ANN ARBOR, Mich. — The least expensive version of the Chevrolet Silverado EV will cost more than the $39,900 price previously touted by General Motors when it goes on sale in 2024.
Originally announced in January 2022 with a price of $39,900 before shipping, Chevy officials said economic and supply constraints over the past 18 months have affected pricing. The brand did not disclose the new starting price.
“A lot has changed in the last year and a half with the economic pressures, with the industry pressures, with all the supply chain” constraints, Amy Masica, director of marketing for Chevy trucks, told Automotive News at a media drive event for the Silverado EV work truck aimed at fleet buyers.
GM has started limited production of one Silverado EV trim, the 4WT, at its Factory Zero assembly plant in Detroit. The 4WT offers an estimated 450-mile range and starts at $79,800 including shipping. Customer deliveries are expected to begin soon.
The lowest-priced Silverado EV still will offer more range than the base models of rival electric pickups and be competitively priced when it goes on sale next year as a 2025 model, Masica said.
“It’s going to be the right content for a price leader,” she said. “Affordability is still really important to Chevy.”
For now, Chevy is closing the Silverado EV reservation process as it prepares to convert more than 185,000 fleet and retail reservations into orders, Masica said.
The reservation tally includes about 350 unique fleet customers from multiple industries with thousands of orders, Masica said, though Chevy has not publicly identified the truck’s initial customers.
The first retail-oriented trim, the high-end RST First Edition, is slated to arrive this fall. The RST has a GM-estimated 400-mile range and starts at $106,895 including shipping.
Once trucks ordered by initial reservation holders have been built, Chevy will reopen the normal vehicle ordering process through dealerships, Masica said.
The Silverado EV 3WT for fleet buyers also will arrive this year, starting at $74,800 including shipping and offering a GM-estimated range of 350 miles. Additional trims, including the entry-level model, will follow in 2024.
The 4WT will offer higher towing and payload capacity than originally estimated, Chevy said. Towing capacity increased to 10,000 pounds from 8,000, while payload rose to 1,440 pounds from 1,200, Masica said.
The driving range also has increased. The brand said in May that the Silverado EV work truck’s EPA-estimated range will be 450 miles, versus GM’s earlier estimate of 400 miles.
“We put a bunch of efficiencies into the vehicle, not just with aerodynamics but with the calibrations and just the way the vehicle runs and regenerates while our drivers are driving,” said Nichole Kraatz, the Silverado EV’s chief engineer.
This month, GM followed Ford Motor Co. in reaching a deal with Tesla to allow GM’s electric vehicles to use 12,000 Tesla Superchargers using adapters starting next spring. In 2025, GM will begin to build the North American Charging Standard connectors used by Tesla into its EVs, rather than the Combined Charging System ports used now.
The Silverado EV will get the NACS connector in a model year changeover, though it’s not certain whether that would be 2025 or 2026, Kraatz said.
“We need to do some work with our calibrations to get the efficiency of that plug to work with the battery pack, but we’re going to switch from the CCS plug to the NACS plug,” she said. “We’re not going to have two in the charge port.”
Chevy also is working on a plan for dealers, including for stores that already have installed charging stations with CCS plugs, she said.