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Sadly, it appears like our 2024 Chevrolet Blazer EV’s catastrophic failure in Virginia does not appear to be only a one-off expertise with an unusually bum automotive.
The day after our story went stay, our mates at Edmunds revealed a bit chronicling their strife with the Blazer EV. It has been of their possession for 2 months, however it’s spent greater than two weeks on the dealership’s service division with a laundry listing of issues. Equally, shortly after reporting on our Blazer EV drive, an array of GMC Hummer, Cadillac Lyriq, and Chevy Blazer EV homeowners have develop into far more vocal about their automobiles’ woes.
It looks like the floodgates have opened. Here’s a assortment of emails I’ve bought from Cadillac Lyriq, GMC Hummer EV, and Chevrolet Blazer EV homeowners, all of them explaining their points, a lot of them equivalent to what I skilled, in their very own phrases.
Keep in mind, these vehicles are all on GM’s new Ultium platform, a standard EV structure that finally will underpin each new GM automobile within the close to future because the American large goals to go all-electric by 2035.
There nonetheless aren’t a ton of those vehicles on the highway but; based mostly on our newest information, GM offered about 6,900 Ultium-based EVs between the beginning of the yr and the top of Q3. However extra are coming quickly, together with many new fashions from every of those manufacturers. (We reached out to GM for touch upon these points however haven’t heard again but; we are going to replace this story once we do.)
Glitchy, Damaged Infotainment Programs
The Edmunds employees and I each had the identical drawback: the infotainment would randomly crash, then reboot and flicker for a really very long time, till the infotainment simply would crash completely. This seems to be considerably frequent amongst all three fashions, particularly the Blazer EV, and the Cadillac Lyriq.
Andrew Kozar emailed me twice in fast succession; he’s solely had his Blazer EV since Nov. 27. After 5 days of possession, the automotive’s infotainment display screen crashed and bought caught in the identical loop as we’ve described earlier than.
“[Three days later,] we took it to the seller. Nobody appeared to know what to do,” Kozar wrote. “After two weeks a tech was lastly capable of reproduce the difficulty (after some insistent prodding from myself with image proof I used to be not making it up.) They determined to do a software program replace that bricked each the infotainment system AND gauge cluster rendering it ineffective. As a result of no speedometer means to driving. We’re presently ready on a substitute module and on week three of the seller having my automotive. I used to be fortunate sufficient to drive it 5 days issue-free.”
About an hour after his preliminary electronic mail, Kozar replied explaining that the dealership changed the complete radio module. It was put in, however Kozar says the dealership’s technicians couldn’t sync the brand new module to the automotive, so the automotive continues to be inoperable. Kozar isn’t certain when he’ll get his Blazer again.
Just like Kozar, Jeffrey Wiens bought a Blazer EV on Nov. 12. He mentioned the infotainment display screen conked out three days after taking possession, and he’s spent three and a half weeks with the dealership, with an infotainment display screen that continuously crashes, and reboots with not a lot recompense from his native GM seller.
Sammy Kumar had a 2023 Cadillac Lyriq, however comparable software program woes with the infotainment display screen and Tremendous Cruise noticed him commerce the automotive in for an Escalade-V.
“I had the infotainment problem the place the display screen would simply minimize out whereas driving as effectively however the problem that made me promote that automotive was Tremendous Cruise,” Sammy mentioned. “I had it on my earlier Escalade and it labored flawlessly. The Lyriq on the opposite would steadily disengage from SC with none actual motive. There was a stretch of freeway that was simply straight and it disconnected 4 or 5 instances. It was sunny, with fairly low site visitors, and no apparent the reason why it will disconnect. There was one other incident the place the automotive simply began merging into one other lane with none warning. I had Tremendous Cruise’s computerized lane change characteristic which shows on the display screen earlier than it switches lanes. I believe there was a lag with the show/infotainment system as a result of there have been different cases the place I used the flip sign to invoke the on-demand lane departure and the alert did not present up till after the automotive had switched lanes.”
Regardless of the Escalade and Lyriq each utilizing Google-based techniques, Kumar says the Escalade’s has been much more dependable.
Charging Points Aren’t Unusual
Infotainment points are one factor. Positive, they are often presumably debilitating in the event that they have an effect on the gauge cluster to the purpose the place there’s no method for the motive force to find out how briskly they’re driving. However largely they could possibly be labeled as annoying, and never fairly dealbreakers.
Charging points, although, can significantly influence the perform of the automobile. A number of homeowners reached out and mentioned they’ve skilled charging occasions which have despatched their automobiles to the service division.
Certainly one of our common commenters, the person named Carac, and his GMC Hummer EV could also be probably the most telling experiences right here but. His truck had two completely different charging points after making an attempt to quick cost at Electrify America stations, and one incident occurred at the exact same DC quick charging station the place I bumped into issues in Wytheville, VA.
“On Oct. 4th, I ended in Columbia, South Carolina at 11:35 p.m. at about 30%.,” Carac wrote. “I used to be the one one there, plugged right into a 350 [kilowatt-hour DC fast charger], it charged for a minute and 55 seconds, max 300 kW then I seen the cost fee jumped out of the blue and it stopped charging, then the ‘Cost Port Error’ got here up on the display screen,” he mentioned, by way of e-mail. Sound acquainted? After that occasion, he mentioned his Hummer wouldn’t cost in any respect.
The native GM seller cleared the codes, and all was effectively. Till Nov. 21, anyway. That is when the Hummer did the identical factor in Wytheville. The one distinction is that the automotive would cost however at a really gradual fee of 9 kW. Once more, the native GM seller cleared the codes and the automotive continued on. To be secure, Carac’s been avoiding Electrify America stations completely.
The Blazer EV and Cadillac Lyriq are additionally not resistant to charging points. Reader Invoice Boyance handled glitchy infotainment and charging points. His Blazer refused to cost, then the “infotainment system went haywire,” and a “crimson warning mild got here on.” Boyance says the seller took the automotive again, changing it with a gas-powered ICE Blazer RS. Likewise, this instance on Reddit tells of a Lyriq that may solely cost at 7 kW on a DC quick charger.
In fact, I did get some correspondence from Lyriq, Hummer, and Blazer homeowners who have been happy with their buy, even when their automobile had points. Nonetheless, it’s greater than a little bit regarding that there are such a lot of points with the Ultium-based vehicles regardless of solely a relative handful being on the roads.
Within the emails, there’s a tone of frustration, as most of the troubled homeowners have mentioned that they don’t really feel that the service departments really know what’s fallacious with their automobiles, or the way to repair them.
35 Pictures
GM and Electrify America are nonetheless engaged on determining precisely what occurred throughout our drive to North Carolina. We are going to replace you when we have now an official reply from each sources.
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