America’s most affordable electric vehicle with some 315 miles of range? Chevrolet says that title belongs to its Equinox EV.
An Equinox in name only, the electric Chevy we’ve been given for a week to review is built on GM’s Ultium platform that also underpins Chevy’s Silverado and Blazer EV, as well as the Cadillac Celestiq and GMC Hummer to name …
I'm heading over to St. Pete for a show tonight, so I have 170 miles of I-4, followed by finding a good charger, then 170 back. Plus Super Cruise :)
So far I kind of dig the thing. It's very much a Chevy analog to the Ioniq5, albeit packaged in a bit more of a conventional small SUV format. But it's got an 85kw battery pack, which should be good for 250 miles+ of steady freeway cruise. The view out isn;t quite as panoramic as the Ioniq. The Chevy has a deeper and higher dash and you actually sit a long way from the windshield base, but the overall package feels decent on the road, at least in my limited use so far.
I'll try and check in from the road this evening.
JG Pasterjak said:I'll try and check in from the road this evening.
I mean, if Super Cruise works as well as GM says it does, that shouldn't be a problem. 
In reply to Colin Wood :
Super Cruise is, indeed, awesome. (But I still pulled over to post this)
Oh yeah, we’re getting an EV this week.
I believe CEO Mary Barra promised these to have low entry prices. How much is it? Is there a $35k Equinox?
Any acceleration times floating around?
In reply to Datsun240ZGuy :
The entry-level 1LT has a starting MSRP of $34,995, but, per Chevrolet, it won't be available until later this year.
Until then, the 2LT–like the one we have–is the most inexpensive model currently on sale with a starting MSRP of $43,295.
Had a Hyundai EV. Bought a equinox Ev last month. Chevy has some catching up to do.
If you use the app to turn the car on (precooled car is amazing), you get an immobilizer error, and a message to service the car immediately. Wait 4 hours, and the car will come back to life. I'm sure it just needs an update, but unlike Hyundai that requires going to the dealership. Whenever you put the car in reverse, you get some auto brake thing that slams on the brakes when you get to the bottom of the driveway. I can't find any way to disable that permanently, so you have to turn it off each time. The one pedal driving is either on, or off. With the Hyundai you had levels, which was nice.
The overall quality is really good. Beautiful screen, comfortable ride. All of my complaints are software, but they have some work to do there.
It does look really good though.
In reply to lnlogauge :
Your experience lines up with my brother's advice. He works at the GM proving ground, getting up close and personal with the software update side of things. He has been saying that he'd recommend staying away from the GM EV stuff for now - the software just isn't ready.
Those are some significant bugs. But at least they can be fixed with a new software load. Too bad GM doesn't have OTA updates working.
Am I missing something? Where's the "REVIEW"? 4 Photos and 8 sentences? What kind of clickbait content is this?
These "live threads" are your chance to steer the review. They've just taken delivery of the thing, they are performing the review RIGHT NOW! What do you want to know?
SkyNoLimits8 said:Am I missing something? Where's the "REVIEW"? 4 Photos and 8 sentences? What kind of clickbait content is this?
Hey it got you to post so clearly it's working :)
But, yeah, I did close to 400 miles last night to the west coast and back and have plenty of thoughts. I'll throw up some words when I'm in front of the computer this weekend. Interesting car.
So I made a trip across the state yesterday to go see Front 242 in my old hometown of St. Pete. Show was awesome. Thanks for asking.
Efficiency on the way over was better than predicted by the on-board navigatoestimatobot. I averaged 3.6 mi/kwh, but this was likely bolstered somewhat by a LOT of slow traffic on I-4. For reference, my wife average 4.1 mi/kwh in her Ioniq 5 and probably 70% of her driving is freeway too and from work. I think the main difference we're seeing here is the 2wd Hyundai vs the AWD Chevy being slightly less efficient due to additional driveline drag.
First stop once I got to St. Pete was the old mall I used to hang out at which now has feral parrots living in all the trees and light poles in the parking lot.
Like so many things in St. Pete, even the mall got more awesome after I left. Thanks guys.
