverado can consume 350 kW (split between the layers) and add 100 miles of range in 10 minutes. So the Silverado will need to charge less frequently and potentially spend less time plugged in. Due to the sheer size of the battery which is estimated to be over 210-kWh, doing a full charge may end up taking nearly the same time as the Ford, but that will depend on how much charge is needed.

For now, the Silverado EV still has a CCS charging port but sometime in 2024, GM will integrate support for Tesla Superchargers into the myChevrolet app and make an adapter available for owners. It’s still unknown if customers will have to pay for the adapter. Sometime in 2025, probably for the start of the 2026 model year, GM will switch from installing the CCS port to using the NACS port.

We only had about 15 minutes behind the wheel of the Silverado EV work truck and honestly there were no real surprises. Apart from being quieter than a gas truck, it felt pretty similar. There is a handy slot in the passenger side of the dashboard where a phone can be stored while charging. The work truck has rubber floor mats and vinyl seats that are easy to clean. Unlike the Ford which retains the console mounted shifter of the gas F-150, the Silverado gets a slim, column mounted electronic shifter that frees up the console for even more storage space which is plentiful.

The work truck is equipped with an 8-inch instrument cluster display and 11-inch center touchscreen. Interestingly, the Android Automotive based infotainment system in the Silverado EV we drove still has support for Apple Carplay despite GM saying that would be going away from its new EVs including this truck. We don’t know if the trucks will be updated prior to delivery or if they will have this feature and then lose it afterwards.

Chevrolet will shortly close the reservation system for the Silverado EV and begin trying to convert the 185,000 reservations into firm orders. The 450-mile range work trucks are in initial low volume production now and Chevrolet expects to start shipments to fleets soon, although they declined to be pinned down more precisely than that. Those trucks will be priced at $77,905 plus a $1,895 delivery charge. In the fourth quarter, Chevrolet will start shipping a version with fewer modules populated in the battery for a 350-mile range at $5,000 less.

Around that time, retail deliveries of the high-end RST should also start. The RST will be priced around $105,000. When the Silverado was first revealed 18 months ago, GM indicated that there would be a base version sometime in 2024 starting at the same $40,000 point as the Lightning Pro at that time. Unfortunately as battery material costs have increased, both Ford and GM have raised the prices on their electric trucks. The Lightning Pro now starts at $60,000 and GM has said it is increasing the price of its cheapest Silverado although it’s not saying by how much just yet.