It’s hard to step back from a creative and/or complicated work that you’ve made and evaluate it clearly. We’ve all been there, from something as simple as a stew or something more complicated—like one of these reviews. You spend so much time on something that you lose perspective, no matter what you try. Does this stew need more garlic? Does this essay on the Porsche 911 need more background? There comes a point where you’ve spent too much time on something and need to step away, and maybe ask someone else what they think; special thanks to our managing editor for fixing that 911 piece … and all my other the Enthusiast Corner pieces.
I wish General Motors did that with the 2024 Chevrolet Silverado EV RST. [What, ask me for help?! Yikes. I can barely help myself! —Ed.]
All told, it’s an impressive vehicle. It largely succeeds at what it sets out to do—I think. Look cool? Yep. Practical? Yep. Lots of power? Yep. Lots of tech? Sure. Comfortable? Pretty much. Good range? Oh, hell yeah. The Silverado EV RST strikes me as though an engineering team were given a set of targets and they held up their end of the bargain, absolutely nailing them and giving the people what they wanted … but maybe missing the forest through the trees. GM’s corporate bloat is on display here; it feels like the massive coalition of teams behind this truck maybe weren’t all talking to each other, even if they were successful in hitting their targets.
The Silverado EV’s biggest claim to fame is its intercontinental range, courtesy of its ginormous battery. It’s the same 205 kWh obelisk of lithium found in the GMC Hummer EV. But because the Silverado EV isn’t a brick on mud tires like the Hummer, that massive battery is good for an estimated 708 kilometers of range—the best on the market. And it can charge quickly, picking up over 150 km in just 10 minutes on a healthy, Level 3 fast-charger. If you’re still not convinced that the F-150 Lightning Flash’s 500-and-change kilometres in one shot isn’t enough, or you just like having a lot of reserve capacity, Chevy’s got you covered.
This comes at a cost, though. The truck weighs more than 9,000 pounds, roughly a third of which coming from the battery. This makes it significantly heavier than the diesel-powered Silverado 2500 HD we sampled last year—which itself is so heavy that it’s hard to find weight data for because it’s classified as a commercial vehicle, and doesn’t adhere to passenger car and light truck standards. While the team as Chevrolet has done a decent job making such a heavy vehicle drive well, it can’t hide from the fact that it’s a tank.
The Silverado EV RST is an awkward thing to manoeuvre. Its steering is the first sign that the engineering team should have stepped back and asked for a second opinion. Some trucks err towards being heavy and slow, which carry obvious drawbacks but are typically very tactile and deliberate. These trucks are easy to position and satisfying to helm. Most trucks these days take the opposite tack, going for light and easy-breezy steering designed to feel effortless, hiding the heft of the truck behind a feather touch.
The Silverado EV has somehow found the worst of both worlds, in that it’s kind of heavy and kind of slow like a big HD truck, but seemingly completely dissociated from the front wheels, feeling ponderous and just … strange. It’s quite similar to the Hummer EV; I didn’t like that at first, but I cut it a pass because it’s a brick on mud tires. The Silverado EV is supposed to be a Silverado which is, from experience, supposed to be lovely.
This is made worse by the fact that the Silverado EV RST is huge, and like every one of GM’s Ultium electric vehicles, very wide for its class. I get why they opted for this; it’s an easy to way to add space in a vehicle, which opens more room to cram battery cells into without dramatically increasing its footprint. This has been fine thus far on cars like the Lyriq and Equinox EV. It was even fine on the gigantic Hummer EV, because Hummers are supposed to be like that. But on the Silverado EV, it just adds to its already cumbersome feel, as if you have so little margin of error of keeping within the dotted lines it barely fits into.
In any urban setting, it’s difficult. In a busy parking lot, you’re at the mercy of everyone else dutifully staying centered in their spaces, because it’s not their fault you bought a tank that barely fits. To the Silverado EV’s it’s fitted with four wheel steering that allows it to finagle itself just about anywhere, but whether or not you’ll be able to open the doors after is another matter entirely. It’s also long—longer than a Suburban—so even if you find a suitable spot. you’ll be hanging out on at least one end. Yes, I’ve spent a lot of time complaining about a big and truck being big and heavy, but I typically like stonkin’ big and heavy trucks. This Silverado EV just feels big without the stonk.
