2025 Chevrolet Blazer EV Yearlong Review Arrival: Stress-Testing a MotorTrend SUV of the Year

As a legacy automaker, Chevrolet is expected to get it right. The Bow Tie has been around for more than 100 years, and the brand frequently develops products that are worthy of our Car, SUV, and Truck of the Year awards. Most recently, Chevy snagged our Golden Calipers for the excellent Colorado pickup and the Blazer EV, which reestablished one of the oldest automakers as a force within the burgeoning electric vehicle market.

To our shock—and no doubt the surprise of customers that snapped up Blazer EVs during the first year the midsize electric SUV was offered—Chevrolet stopped production of its award-winning model due to a slew of owner-reported software issues. The list was plentiful, including brake, motor, battery, charging, and body control systems issues, along with infotainment system crashes. After a crash course of software fixes, the automaker put the 2024 Blazer EV back on sale a few months later at a new, lower price after fixing the problems.

Enter our 2025 Blazer EV RS RWD, which joins our yearlong review fleet for the next year. Not only will this loan allow us to test to see if Chevrolet resolved the issues plaguing our former SUV of the Year winner, but it’s also our first opportunity to get extended exposure to a non-AWD Blazer EV.

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How Our Blazer EV Arrived

Our Blazer EV rolled into our garage wearing black exterior paint over a black and Adrenaline Red interior with multicolor ambient lighting. As the sporty-looking RS model, our Blazer EV test car comes equipped with flashy 21-inch wheels with machine-finished faces and black-painted accents. We’ve called the Blazer EV a swagger wagon in prior reviews for its fiery styling, but this darkened look imbues it with government vehicle seriousness. And although our Blazer EV RS RWD is stealthy on the outside, its cabin has already drawn commentary from “fancy” to “loud.” For the next year, we’ll be paying attention to how the black paint and red synthetic Evotex seats endure.

In addition to spot-fixing issues with the Blazer EV, Chevrolet made some upgrades for the 2025 model year. As a result, our Blazer EV RS RWD benefits from a power bump to the tune of 365 hp from a rear-mounted permanent-magnet motor. That’s 25 hp more than the version that made its debut for 2024. It’s also far more powerful than the Blazer EV RS AWD that competed in SUV of the Year, which churned out 288 hp from its dual front permanent-magnet/rear induction motor setup. Even with the 2025 update, the all-wheel-drive Blazer EV only makes 300 hp. We’re expecting our long-term Chevy to be at least as quick as the SUV that took our Golden Calipers, if not slightly quicker.

Underpinned by General Motors’ Ultium platform, the Blazer EV wowed us with the way it made electric vehicle technology feel approachable. That’s something we’ll be confirming over the course of the next year, but the specs suggest that our minds won’t be changed. Our Blazer EV RS RWD receives a large 102-kWh battery pack with DC fast charging speeds of up to 190 kW and AC charging up to 11.5 kW. We’re also encouraged by our test car’s impressive EPA-rated range of 334 miles, besting the 283 mile AWD versions.

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A Thoroughly Modern Chevy?

This 2025 Blazer EV RS RWD has a lot of tech we’re looking forward to testing over the next year. Its 17.7-inch infotainment display, which is notable for its size and the distinctive curved kink on the right side, is the gateway to oodles of goodies. Running Google built-in applications, the massive touchscreen promises near-unlimited potential. No Blazer EV comes equipped with Apple CarPlay or Android Auto, however, so we’ll have to see how we fare after a year without phone projection. Fortunately, the Blazer EV’s display is preloaded with Google Maps, Google Assistant voice commands, and the Google Play store. We’ll find out if native Google services and additional third-party apps are enough to make up for one of our SUV’s most glaring omissions. Over-the-air software updates should keep our long-termer fresh with regular patches.

We’ll also sadly do without GM’s excellent Super Cruise hands-free driving technology. This feature is available on the AWD LT and RS trims but standard on the high-performance Blazer EV SS, and we opted for more range over the award-winning driver assistance system. For the next year, we’ll instead work with the Blazer EV RS RWD’s standard suite of driver assistance technology, which includes emergency braking, forward collision alert, front pedestrian braking, following distance monitoring, lane keep assist, lane departure warning, and high-beam assist. There’s a 360-degree surround-view system with several camera modes, as well.

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All of this is to say that we won’t be suffering if our Blazer EV is without issues. Heated and ventilated seats with memory settings for the driver, a heated steering wheel, and wireless phone charging are enough to keep most folks coddled. Chevy also equipped the panoramic power sunroof, with two panels and sliding functionality, which is a $1,495 option. It also gets the RS Convenience and Driver Confidence package, bundling a head-up display, heated resting points for the windshield wipers, rear heated seats, and a digital rearview camera for $1,395. A dual-level charge cord rounds out the extras for $295.

The Blazer EV RS RWD starts at $55,595, and our long-term loan is optioned to $58,780. We also raided Chevrolet’s accessory catalog, adding a retractable cargo shade and an OEM North American Charging Standard (NACS) adapter, that provides access to Tesla’s Supercharger network, for $195 and $225 respectively. Spending nearly $60,000 on a new all-electric SUV with a colorful reliability record isn’t a decision we’d take lightly, so we’re going to do our diligence to record the highs and lows of our simulated ownership experience. After all, we’re hoping Chevy proves us right that its all-electric SUV deserves its Golden Calipers. Blazer EV, don’t let us down.

Panoramic power sunroof ($1,495), RS Convenience and Driver Confidence package ($1,395: head-up display, heated wiper park, rear heated seats, rear camera mirror); dual-level charge cord ($295); NACS adapter ($225); retractable cargo cover ($195)Powerful motor, fun interior styling, comfortable ride.