2025 Chevrolet Silverado EV LT Test: Broadening the Appeal

Car and Driver

09-07-2025

The 2025 Chevrolet Silverado EV LT is the midtier trim version of Chevy's big electric pickup truck. The Silverado EV lineup launched in spring 2024 in only its highest-level RST trim, with a sticker just shy of $100,000. It had also been available to fleet buyers in the more basic WT (Work Truck) spec, at lower prices and with far less standard and optional equipment.
Now the more mainstream LT version of the Silverado EV is available as well, starting at $75,195. It offered few surprises when we tested it in late spring, earning roughly the same assessments that the rest of GM's huge EV trucks do: "Just a big, hulking machine," said one editor's logbook entry, summarizing the consensus. It offers relatively prodigious range figures, but with its hulking silhouette, it might prove to be too much car for some.
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Marc Urbano
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Car and Driver
Large and In Charge
Unlike GM's smaller EVs, the Silverado EV drives big and heavy because it is big and heavy. Our test version had a curb weight of 8486 pounds, which is more than the claimed 7800-pound curb weight of a top-spec 4WD diesel version of the Chevy Silverado 2500 Super Duty. Its relatives on GM's EV truck platform—the GMC Sierra EV, the Cadillac Escalade IQ, and, of course, the GMC Hummer EV—are just as porky, or even heavier.
As for the Silverado's on-road behavior, its dominant characteristic is understeer. However, the rear-wheel steering wins universal acclaim in all of GM's huge EV trucks. It makes these long, wide, and very heavy vehicles far easier to maneuver in certain uses, though we wouldn't exactly call them nimble. Still, to quote one editor, "Dynamically, who cares? Certainly not the people who will buy one of these."
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The suspension served up more pitch and head toss than we expected, and we were surprised by the amount of electronics noise in the cabin as well. This could be deliberate, to make the Silverado EV seem sufficiently truckish. Or perhaps it reflects less insulation and noise tuning than, say, the Cadillac Escalade IQ we also drove, which uses most of the same underpinnings.
In its default drive mode, the Silverado EV's acceleration is more than adequate to keep up with traffic. Flooring it provides power aplenty to let this large and heavy truck slip into gaps, overtake at will, and generally move through traffic as fast as you want it to. It's quick, especially in its Wide Open Watts mode (that's WOW mode—get it?). It sprints to 60 mph in 4.2 seconds, which is mighty sprightly given the prodigious mass the battery and motors are moving. With WOW mode active, the Silverado EV churns out an impressive 645 horsepower and 765 pound-feet of torque; it makes a little less in daily operation, not that most will notice.
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Car and Driver
GM's regenerative braking algorithms remain among the best in the industry, with the regular setting just perfect for your author and the strong setting adding even more deceleration for those who prefer. Regardless of strength, though, the regen is smooth and superbly blended with the friction brakes, almost instantly intuitive for those who prefer one-pedal driving. At the test track, we managed to brake down from 70 mph in 196 feet, which isn't too bad for something with a curb weight measured in stellar masses.
The Silverado EV, sadly, is monumentally inefficient. Big and buff and tall and wide and heavy uses a lot of energy. So drivers who can't recharge at home overnight or at work will spend a lot of time at DC fast-charging stations, even when considering the vehicle's ability to charge at up to 300 kilowatts at stations that can do it. During our time with the truck, one editor "pumped 97 kWh into it over 30 minutes." That's essentially a full recharge for most other EVs.
With the Extended Range battery, sized at 170 kWh, the Silverado EV LT managed 310 miles in our 75-mph highway range test, which is a fair bit lower than its EPA range estimate of 390 miles. This is the biggest battery available on the LT, although the standard 18-inch tires (ours were 22 inches) are rated at 408 miles. For 2025, you have to move up or down the lineup to get access to the 205-kWh Max Range pack, which has an EPA-estimated range north of 450 miles, depending on vehicle configuration.
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Marc Urbano
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New-School Tech, Old-School Looks
One alluring feature may be the available Super Cruise hands-free highway driving aid. We've tested this in a variety of vehicles and view it as the best such system on the market. Once the initial three-year access period expires, Super Cruise costs $25 per month. Drivers who spend a lot of time on highways or arterial routes—it's not mapped for country or twisty side roads—may see the fee as money well spent.