The upside to this is that the Silverado has a relatively long bed, especially so in this modern era of every truck being a short-box crew cab. They’ve crammed nearly six feet of bed into its footprint, which expands further with the Midgate open. Ah, the Midgate—like the old Chevy Avalanche, the cabin end of the bed opens into the rear seat area, lengthening the space up to nine feet with the tailgate closed. The rear window can be removed as well, but I could not for the life of me figure out how to remove the filler panel between the midgate and window. It also bears mentioning that this added capability is not available on the Work Truck trim levels, instead locked in the ivory tower of the nearly $120,000 RST.
There’s more features hidden behind the top-dollar RST model—some hot, others not. On the hot side is GM’s Super Cruise hands-free driving system, which now works better and on more roads than ever. It even does an impressive job of keeping the Silverado EV’s girth centered between the dotted lines on winding stretches of highway. On the not-so-hot side is a sweeping 17.7-inch touchscreen. I wasn’t sure about in the Blazer EV, and I’ve now decided I definitely don’t care for it.
Notably, it doesn’t have Apple CarPlay or Android Auto, as Chevy says this system is so good you won’t miss it. Personally, I don’t care that much because I don’t like or use them, but I recognize that I’m in the minority on that point. Nevertheless, I have to disagree about the interface being so good that that level of phone connectivity won’t be missed. It’s not bad by any means, but it’s far from the most intuitive interface on the market. The brightness controls only turn down the contrast, leaving the screen greyed-out but still bright. And every time your phone gets a notification, it’ll automatically change the audio source to your phone’s Bluetooth connection—which is very annoying, because you have to manually change back to whatever else you were listening to, every single time. I got so annoyed with it that I unpaired my phone—the exact opposite of what Chevy wanted. It’s this kind of tunnel-vision that makes me wonder if maybe everyone needed a few days away.
Another baffling software decision is the fact that drive modes are buried—Home, then Drive Modes, then Normal, Off-Road, or Towing. There is a Sport mode, but it isn’t listed. It’s literally an icon at the bottom of the screen that looks like a bat symbol. Tapping it triggers a short animation and a cheesy sound effect before engaging “Wide Open Watts” mode. This unlocks the full might of the Silverado EV RST’s 754-horsepower dual-motor setup, transforming it from surprisingly mild to pretty wild, but not as ridiculous as the three-motor Hummer EV. One unpleasant side effect, however, was the front end getting light and wanting to wander under hard acceleration.
Aside from hiding its full potential behind the bat symbol—I’m a firm believer that drive modes should change response, not output—the Silverado EV’s powertrain is brilliant. Throttle tip-in and response feels great, and the regenerative braking calibration is among the best in the industry. Even in its mild mode, you’re never left wanting for more power, even if it’s not as eager as the F-150 Lightning.
You might, however, be left wanting for a slightly nicer cabin. The Silverado EV RST is very un-traditional in its design, echoing the dramatic shapes and sporting pretensions of the Blazer EV rather than the more squared-off and conventionally handsome design typical of a truck. Red accents and contrast red and blue stitching throughout add a splash of colour to the cabin, but the stitching was visibly unevenly applied on the dashboard. There’s some unfortunate material choices, too, like the coarse surface on top of the doors, and the low-rent plastics on the rest of the doors and centre console. [Well well well, now who’s complaining about hard-touch plastics?! —Ed.] I’m not expecting a Rolls-Royce here, but it feels like the money budget went to a pair of screens, some accents, and that’s it.
It’s by no means a bad place to spend time, but there are nicer places to spend time in this price bracket. The seats are comfortable enough, if lacking some support. The cabin is generally pretty well-insulated from wind noise, but the F-150 is a touch quieter and has a more compliant ride. This isn’t to say the Silverado EV doesn’t ride well—it’s on air suspension and the structure feels incredibly solid—but nearly 8,800 pounds of heft pounding the road through massive 24-inch wheels tends to make sharp bumps feel extra sharp.
I didn’t want to be such a downer on the Silverado EV RST. It’s an otherwise strong effort that really excels at delivering the things people say they want: more power, more range, more room, more bed, more tech—here ya go, buddy. What else did you want? Maybe I wanted GM to take a page from Ford and simply give us an electric Silverado, not necessarily a different thing that has the same name. For whatever it’s worth, it can hang with the best of ’em, with a 12,500-pound towing capacity and a 1,800-pound payload.
There’s a lot to like here, and I think the more utilitarian Work Truck trim makes more sense at their price points. At $117,499 as-tested for this 2025 Chevrolet Silverado EV RST, I’d be more inclined to shell out for a Lightning if I wanted something that felt normal, nice, and electric, or a Rivian R1T if I wanted something novel, nice, and electric. The Silverado EV falls in the middle and feels lost; it has potential to be a winner, as long as GM takes a moment to step back and breathe.