Anyway, my main purpose in going to Tyrone Square was the Electrify America charging station. I have accounts with all the major charge networks, but we use EA most frequently because we get two years of free EA charging from Hyundai, and a screaming good rate whenever we just use EA to buy power. There was actually a line for the five working electro-pumps (out of 6 total) when I got there, but I only had to wait a few minutes to get into a spot.
I put in 50kwh in a little over 40 minutes (charging from 47% to 97%) and at the EA price of $.56/kwh plus tac the total ws $28.16. But with our EA/Hyundai discount the total was $6.65, which was pretty awesome.
You've probably already done the math, but a gas car getting 30mpg would have cost about $16 to make the same 170 mile drive. That same 50kwh charge at home would have cost about $5. So, yeah, public charging is not much of a deal unless you have some sort of discount program or free juice.
When I was finishing up my charge the owner of the Equinox EV next to me came back as well and I got to chat her up about her new ride.
The Equinox was not Megan's first EV—she'd previously driven a Bolt—but she fell in love with the Equinox as soon as she drove one. She does a lot of mid-distance driving, and the biggest upgrade for her was the adaptive cruise and lanekeeping, which she attributed to helping her become a more confident highway driver. And that's kind of interesting because I frequently talk to folks who are nervous highway drivers who actually get even more worked up when the nannies start nannying. Nice to see that for this driver at least, Chevy has nailed the right amount of assistance without intrusion.
I have driving impressions, and Super Cruise impressions (boy do I have Super Cruise impressions), but those will have to wait until tomorrow because it's late and I'm tired.
What sort of peak speeds did you see? Interesting that the Equinox is rated at 150kw, rather than the higher charge rates of GM's flashier Ultium projects. IIRC the Hummer can charge at 350kw.
Any chance you have a charge curve from the session? I'm betting 90-97% was most of the time.
Also, "only five chargers" is a great illustration of the difference not just between the number of Tesla locations, but the number of chargers at each location. It's pretty common to see 15-20+ chargers at each location. 
Tom Suddard said:What sort of peak speeds did you see? Interesting that the Equinox is rated at 150kw, rather than the higher charge rates of GM's flashier Ultium projects. IIRC the Hummer can charge at 350kw.
Any chance you have a charge curve from the session? I'm betting 90-97% was most of the time.
I don't have a curve but peak speed was 126. Most of the time that I was checking the app in between bits on my Italian beef at Portillos it was hovering around 90-100. At 80% it hit the wall pretty hard but stayed around 40-50 the rest of the way, which is better than Dana's Ioniq does at our local EA station. Although our local has stone-age chargers and you;re lucky if even two of the six are working at any given time. These appeared to be pretty new and modern and the touchscreens actually worked.
When I pulled up the guy in line in front of me was apoplectic that one of the chargers was out and I was like "Oh, buddy, let me tell you a story about how amazing this actually is..."
$.56/kwh is higher than what we see around here, it's usually 39-42 cents. I've figured my "gas cost equivalency" is about 40 mpg assuming mid-grade fuel - that number swings around depending on fuel costs and electricity costs.
Looking at our usage history, 2% of our power has come from public chargers in the past 12 months. It was 13% in 2023 - more road trips, including a 1000+ mile one to Vegas.
This must have been what it was like to read car reviews in the 70s gas prices. All that matters is the efficiency :)
I just finished my first drive in the Equinox. It was only a few miles around town, so expect more impressions in a few days.
It's a nice shape and size, and the interior feels "cheap but they clearly tried, in a pleasant way" sort of like the Maverick. I like it. And it's hard to argue with the price--this thing is actually cheaper than the Tesla Model Y.
Driving-wise, it's meh. I mean, it's a given that it drives great vs. a normal Equinox--that's the whole point of EVs--but it's nowhere near the electric competition from Ford, Tesla, or Hyundai. It feels slow around town, closer to a Leaf than to a modern EV (Chevy claims a 5.9 second 0-60 for the all-wheel drive model). The turning radius is great, but the steering wheel is also a great way to feel all the torque steer while you're losing stop-light drags to the Camry next to you. Opt for the two-wheel-drive variant, and the claimed 0-60 drops to 8 seconds.
