6 meters long 2025 Chevrolet Silverado EV LT review: This is one long pickup truck Has the moment passed for massive electric trucks with massive range? Jonathan M. Gitlin Apr 4, 2025 11:55 am | 20 Does this shape shout FUTURETRUCK at you? It does for me. Credit: Jonathan Gitlin Does this shape shout FUTURETRUCK at you? It does for me. Credit: Jonathan Gitlin Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreWill this Chevrolet Silverado EV be the biggest electric vehicle we test this year? Almost certainly. Fractionally narrower and less tall than a Hummer EV pickup at more than 18 feet (just under 6 m) long and with a curb weight of 8,532 lbs (3,870 kg), the Silverado EV is what happens when Chevy's electric vehicle engineers get tasked with making their rivals over at Ford feel like they didn't try hard enough with the electric F-150.Now that production has been ongoing for a while, Chevy is filling out the lower trim levels. For commercial customers, there's a Work Truck, but for normies, the entry point is now the LT trim, at a tax credit-friendlyif still wallet-munching$75,195 (for as long as the tax credit still lastsand until the effect of pointless and damaging trade tariffs make themselves known, of course).The 645 hp (481 kW), 756 lb-ft (1,037 Nm) Silverado EV LT comes with the smaller of the two battery packs offered to non-commercial customers. That adjective is doing a lot of work there; a useable 170 kWh is indeed smaller than the 200 kWh you can find in the more expensive RST Max Range, but it's also more than double the capacity of something like a Hyundai Ioniq 5. The range estimate is a commensurate 408 miles (657 km), or "just" 390 miles (628 km) if, as in our test pickup, the premium package has been fitted. At 233 inches (5.9 m), this is a very long vehicle. Credit: Jonathan Gitlin The huge battery is there in large part because the Silverado EV LT is rated at a 12,500-lb (5,700 kg) tow rating. An EV's range at highway speed is partly a function of how much drag it creates, and hooking an irregular-shaped trailer to the back of an already aerodynamically compromised pickup truck shape will provide a vivid demonstration of that fact. Since a trailer's mass also factors into things, the exact range hit will differ with each case (and the weather) in practice.I'll have to leave that to the specialty truck reviewers, though. With no trailer here and nothing needing towing, the hardest workout our tester Silverado EV LT got was a trip to Costco, where the frunk proved a little too small for my needs and the bed too inaccessible with its tonneau cover in place, although that perhaps would have been an opportunity to play with the "multiflex midgate." You may remember this feature from the brand's old Avalanche pickup (or maybe even the Skoda Felicia Fun), which lets you fold down the rear seats to open a passthrough to the truck's bed. Instead, everything went in the back of the very capacious crew cab.Passengers praised the back-seat experience, and it's obvious that the layout was designed around being able to comfortably fit four large humans and a bunch of their stuff. There are useful cubbies all over the place, as well as cupholders and USB-C ports. But as someone on the shorter side of things, I found the right side of the 17.7-inch infotainment system a stretch, and the driver's seat could do with another inch or so of height adjustment to provide a little more of a view over the hood. The Silverado's frunk is easily openable with the remote fob. Jonathan Gitlin The Silverado's frunk is easily openable with the remote fob. Jonathan Gitlin The frunk has a volume of 10.7 cubic feet (303 L). Jonathan Gitlin The frunk has a volume of 10.7 cubic feet (303 L). Jonathan Gitlin With the cover on, there's a cargo volume of 57.7 cubic feet (1,634 L), but small loads will need to be secured if you don't want them tumbling around back there. Jonathan Gitlin With the cover on, there's a cargo volume of 57.7 cubic feet (1,634 L), but small loads will need to be secured if you don't want them tumbling around back there. Jonathan Gitlin The frunk has a volume of 10.7 cubic feet (303 L). Jonathan Gitlin With the cover on, there's a cargo volume of 57.7 cubic feet (1,634 L), but small loads will need to be secured if you don't want them tumbling around back there. Jonathan Gitlin It turns out I didn't take a single good image of the interior, and Chevy doesn't have any either, so this is from the car configurator. Chevrolet 44.3 inches (1,126 mm) of rear leg room is more than ample. Jonathan Gitlin Note the gaze-tracking driver monitoring system on top of the steering column. Jonathan Gitlin No CarPlay or Android Auto here. Jonathan Gitlin Not really optimized for city life. Jonathan Gitlin Big wheels, low-profile tires. The range loss for our test Silverado is mostly down to the set of 22-inch wheels that replace the standard 18-inch items. The wheels are shod with tires that have about the same amount of sidewall as those on the electric Mini crossover that followed it in our test rotation, and the result is a firm ride that was rough over winter potholes and damaged roads. Highway expansion gaps are felt as a bit of a bounce, but otherwise, the ride feels a little floaty when cruising. You'll want the premium pack and bigger wheels if you also want the Super Cruise hands-free assist.At lower speeds, I found the Silverado EV a little more cumbersome. As noted, it's a very long vehicle, and you need the more expensive RST version if you want rear-wheel steering, which turns the opposite direction to the front wheels at low speeds, in effect shrinking the 145.7-inch (3,700 mm) wheelbase. You would be much happier driving one of these straight into a garage rather than backing it into a parking space.Having a garage isn't a must, but in my opinion, being able to charge at home (or reliably at work) still remains a precondition for buying a plug-in vehicle. 120 V (level 1) AC charging might work for routine overnight top-ups if your daily driving is 40 miles or less, but it may take more than a day to completely restore a totally empty pack. Did this truck miss its moment in time? Credit: Jonathan Gitlin Level 2 AC charging should take 810 hours for a full charge (Chevy says 10 miles (16 km) in 10 minutes). Although the powertrain operates at 400 V, the pack can rejigger itself at suitable DC fast chargers to accept an 800 V charge at up to 300 kW. Expect a 1080 percent charge to take around 45 minutes; during my week testing the Silverado EV, I only ran the battery down to around 50 percent, so I wouldn't have seen optimal rates had I plugged it in. With climate change now causing wide temperature swings in early March, I can report that I averaged 1.7 miles/kWh (36.6 kWh/100 km) in cold weather, but once things got mild, that jumped to 2.2 miles/kWh (28.2 kWh/100 km).Was Chevrolet misguided in making the Silverado EV? It certainly made more sense when EV optimism was peaking and the marketing departments in Detroit thought that pickup buyers would be easy conquests for a brave new future powered by electrons. That turned out to be the opposite of true, at least for the time being. But the automaker has a decent selection of EVs in other shapes, sizes, and price points, and an advantage to its common battery platform should be a degree of flexibility in which cars it decides to put them in.Jonathan M. GitlinAutomotive EditorJonathan M. GitlinAutomotive Editor Jonathan is the Automotive Editor at Ars Technica. He has a BSc and PhD in Pharmacology. In 2014 he decided to indulge his lifelong passion for the car by leaving the National Human Genome Research Institute and launching Ars Technica's automotive coverage. He lives in Washington, DC. 20 Comments