A recent announcement from General Motors has confirmed that a new fully electric Chevy Silverado is scheduled to be released in 2023, and it will be one of 30 EVs GM promised to produce by 2025. A 2023 Silverado EV raises expectations of potential capability buyers may gain from the Ultium batteries, which will be the source of the new Silverado’s power. If the upcoming GMC Hummer EV is any indication of what the 2023 Silverado will be able to do, the results are likely to be impressive. As your Lexington Chevy Silverado dealer, we are excited about the future of automobiles, with GM heading up an ambitious plan to release another supertruck. Despite the setbacks of the pandemic, GM has remained focused on moving forward with developments to manufacture the electric vehicles it scheduled for release. With the Ultium battery at its core, GM vehicles will gain a great deal of versatility in design potential with the slender, stackable battery packs, which provide more power in a smaller package. With the rebuilding of the old Detroit-Hamtramck plant in Southern Michigan, GM has indeed been busy preparing for the fresh lineup of fully electric vehicles. Using the Ultium battery promises to revolutionize the performance of vehicles like the Chevy Silverado, including the available range a vehicle can drive on a single charge. The Future Chevy Silverado Mark Reuss, president of GM, stated, “Chevrolet will take everything Chevy’s loyal truck buyers love about Silverado – and more – and put it into an electric pickup that will delight retail and commercial customers alike.” For truck lovers, this is good news. We love our trucks for their ability to tow, haul, and drive off-road. With a new electric platform, truck lovers can rest assured they will not lose any of the toughness or capability of the trucks we have come to rely on for work and play; if anything, they will only get more powerful. If we look at the performance capability of the new Hummer EV, the torque and horsepower increase enormously with the Ultium battery’s power. The Hummer EV boasts up to 1,000 hp and a whopping 11,500 lb-ft of available torque, a number that sounds impossible to believe. Imagine what kind of power a Chevy Silverado EV could harness. Because Chevy Silverado EVs will continue to be built for both personal and commercial use, Chevy will have you covered whether you drive a truck for off-roading or own a fleet for your business. Other performance-related factors like increased speed and driving range should further entice buyers to go electric with the new Silverado EV. Again, looking at the Hummer EV provides a view into speeds that could be astonishing, with the capability to go from zero to 60 in under four seconds – perhaps even as little as three. The driving range of the Silverado EV, according to GM, is expected to be around 400 miles on a single charge. Even with the older EV platform found in the current Chevy Bolt EV, rapid charging times take 30 minutes for about 100 miles of range. With the Ultium battery, rapid charging times should drop to 100 miles of range in as little as ten minutes. Home installation of rapid charging stations will make driving an EV as seamless as charging your cell phone each night. Photos of the Silverado EV prototype reveal little more than a front end without a grille and sides that share a similarity in appearance with the Chevy Avalanche. The truck appears to be full-sized, and all indications of it having the full capability of a Silverado are confirmed by GM. One thing is certain: the structure of the truck will be engineered around the battery platform. Without the need for all the mechanical parts of a gas or diesel engine, the Silverado EV platform will need to be redesigned to accommodate the difference in weight distribution. All other details remain veiled until GM reveals more information. What buyers can expect in terms of technology promises to be inclusive, as is typical of most EVs, even with older platforms. With more power available from the Ultium battery, it’s likely that technology features will be heavily incorporated into the design to make driving easier, safer, and less fatiguing over long distances. Ultium Power What makes the Ultium battery different from current EV batteries? GM designed the battery packs to be assembled with materials sourced mostly from the US to make it easier to produce them in a US facility. The Ultium batteries utilize nickel, manganese, and aluminum, which are more readily available materials, and the use of cobalt is reduced by at least 50 percent compared to what has been needed for EV batteries in the past. With the more accessible materials, production costs are lower, and the time it takes to build batteries is shorter. Plus, GM has built a facility in Ohio which assembles the batteries before they are transported to the new Factory ZERO plant in Michigan, further cutting down on costs for transport. All these cost and time reductions mean the batteries are less expensive to install and lower the cost of the vehicles they power. This is the crux of GM’s plan to make EVs more accessible to everyone. Aside from the lower cost, the new design makes the Ultium battery a slender, stackable shape that can be placed flat like sheets of paper. Such flexibility in the number and placement that the new battery shape makes it easy to fit them into any vehicle, regardless of size or shape. Add to this flexibility the fact that the wiring normally seen on the outside of EV batteries is incorporated into the internal structure of the Ultium battery means they save even more space. The power output of just one Ultium battery is roughly equal to 20 of the “can” batteries used by some current EV models, which makes it possible to increase both performance and driving range for any vehicle tapped into its power. Where Will the Chevy Silverado EV Be Built? GM is in the process of completing a new facility called Factory ZERO, a manufacturing plant designed specifically to build electric vehicles. The first vehicle expected to be produced at Factory ZERO is the 2022 Hummer EV in the fall of 2021. Along with EVs for personal use, the factory is also likely to manufacture the Cruise Origin, a fully autonomous vehicle designed to be used as a taxi. The Chevy Silverado is scheduled for production in the next year or two at the same plant. While GM retooled the old Detroit-Hamtramck plant to create Factory ZERO, the company designed the plant around sustainable car manufacturing. Factory ZERO will utilize renewable energy to power production, with the intention to be at 100 percent renewable energy by 2023. The promise to have all GM manufacturing operate on renewable energy worldwide by 2030 is part of GM’s plan to create a sustainable future. In the process of rebuilding, the land surrounding Factory ZERO has been designated as a certified wildlife habitat that serves as a home to several native Michigan plants, insects, and animal species. With combined efforts to make batteries with more sustainable products, reduce the transportation of materials, and utilize renewable energy, GM is well on its way to building the infrastructure for a more earth-friendly manufacturing process. The internet of things adds to the shift in production to create quicker assembly and reduce costs, with Factory ZERO incorporating 5G connectivity to keep automation running smoothly. Chevy Moves Into the Future Such a wide scope of changes being orchestrated demonstrates a monumental effort on behalf of GM and Chevy to ensure electric vehicles are made available to all people through reduced costs that will make buying EVs more accessible. It is within this framework that the 2023 Chevy Silverado EV will be built for the masses, along with many more exciting EVs to come. We can’t wait until this exciting electric truck rolls into our Lexington showroom for you to get your hands on it.