Visually, the EV version of the Silverado is the electric reincarnation of the 2002–13 Chevrolet Avalanche. Like that early sport truck, it has four doors, an integrated pickup bed, and sail panels to connect the roof to the bed sides. Most notably, both trucks have a midgate that opens and folds to extend the relatively short bed floor. If you don't need to use your rear seats, opening the midgate can let you carry cargo that extends to the front seatbacks—almost like an old standard-cab pickup.
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Marc Urbano
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The market will decide whether the combination of a unibody sport-truck Silverado and electric power is appealing. To date, the numbers aren't great: Chevy sold fewer Silverado EVs in the first half of this year (5439) than GMC sold of its even heavier Hummer EV (7987), though the GMC is available in both pickup and SUV versions.
Android Auto? Apple CarPlay? Nope
The final note on the Silverado EV LT, and indeed all of GM's newest vehicles, is that you can no longer integrate your phone via Android Auto or Apple CarPlay. While startup EV makers such as Tesla, Rivian, and Lucid have never offered that capability, virtually every other carmaker has—for many years.
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Chevrolet provides eight years of free Google Maps navigation, which is integrated with the truck's battery state of charge. When a desired destination is beyond the car's current rated range, Google Assistant will route the vehicle through fast-charging stations. Like Tesla's system, it will tell drivers how long to juice and what level of charge will remain at their next stop.
For other apps owners use, however, they must enter each user ID and password into the in-dash version of the program to set it up. The kicker is that after the initial three-year trial, users have to pay $15 a month to continue App Access (the vehicle's cellular connectivity) if they want their apps to work. (That's on top of $25 per month to continue Super Cruise.) Buyers who choose not to pay the automaker an additional $180 a year must then revert to controlling those apps on their phones. That's distracting at best, manifestly unsafe at worst, and the problem that phone integration was expressly created to solve.
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The Silverado EV's new trim and its more approachable price will certainly garner some attention, especially alongside its high estimated range. But, as with its internal-combustion siblings, this is still a truck, it still feels like a truck, and it's definitely still priced like a truck.
Specifications
Specifications
2025 Chevrolet Silverado EV LT Extended Range
Vehicle Type: front- and rear-motor, all-wheel-drive, 5-passenger, 4-door pickup
PRICE
Base/As Tested: $75,195/$84,985
Options: LT Premium package (enhanced automatic parking assist, 22-inch aluminum wheels, multiflex midgate, 19.2-kW AC charging, Trailer Integration package, Tech package, spray-on bed liner, Super Cruise), $6800; fixed glass sunroof, $1500; soft roll-up tonneau, $800; Riptide Blue Metallic paint, $395; dual-level charge cord, $295
POWERTRAIN
Front Motor: permanent-magnet synchronous AC
Rear Motor: permanent-magnet synchronous AC
Combined Power: 645 hp
Combined Torque: 765 lb-ft
Battery Pack: liquid-cooled lithium-ion, 170 kWh
Onboard Charger: 19.2 kW
Peak DC Fast-Charge Rate: 300 kW
Transmissions, F/R: direct-drive
CHASSIS
Suspension, F/R: control arms/control arms
Brakes, F/R: 14.5-in vented disc/13.6-in vented disc
Tires: Bridgestone Alenza A/S 02
LT275/50R-22 119/116 S M+S
DIMENSIONS
Wheelbase: 145.7 in
Length: 233.1 in
Width: 83.8 in
Height: 78.7 in
Passenger Volume, F/R: 71/65 ft3
Front Trunk Volume: 11 ft3
Curb Weight: 8486 lb
C/D TEST RESULTS
60 mph: 4.2 sec
100 mph: 11.7 sec
1/4-Mile: 13.5 sec @ 105 mph
Results above omit 1-ft rollout of 0.3 sec.
Rolling Start, 5–60 mph: 4.3 sec
Top Gear, 30–50 mph: 2.0 sec
Top Gear, 50–70 mph: 2.7 sec
Top Speed (gov ltd): 112 mph
Braking, 70–0 mph: 196 ft
Roadholding, 300-ft Skidpad: 0.74 g
C/D FUEL ECONOMY AND CHARGING
Observed: 57 MPGe
75-mph Highway Range: 310 mi
EPA FUEL ECONOMY
Combined/City/Highway: 64/70/59 MPGe
Range: 390 mi
C/D TESTING EXPLAINED
Reviewed by
John Voelcker
Contributing Editor
John Voelcker edited Green Car Reports for nine years, publishing more than 12,000 articles on hybrids, electric cars, and other low- and zero-emission vehicles and the energy ecosystem around them. He now covers advanced auto technologies and energy policy as a reporter and analyst. His work has appeared in print, online, and radio outlets that include Wired, Popular Science, Tech Review, IEEE Spectrum, and NPR's "All Things Considered." He splits his time between the Catskill Mountains and New York City and still has hopes of one day becoming an international man of mystery. Read full bio