I had a pretty strong reaction to the 2025 Chevrolet Blazer EV SS, but I’m not exactly sure it’s the one Chevy wanted me to have. It’s an impressive machine, no question: a 615 horsepower electric SUV with 303 miles of range. It’ll go from a dead stop to 60 mph in 3.4 seconds. It’s pretty roomy and comfortable and has all the modern electronic crap you’d expect – well, minus CarPlay or Android Auto, because GM is delusional – but I don’t really want to give it a review now, because I think there’s a bigger fundamental question that needs addressing here: in the context of a modern, powerful EV, what is “fun?”
I’m asking this question because this isn’t just any Blazer EV, it’s the SS version of the Blazer EV. And that doubled-S, despite its unfortunate sameness to another pair of S’s with a very sinister past, does mean something. It means performance, it means excitement, it means thrills, and, yes, it means fun.
Chevy knows this, too. Look, it’s the first thing they mention in their slide about what the SS designation means:
Fun! It’s supposed to be fun! And what do they mention specifically?
“…canyon roads, cruising the highway, or around town.”
The canyon roads thing came up multiple times when I asked Chevy’s PR folks about what they thought people could do with an electric SUV that was capable of hauling such prodigious amounts of ass. Almost all of them said “canyon carving!” eagerly in response to this question, and I’m sure that would be pretty fun.
Chevy let me take one of these on the track and whip it around a lot, and I have to say, for a tall, roughly 5,700-pound machine, it handled remarkably well, a bit under-steery but generally far better than looking at it would have you believe. You likely could take this out to the Angeles Crest parkway on Sunday morning with all the swarming Lotuses in their Skittles colors and keep up in a way that would definitely surprise everyone who was watching.
Would that be fun? Sure! More fun than a Lotus? No, not really, but a Lotus isn’t going to take six months’ worth of Costco smoked salmon and a bale of Kirkland-brand underpants back home with your partner and two kids in the car, is it? No, it isn’t.
But are normal Chevy Blazer EV owners going to actually take this thing out canyon carving? More than, like, twice? I’m not so sure. And the nice Chevy PR people also explained that, you know, it can make day-to-day driving more fun with all that horsepower, and merging onto on-ramps can be thrilling, and, yeah, okay, I don’t exactly doubt any of this, but the entry-model 300-horsepower Blazer EV LT, which starts at $44,600, can still get to 60 in a very respectable 5.7 seconds and costs about $17,500 less than the SS, probably can still be driven around town in a fun way and I’m sure merges onto highways just fine.
I drove the Blazer EV SS around on city streets and on the track, and yes it’s fast, and yes it’s impressive, but is it actually fun? And, maybe more importantly, if it has fun-potential within it, can that fun be accessed at speeds that you can actually hit without potentially facing jail time?
That’s the part I’m not so sure about, and I think that part of it has to do with the very nature of electric cars. I’m not anti-EV at all, and technically you could argue that they are superior to combustion cars in nearly every way. For example, the Blazer EV SS is the quickest accelerating SS-badged vehicle that Chevy has ever made, going all the way back to the original Impala SS of 1961.
But it’s precisely because of how good and smooth and efficient EV drivetrains are and how sloppy and inefficient and clumsy combustion engines are that dictates why one is fun and one, well, just isn’t. The Blazer EV SS does deliver on the performance and handling of what the SS badge means, but it completely ignores the most irrational, and therefore most important, part: the drama.
Most of the people who bought SS-badged Camaros or Chevelles weren’t tracking them on a regular basis – I mean, some did, and they were popular at dragstrips, of course – but they were having fun in their cars almost every time they drove them because these cars were loud, growly things that vibrated and shook like they had perpetual armored weasel fights going on under the hood. All those years of carmakers trying to reduce noise, vibration, and harshness (NVH) were gleefully ignored, and engineers did all they could to maximize every one of those three letters. Because these were muscle cars, and muscle cars aren’t quiet and smooth.
You could put them in neutral at a stop light and rev their big V8s, making a lot of, to quote Macbeth, sound and fury, signifying nothing.
