Do you guys remember the Chevy Blazer EV SS? Yeah, I sort of forgot about it too. Sure, it was the hero car in “Barbie” nearly two years ago, promising excellent performance at a decent price, but after years of delays and a rocky rollout of the regular Blazer EV, the electric crossover lost a lot of the hype surrounding it.
Well, now it looks like Chevy is trying to give the car a splashy entrance to make up for lost time. The automaker says it’ll come with even more power than advertised: 615 horsepower and 650 pound-feet of torque. Eagle-eyed readers will recognize that those are the exact same power numbers as the upcoming Cadillac Lyriq-V. It’s enough power to send this sporty-ish EV from 0-60 in just 3.4 seconds when you’re using Wide Open Watts (WOW) mode. For whatever reason, that number is 0.1 seconds slower than the Lyriq-V is quoted at. GM is gonna GM. Anyway, despite the bump from 557 horsepower and 648 lb-ft of torque, the range is still solid: 303 miles on a single charge.
The news was first reported by Road & Track late last week, but Chevy has officially confirmed the power jump in a press release announcing the Blazer EV SS as the Daytona 500 pace car. It’ll be the first EV to ever pace ’Tona, so that’s pretty neat.
This actually isn’t the first time Chevy has supposed the Blazer EV SS’s reported power, according to Road & Track. Last year, the automaker raised power to 595 horsepower and 645 lb-ft of torque, but I supposed that just wasn’t enough.
If you’re feeling compelling (or want to actually see if the Blazer EV SS is real after all this time), at long last, the car’s configurator is live on Chevy’s website. A base, front-wheel drive, Blazer EV will set you back $45,995 (including destination) to start. The SS is a fair bit pricer, coming in at $61,995. That’s about what you’ll pay, too. There aren’t many options other than a few different paint colors and $2,950 22-inch black wheels (which you should skip).
That may sound like a lot of money, but there aren’t many cheaper ways to get 615 horsepower in a family car like this for less money. Let’s just hope it comes out sooner rather than later, so I don’t have to write another story saying “The Blazer EV SS is delayed because of 1,000 different reasons.”