After reports of problems from InsideEVs, Edmunds and owners, GM is pausing sales of Blazer electric vehicles for now.
December 23, 2023 at 9:27 am ET
After a week of reports of problems with the new Chevrolet Blazer EV, including InsideEVs reporter Kevin Williams suffering a breakdown while driving, General Motors has suspended sales of the electric vehicle to fix certain software problems.
Automotive News reports that the sales freeze was issued late Friday and affects “a limited number” of Blazer electric vehicles. GM hasn't said how many are affected; According to Cars.com, there are currently about 1,000 examples for sale nationwide.
Get the full charge
Chevrolet engineers are working to resolve issues related to the vehicle's touchscreen, “and rare charging tests on some public DC fast chargers,” according to Automotive News. Kevin encountered both problems during his attempted drive from Ohio to North Carolina this week, which ended with the car getting stuck at an Electrify America station in rural Virginia.
“We are aware that a limited number of Blazer EV owners have experienced software quality issues,” the automaker said in a statement to InsideEVs. “To ensure our customers have a great experience with their vehicle, we are temporarily pausing sales of Blazer electric vehicles. Our team is working quickly to provide a solution and owners will be contacted with further information to plan their update. We apologize for the inconvenience.”
Scott Bell, Chevrolet vice president, added: “Customer satisfaction is our priority and as such we will be taking a short pause on new deliveries.” The automaker said the issue was not safety-related.
The sales halt also comes after car buying website Edmunds published a scathing report on the Blazer EV, which employees purchased for evaluation two months ago. The publication reported window switches not working, the infotainment display getting stuck in a shutdown loop, a number of error messages and various driving functions failing. “What we got back from the dealer was alarming: the longest list of serious defects we have ever seen on a new car at Edmunds,” the release said.
Additionally, Blazer electric vehicle owners who contacted InsideEVs following our report pointed to similar issues, as well as other problems with GM's Ultium-branded cars. This name refers to the automaker's new common platform and battery configuration that will underpin all future electric vehicles. Although the Ultium platform is considered crucial to GM's future and its goal of going all-electric by 2035, the cars themselves experienced numerous delays, generally slow launches and problems with early examples throughout the year. (GM added today that the Blazer EV sales halt “is not related to Ultium or Google Built-In.”)
This story has been updated with a statement from GM.
Contact the author: [email protected]