But I guess you were signifying something: power and potential and danger and madness, all while wasting gas and pumping a bunch of toxic chemicals into the air. Doing this kind of thing was toxic on literal and metaphorical levels, it was loud and stupid, it was juvenile, and, above all else, it was fun.
All of it was fun: the noise, the smells, the shaking, the shifting, the fighting with the steering, the raw mechanicalness of it all, all of the things that make it inefficient and uncomfortable and laborious, those are the things that give the car character.
There’s no drama to the Blazer EV SS; sure, Chevy tried to program some in, making you select the WOW (Wide Open Watts) mode to unlock an extra 100 hp and the car’s full potential, but it’s just like putting flame stickers on a beige office filing cabinet. The Blazer EV SS is just too damn good at what it does. Like all electric motors, the Blazer EV SS makes all its torque from 0 RPM, it delivers power smoothly and quietly, and at a stoplight the engine is completely dormant, wasting nothing, unable to be revved up like a horny teen is at the wheel because those words mean nothing in the context of an electrical motor.
When Chevy says the Blazer EV SS can be fun driving around town, what do they mean, exactly? That you can get to 40 mph in a neighborhood a little quicker? You can maybe squeal a tire making a fast turn into the Trader Joe’s lot? The thing has too much speed and power to actually really open up in day-to-day driving, and in normal driving it sounds and feels as quiet and smooth as any EV, so what’s the point?
You can’t really do anything with those 615 horses in 99% of your time behind the wheel, and those horses are so well-behaved you don’t even know they’re there until you stomp the pedal. So, does it even matter that they’re there at all?
An honestly fun daily driver is something that delivers drama and fun at speeds between 35-55. You don’t have to actually be going fast, but you need to feel like you are. There’s a reason why so many people love driving 115 hp Maza Miatas, and it’s because you can wring them out at speeds that would, by right, place you in the slow lane, and that’s exactly how it should be.
The Blazer EV SS is a very impressive and capable machine; it’s competent and comfortable, and very likely a reasonable choice for anyone looking for a good EV for the family. And, sure, you’ll have a blast driving it hard through the canyons precisely three times in the entire time you own the car, but without all of the callow and insipid and wonderful drama of a combustion car, where’s the fun, exactly?
So, this is my problem with the Blazer EV SS: it’s too good to be actually fun. It’s too efficient and refined and rational, and those aren’t really recipes for fun, at least not as we understand them. And if you want to argue that power and speed is fun enough unto itself, even then the Blazer EV SS makes no sense, because just where the hell is an average Blazer owner going to go to use these abilities? How many Blazer owners take their cars to the track?
If it’s not fun, what’s the point? Driving the Blazer just made me realize that for an everyday car to be truly fun, you have to be able to access that fun at normal street speeds, and, ideally, it should feel fun, in some good, dumb, fun ways. If EVs are going to reach that goal, we need to do something other than just adding power and speed.
Sorry, Chevy. It’s still impressive, though!
Isn’t this what Hyundai attempted to fix with their Ioniq 5N? Adding fun, even at the expense of speed.
Isn’t this the long form of the slow car fast is better than fast car slow argument?
I was visiting my mom at the memory care place and in the parking lot there was an absolutely new looking Mercedes 220 D. with a manual transmission with exactly the same color combination that I used to drive, and I remembered how much fun it was to just thrash the shit out of that car and nobody would notice.
I should get another.
Do it. Old Mercs are peak automobile.
I don’t think I would’ve ever gotten rid of my ’72 if it had the manual. 220Ds are amazingly refined yet oh so agricultural. You gotta love anything that requires interacting with a “gorilla knob” to start it.
Might sound odd to you, but cars stopped being fun for me the day I quit driving unreliable beaters. I had fun the day I had to slam on my brakes to avoid a collision and the forces involved snapped the RR caliper bolts off. Cars that just do normal car stuff aren’t very fun after that.
Yeah, what’s the fun of a car that never catches on fire, or has important stuff fall off, or interferes with the experience of the weather?
None I’m telling you.
I mean, just because you know that there’s pavement under the car wouldn’t you rather have a hole so you can actually see the pavement?
I do like the brakes to work though.
Laughing maniacally :
“Of course this old car is safe, how do you think it became an old car?”