I've already noticed issues, too. Under heavy acceleration, there's a distinct driveline vibration and noise that feels like driving down a gravel road (or more likely failing CV joints). Maaaaaaybe it's synthetic, in an attempt to aid your sense of speed? But I'm willing to bet our test car is just broken. The driver's door handle shudders and binds when retracting, too. And JG said he encountered a few bugs where the car wouldn't shut off.
None of these complaints overshadow the worst part about this car, though: The infotainment system. Like Tesla and Rivian, Chevrolet decided to not include Apple CarPlay as part of a scheme to hoover up user data. Unlike Tesla and Rivian, though, they've replaced it with a horrible, counterintuitive, ugly, miserable system that meant I literally had to pull over to put on a different podcast. Choosing a show meant literally tapping through my phone's file system on the display (complete with folder icons) until I finally found one.
The user data collection is what it is--almost every modern car does it--but this system makes me long for the days of cassette adapters and iPods with click wheels. It alone is a reason to skip the Equinox and choose any of its competitors instead.
(And no, I'm not paying GM a monthly fee to use their built-in Spotify app. My phone already has a data connection and all my stuff on it).
Yeah pretty much all that.
It's a nice try and has some nice ingredients, but the driving experience and the perceived quality is not at the level of the Ioniq5. The outward view feels buried, due in no small part to the fact that the base of the windshield may a well be in a different time zone. The wipers are across the bridge while you're still at the toll booth. I also didn't love the seats. I did about nine hours behind the wheel Friday and my hips and lower back deefinitely felt it. I hate to criticize a car too badly for seats, since they;re a very personal thing, but for me they're just not working.
All that said, I'm completely smitten with Super Cruise. I had the chance to try it out for the first time a couple months ago in a Silverado towing a trailer, and it was impressive. But that was 20 miles at a Chevy media preview. Friday I went end to end on I-4 and back and I loved every minute of Super Cruise.
SC is an advanced cruise control that allows for fully hands-off operation on limited access highways. Activate SC, set your desired speed, and the car will take charge of maintaining a buffer around the car, passing slower traffic and generally taking over the tedious parts of highway travel. It also manages stop-and-go traffic brilliantly.
On the return trip, I hit a 15 minute section of stop and go traffic (at 1am, because I-4 is a hellscape), and never touched a control. The car sensed the slowdown ahead, checked its speed, stopped when we got into the pack, and managed the stop-and-go all by itself. Once traffic cleared it accelerated back to cruising speed and kept on cruising. It's pretty much my favorite non-Tesla driving assistant available at the moment.
It does insist on a certain level of engagement to keep running. You can't check out completely and just start watching X-Men '97 on your iPad, but sitting there with your hands in your lap listening to a podcast and enjoying the scenery a bit more is pretty relaxing. I'm not sure I'd insist on this system in a car, but in a truck I was doing a lot of towing with it would be a huge bonus. I was really impressed with its ability to handle a trailer in traffic during our sampling of the Silverado, and I'm hoping we can get Chevy to loan us one to tow to an event with at some point as I'd love to to some extended tow testing.
Tom Suddard said:The user data collection is what it is--almost every modern car does it--but this system makes me long for the days of cassette adapters and iPods with click wheels. It alone is a reason to skip the Equinox and choose any of its competitors instead.
I drove to work today in a 35 year old Miata using a cassette adapter and a click wheel iPod :) It just works. I miss headphone jacks and aux in ports.
Oh, and a thought about the lack of Car Play:
While I hate the lack of Car Play, I did like the fact that Chevy uses an integrated Google Maps package as its main navigation system. it's the one part of the infotainment system that's intuitive and user friendly, because it's Google maps. It' really nicely integrated into the on-board system and is a real bright spot in a system that otherwise seems to have a bit of a steep learning curve.
But consuming media from your own device seems needlessly hostile and convoluted. Well, I guess there is a need, but the need is "increase stock value for Chevy shareholders" and not "create a better driving experience."
So, it's got significant software bugs. It's got questionable driveline vibrations and noises. It is meh to drive. It has a hostile infotainment system.
Sounds like a winner!
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