- Chevrolet Blazer EV sales start again, after the automaker clears up some software issues that triggered a stop-sale order in December 2023.
- The Blazer EV has received a price cut across the board, with the least expensive version now starting $50,195 for the LT AWD trim, prior to the $7,500 EV tax incentive.
- More versions of the Blazer EV are on the way, including the performance SS, as well as a less expensive base model.
If you haven’t seen a Chevy Blazer EV on the road this whole time, despite the model having debuted in the third quarter of 2023, there is a good reason for this: Sales were halted in December due to a range of software issues.
As a result, just under 500 units ended up finding buyers in late 2023, before a stop-sale order.
Now that these software issues have been cleared up with updates of the software (but not hardware) kind, the Blazer EV is back on sale.
And it’s suddenly a bit less expensive as well.
The Blazer now starts at $50,195 in LT AWD trim, which represents a price cut of $6,500 compared to when it went on sale in the fall. The RS trim in AWD form is now less expensive as well, starting at $54,595, having originally started at $60,215. The RWD version of the RS trim starts at $56,170, having dropped from $61,790.
After the $7,500 federal tax credit, this brings the starting price of the least expensive Blazer EV down quite a bit, to $42,695 for the LT AWD trim.
But the full lineup of the Blazer EV has not even debuted yet.
There are still more variants on the way, including the 557-hp SS model, and an even lower priced base model in the form of the LT FWD trim. The latter was promised with a starting price below $50,000 before this round of price drops, so we could see these significant price cuts extend to that model as well.
If it feels like you’ve been hearing a lot about price cuts on EVs, that’s because that’s been one of the main themes of 2023, with EV makers hinting at notable slowdowns in demand.
This trend has already forced some significant production cuts for a number of automakers.
Back in the fall of 2023, the Blazer EV was already seen as a bit of pricey offering, with an original starting price of $56,715, especially considering the fact that its Honda Prologue platform mate, which has yet to go on sale, will start below the $50,000 mark.
So a price drop was perhaps inevitable, even aside from these software issues.
The $7,500 tax incentive will also be doing some of the heavy lifting in getting the Blazer EV into driveways in a market that is starting to rapidly fill up with similarly sized electric crossovers.
Soon, all the major automakers will have something in this size category, with EVs still struggling to crack the 8% market share mark nationwide. This means automakers with electric crossovers in this price range are all fighting over a very finite slice of the pie, as EV market share continues to grow at a snail’s pace.
Jay Ramey grew up around very strange European cars, and instead of seeking out something reliable and comfortable for his own personal use he has been drawn to the more adventurous side of the dependability spectrum. Despite being followed around by French cars for the past decade, he has somehow been able to avoid Citroën ownership, judging them too commonplace, and is currently looking at cars from the former Czechoslovakia. Jay has been with Autoweek since 2013.