Each week, I traverse a wonderful short stretch of road known as Grimes Canyon (34.34391965874779, -118.91135798028446). The wife’s 9 year old Model s P100D is fast and sure footed with AWD. But my 19 year old Vette (droptop, base), with 362hp less, is simply more fun – especially with the top down. I know intellectually the Tesla is actually faster, but there is more joy coming from the Vette.
When you press the gas a bit, even at low speeds, my car makes these juvenile bangs and pops to add some drama to the speed. It still makes me giggle.
If EVs want to make me giggle, have the courage to give it the Jetsons “burbly” sound instead of that “aaaahhHHHH…(like a God is skateboarding past you)” sound EVs often make.
I like how I can hear the motor in a Bolt. You can’t have the music too loud, but there is an aural experience.
Maybe skinny UPS truck tires would make it more fun.
I’m serious, skinny hard tires on an overpowered car are a real hoot.
I’m very much not in favor of canyon carving in something this big and heavy. Driving up the road to Lick Observatory on Mount Hamilton and having idiots in SUVs coming around the corner on the wrong side of the road takes all the fun out of it.
BTW, the road on the west side of Mount Hamilton is about as insane a road as you will find.
Agreed on the roads around Mount Hamilton being insane. I rented a CBR 1000RR in January and went straight to that stretch. Lots of fun, but probably would have been better on a smaller bike (and not having the fuel light come on well east of Lick Observatory).
I dunno. EVs may be too quiet and refined for some, but speed by itself is its own kind of fun. Speed is like sex and pizza; it’s pretty good even if you didn’t necessarily like the delivery.
Agree 100%, and it’s why I bought another Miata.
DD is a Tesla Model 3 Long-Range RWD. It’s a respectably quick car, handles great, probably equivalen to a BMW 340i. What it lacks is NVH and all the sensory factors that make things fun and dramatic.
Genuinely I find more pleasure in my 2001 Miata SE, with it’s ridiculously short gear ratios and meager 1.8L engine. Previous owner put a muffler on it that sounds great.
Drama can come in very plentiful form through RWD and a lightweight vehicle with at least 1 horsepower per 3 lbs, and no nannys. A modern EV take on the TVR Griffith, if you will. The lack of noise will be the least of the operator’s worries, I assure you, as the car will be constantly trying to kill them!
Design it like the VW XL1 in terms of shape/aero, and you don’t need any larger than a 35 kWh pack for acceptable(200+ miles) highway range. With conventional materials, it will be possible to keep the car under 3,000 lbs, possibly under 2,000 lbs if you go smaller(less frontal area) and use both lighter materials and less battery.
Enthusiasts are getting a raw deal. An enthusiasts’ EV with today’s tech would be a total batshit insane vehicle that would make a Hellcat cower in the straights only to leave it hopeless in the twisties, and if volume is high enough, they won’t cost much to make. The industry has been dragging its feet since the 1990s.
But it wouldn’t make noise, so it wouldn’t be fun, per the article.
About 20 years ago I got to drive a soapbox built by an OEM for going down the hill climb course at Goodwood. It weighed about 75kg (165lb) about half of which was ballast, and was only powered by gravity.
On a moderate slope I got that thing up to about 40mph, and if you flicked the steering into a corner it’d do a remarkably controllable slide at the rear.
It’s one of the most fun things I’ve ever driven. No noise, no power, but the feeling of speed was amazing.
It would have been hilarious with a 10bhp motor of some kind, and 30bhp would have made it a drift monster.
Fun doesn’t require noise, or speed, just involvement.
You’d really love an electric velomobile.
The one I built is similar to what you are describing. 13 horsepower going to the rear wheel in this thing is more than a bit nuts, and it’s going to get 25-30 horsepower and AWD at some point. Once the roll cage is installed, finished weight is expected to be around 120 lbs. 150 lbs if I convert it from a trike into a quad. Either way, it will be able to mess with some very expensive vehicles, while itself costing almost nothing to use.
That does sound like fun.
Wow. You know. Jeez. Such a first world problem.
I don’t have an EV, and I appreciate my eight-year-old car that is far more competent and problem-free than any other car I have owned before.
