Chevy Blazer Troubles Add to GM’s EV Growing Pains

As one of the nation’s first owners of General Motors’ new electric Chevrolet Blazer, James Hattin was loving the SUV—before the problems began.

On a trip from the mountains back to his home in Burbank, Calif., he and his wife heard weird clicking noises coming from the dashboard. A short time later, the cruise control went out. A few days after that, in his driveway, the car’s screens went blank and the car wouldn’t start.

“My dad always told me not to buy the first model year of a new car,” said Hattin, a 53-year-old owner of a visual-effects company. “And I bought literally one of the first ones, which is the least smart thing to do.”

GM instructed Chevrolet dealers late last month to stop selling the Blazer, while it sought to address certain software-quality issues that have frustrated buyers and auto reviewers alike. The company hasn’t given a time frame for when it might have a fix and continues to build them at its plant in Mexico, a spokesman said.

The Blazer’s turbulent rollout is the latest setback as Chief Executive Mary Barra tries to establish the company as an EV player and close the gap on Tesla. It also illustrates the wider challenges many car companies face in mastering the fickle battery systems and sophisticated software needed for electric cars.

Among its global rivals, GM made one of the earliest and most-definitive moves toward electric cars. In early 2020, it outlined plans for a new battery system, called Ultium, which the company has said will serve as the backbone for EV models of various shapes and sizes.

But in recent years it has encountered manufacturing delays and other technical obstacles as it has introduced its first Ultium-based models, including the GMC Hummer pickup truck and SUV and Cadillac Lyriq SUV. The challenges have slowed their rollout to consumers and allowed some rivals, such as Hyundai Motor and its sibling carmaker Kia, to jump ahead in EV sales. The launch of another GM electric SUV, the Chevy Equinox, was delayed by a few months into the spring to allow more time to refine its software, Barra told analysts in October.

GM has blamed the delays on problems with automated equipment used to sort and package individual battery cells. Executives have said those problems should be solved in the first half of the year.

The Blazer got off to a good start when it was released in the fall, with a starting price around $57,000. MotorTrend magazine named it the best SUV of 2024, gas or electric, praising its design and huge screens in the cockpit.

But reports soon popped up on social media of the screens going blank and the car failing to take a charge. Research site Edmunds reported last month that it experienced 23 problems with its Blazer EV during two months of testing, including inoperable window switches and trouble with the infotainment system.

The Detroit automaker isn’t the only one stumbling with new electric-vehicle rollouts.

The barrage of battery-powered models hitting showrooms are arriving with more bugs and glitches than conventional gas-powered models, surveys show. The troubles, which range from charging failures to problems with electric motors and software malfunctions, could damp EV adoption as carmakers seek to scale their factories and get a return on their huge investments into battery-propelled cars.

A November survey by Consumer Reports found that owners of EVs from the past three model years reported 79% more problems compared with internal-combustion-engine cars. Among the troubles reported were problems with charging, batteries and electric motors on models from several major brands.

Tesla owners reported fewer of those problems relative to competitors, but the EV-sales leader drew owner complaints for issues with paint, trim and climate controls, the magazine said.

Jake Fisher, the magazine’s senior director of auto testing, said buyers should always expect more issues from new-vehicle entries, but especially as carmakers make the complex switch to batteries and motors, from engines and transmissions.

Fisher said he experienced trouble with an overnight charge of Hyundai’s Genesis GV60 SUV. The vehicle stopped taking a charge after about 20 minutes, leaving him with a nearly depleted battery the next morning.

A spokesman for Genesis, Hyundai Motor’s luxury brand, said the company was aware of a charging issue on a preproduction GV60 used in an early evaluation by Consumer Reports. A software update fixed the problem, which hasn’t been detected in GV60 models being sold to the public, the carmaker said.

The rise in problems reported by EV owners goes beyond the electric system that propels the car. Carmakers are equipping most of their EV entries with their latest software and multimedia systems, which exposes them to more potential mishaps as they try to refine the technology, Fisher said.

“If all these new EVs continue trying to be just like Tesla and have all the latest high-end technology, they are going to be problematic,” he said.

Chevy dealer David Ferraez said he only has one Blazer EV held up by the stop-sale order but has a few dozen scheduled for delivery to his metro New York store. He said interest in EVs has fallen off in recent months, and he isn’t sure how the Blazer EV’s problems might affect demand once his shipment arrives.

“I guess I’ll find out sooner or later,” he said.

Write to Mike Colias at [email protected]