Going forward, if all things are equal (and they might not be given the manufacturers in the mix), functionality and/or styling are going to be the differentiator,
My coworker bought an Aprilia over a BMW motorcycle precisely for this reason; the BMW was just too composed and refined. Bikes aren’t rational purchases, even more so than cars, so you want it have that special character. And since the Aprilia is a raucous V4 it’s got plenty of that!
I think this is a very good point. I’ll argue that most modern vehicles are too good, too “perfect” to be fun, because fun is a human characteristic, and humans are incapable of perfection. I like my old rusty shitbox pickups, not because they’re perfect or faster than your digestive tract after Taco Bell…they’re fun because they’re imperfect. They’re noisy. They occasionally break down. They’re slow. But dammit, they’re fun and endearing, and isn’t that what car enthusiasm is all about? Personality, specifically a fun personality, often comes from being self-aware of one’s idiosyncrasies. I like to think fun cars are fun because of that honesty as well. That’s not something automakers can artificially create by throwing a 700hp in an ugly CUV.
I think automakers are stuck in this limbo where they’re trying to apply marketing techniques that worked on ICE cars to electric cars, because they aren’t sure how to differentiate their EVs quite yet.
IMO, particularly for “ordinary” cars like a Blazer, automakers should be amping up the refinement inherent in EVs.
Making a GT3 RS into an EV is a big loss of something special. Making a Blazer into an EV is getting rid of an old, zero-character powertrain and replacing it with a refined/luxurious feel that used to be reserved for S-Class level vehicles and above.
This is more and more true the lower in price range you go. The Equinox is a great example. Who will miss the tiny, loud, unrefined 1.5t when you can have a silent experience in the electric one?
Excellent take on it!
Yes, all these “performance” EV crossovers seem to be trying to sell EVs to people who hate EVs. It’s stupid and it won’t work. Instead they should listen to what EV enthusiasts like about EVs. We’re the most likely EV performance car buyers, but they keep chasing people who insist fun cars have to stink.
Great point!
What’s missing from this review is how driving the SS is objectively different than the LT. Other than it accelerates much faster than, what appears to be, a quite adequate LT. And a comparison of how the two do, in general, and versus each other, in the canyon.
I have a friend with a lower trim level one of these and being in it is an impressively luxurious experience. Good job Chevy!
To me, some of the joy comes from the knowledge of the machinery at work. Appreciating a 20-step Rube Goldberg machine that turns on a desk fan, even if a ceiling fan is more reliable and efficient at the task.
It’s standing on the shoulders of 150 years of craftsmanship. Sure, an Apple Watch is a “better watch” than a Patek Philippe, but IYKYK.
I have a ~10-year-old Citizen Eco-Drive Blue Angels Navihawk. It recharges itself with an integral solar panel, checks in with one of three different shortwave time sources around the world once a day (and thus never off by more than milliseconds) and is water-resistant to 100 m (far deeper than me).
Wearing it versus a Patek Philippe, an Audemars Piguet or a Rolex is merely a different form of virtue signaling (Or none).
Other than maybe a Breitling Emergency watch that can transmit a distress signal at 121.5 MHz, I don’t want anything on my wrist that transmits “I have a shit ton of money.” “I like sparkly things.” “I want to be knocked over the head and robbed.”
I understand spending more for superior technology or fine craftsmanship, but collector watches aren’t something I’m interested in.
Conversely, give me a Koh-I-Noor Rapidograph over a BIC pen, any day.
I have a billionaire friend from college, and one time at an alumni reunion some guy with a couple hundred thousand dollar watch asked him what kind of watch he had, and he said “Oh I don’t have a watch. Nobody cares if I’m late and if I need to know what time it is, I can hire somebody to tell me.”
Actually he’s a lovely guy, the guy with the watch was being an ass, but he had a point.
And Rapidographs rock, especially on drafting acetate or Mylar but I wouldn’t carry one around in my pocket. The memories of cleaning the whole rotating set…
But for the rest of the time, those Japanese pencils are the thing. Or handfuls of golf pencils scattered throughout the house and car.
Actually, your billionaire friend played the watch-wearing ass very well.
And yes, Japanese pens and pencils are almost universally awesome.
Ironically, my penmanship is absolute crap.
I have that same Citizen watch and love it. It is dead reliable, looks great, and has been my go-to over my fancier, far more expensive watches for the nearly fifteen years I’ve had it. As odd as it sounds, it often feels like the closest thing to the perfect product for me because of how well it blends design, engineering complexity, and technology into a single package. None of the smart watches I’ve had can come anywhere close to comparing, and when they eventually hit obsolescence I hardly cared a bit. When my Blue Angels stops working, I will be genuinely heartbroken (assuming it doesn’t outlive me).
Assuming (and hoping) you actually do outlive yours, I’m hopeful they will still be making them or something similar. Since they recharge themselves and never have to be opened up for a battery transplant, I think they will hold up well.
I have a friend who has a bunch of techy watches. Mostly high-end Casios. They’re interesting to look at and do some cool stuff the Citizen doesn’t, but I don’t need that tech on my wrist when I have a smart phone in my pocket. And arguably, if you have a smart phone, you don’t need a watch. Pre-cellphone days, I wore one all the time. Now, it’s only the occasional formal event where the Citizen is stylish enough to look appropriate on my wrist. At least at my status in life.
When synthetic diamonds first looked like they were going to erase the DeBeers cartel, DeBeers said no synthetic diamond could be as perfect as one hauled out of the ground by a genuine slave. When synthetic diamonds became large and cheap enough for jewelry use, and were beautifully precise lumps of carbon, DeBeers said the imperfections in natural diamonds were what made them so much better.
When cars were noisy, slow, and suicidally unsafe, car reviewers said a car would be so much better if it sucked less. When cars became quiet, fast, and vastly safer, car reviewers say a car would be so much better if it sucked more.
These sequences are identically tedious. What are we even doing here?
Performance, like diamonds, is largely a fashion statement and holds little real value. Both are, therefore, at the mercy of the cycles of fashion. Fun with cars comes from the same places that make puzzles fun, or skiing fun. The degree to which cars are fashion and about being seen owning them, they become less fun.
I think that car reviewers, like most critics, crave something unique. I see it a lot with movies, where the critic score and audience score for more “artsy” or “challenging” movies can very divided. Most people watch a handful of movies a year. But when you watch dozens and dozens, if not hundreds, you get tired of the same tropes and story beats.
This goes for cars. When you review cars for a living you are exposed to so much. And with the rise of EVs they probably all start feeling even more similar.
Also you HAVE to consider the caveat that this was written by Jason Torchinsky. ‘Nuff said.
Human brains are not that different than cats’. It’s novelty and outliers that catch attention.
As somebody who maybe watches one movie and one TV series a year, I just want something to be enjoyable. This is why Lower Decks held so much appeal to me. It was fun! Why is so much “entertainment” not fun?
Lower Decks is indeed a gift to the world.
Indeed.
I have been saying for years that most modern performance cars are mostly pointless and not much fun. Fun happens as things approach the limit, and a new M3 or Corvette can’t be at its limit anywhere but the track. EVs make it clear that performance numbers and fun aren’t closely related.
I think EVs can be fun, but they haven’t focused on that so far. They have focused on getting headlines with acceleration, range, etc., that they know sell units. Fun cars have been in somewhat short supply in ICE cars as well. The BRZ, Miata, GR Corolla, Civic Type-R or Si, VW GTI, and a few others are good options. They are less worried about spreadsheet numbers than making driving fun.
We had an m235i a few years back. An objectively terrific car, we decided that we didn’t want it to be our last new ICE car. It was too fast and not fun enough at safe speeds around town. We traded it in for a lightly used Mk7 Golf R, which is in general much more fun in daily driving. Sure, we both miss that buttery smooth straight six torque, but damn that thing was just more car than necessary for any normal person.
My Tesla does 0-60 in 4.8 seconds. That’s fast enough. And it’s 384 hp is enough. I’ll agree with Jason on this one to some extent. Having “fast” is fun every now and then. It’s nice on an onramp, of which I have several on my commute.
That said, the weight low down combined with fairly wide tires means the thing takes a corner like nobody’s business. Sadly I don’t do that very often since Tesla meats are expensive and EV’s wear them out quickly if the juice pedal is more than breathed upon.
My ’17 Accord V-6 allegedly does the 0-60 dash in 5.6 seconds, probably with some power-braking abuse. As it is, from a slow roll, when floored, it roasts both front tires for a bit and again when it shifts to second and chirps hitting third. Admittedly, these are not summer grip tires.
It is incredibly rare that I mat the pedal. The last time I did, merging uphill onto I-5 somewhere after refueling in southern Oregon, the amount of particulate matter blowing out of the exhaust system was truly amazing. I have no idea what adheres inside of pipes, mufflers, etc in routine driving. But a lot of light brown stuff was coming out of both sides.
That’s such a good engine.
Hunter S Thompson would be proud. So many quotables. This reminded me of the Ferrari story, but not really. Kudos, so well done
Slow Car Fast wins yet again.
My 25 Nissan Leaf S has all of 147 HP, and it’s faster than any ICE car I’ve seen near me.
Honestly I think that Mazda could easily make an electric Miata at a similar price point that you can stomp on the pedal with and get the ass to hang out.
I’d argue BEVs are the ultimate street legal performance cars as they got the acceleration to make them fun, instant passing power, and regen once you’re done passing, along with a range that encourages you to drive without speeding as the faster you go the more range you lose.
To me fun cars are not uber-powerful, uber expensive, and or uber rare.
They’re cars that can take you where you want to go in life, and make life a little less mundane.
My first car was a 1991 Audi 90 Quattro 20V that did not accelerate that great on account of only having 168 naturally aspirated HP at over 4000ft of elevation, and the thing handled so damn well it didn’t feel like fun till you were doing double the speed limit. Luckily I never crashed it. Then I got my 94 Toyota Pickup, and got introduced to the world of power sliding. I felt no need to speed in it, and ever once in a while on a 90° or smaller turn I’d give it a bit more gas than necessary and power slide though the corner, at school zone speeds! I’d argue slow speed drifting is a lot safer than doing double the speed limit on a windy mountain road because you got a car that handles that well.
I’d argue that an electric car that is easy to park, with good range, and that can take you, your friends, and all your shit where you want to go, all in a color you love is a fun car.
That seems to be Slate’s plan, and I’m all for it!
I used to have a beat-up old Kia Spectra that was completely base in every way, 126hp. God that thing was fun. I could go everywhere with my hair on fire, having a blast, but to anyone outside the car, it was just some guy driving down the road. I like that my car now does not feel sluggish, and has working A/C, but sometimes I miss that old smelly Spectra.
Hear, hear, the elephant in the room has not clothes.
You can say that again! 😉
Hear hear! The elephant in the room has no clothes.
You can say that again! ????
Slow car fast.
This makes the Matt Farrah argument for walkable cities so obvious.
The problem with living in a society that requires you to have a car is that it requires you to have a *practical* car. Which is why you get 5000lb crossovers that are supposed to be “fun” because real life intrudes.
If you didn’t *need* to own a car to live in most of the U.S., you could ‘drive’ a radio flyer to the grocery store and then a Caterham 7 on the weekends.
Yes, I actually think good urbanism is 100% compatible with being a car guy. If I live somewhere walkable, the only time I’m using my car is because I want to, not because I have to. And that just makes me love my car and driving even more.
I lived just east of Tompkins Square park NYCs east village in the 1980s and had a 1962 ford galaxy with an ignition switch that was broken and I had to hotwire it to drive it. The great thing was I never needed a car except to drive on a 50+ mile trip, so it was perfect.
So I built an electric “bicycle”. I like not spending money on things I don’t want or need. I even get groceries with it.
https://i.imgur.com/1KvhZN8.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/Jrz8rYc.jpg
Not for everyone, but for a single man like myself, it works great. No taxes, plates, insurance, fuel, registration, or any of that expensive crap where grifters are in on the take. I can go ten miles per penny on a good day.
The downside is that I share the road with 5,000 lb crossovers, whose operators often don’t want to share said road. Thus, I do have to be carful.