GM pauses Chevy Blazer EV sales over software woes

GM has paused sales of the 2024 Chevrolet Blazer EV over “software quality issues,” the company announced late Friday.

“We are aware that a limited number of Blazer EV owners have experienced some software quality issues,” said the company in an official response provided to Green Car Reports. 

“To ensure our customers have a great experience with their vehicle, we are temporarily pausing sales of Blazer EVs,” the GM statement added. “Our team is working quickly to roll out a fix, and owners will be contacted with further information on how to schedule their update. We apologize for the inconvenience.”

The proactive pause comes after several incidents this past week, both on social media and traditional auto-review sources, have highlighted a range of software errors in early-delivery versions of the Blazer EV—some of them appearing to get in the way of usability. 

One of them, experienced by InsideEVs on a road trip, saw several infotainment glitches followed by various error lights signaling faults, with the vehicle rendered capable only of barely fast-charging at a home-charging rate. And a 2024 Blazer EV bought by Edmunds for its long-term fleet recently showed a similar overload of errors, with 23 different fault codes, after the infotainment “melted down” and power windows wouldn’t operate.

A quick search of Reddit and several other forums found that while there might be a relatively low number of vehicles delivered so far, these are not isolated incidents. 

GM emphasizes that these software issues are not safety-related or related either to its Ultium EV propulsion suite or to Google built-in. Thus, it’s not a safety recall, and in all incidents the vehicles have been drivable, with safety systems still operable—if drivers are willing to look past the stream of errors and blank infotainment screens. 

Green Car Reports experienced one such glitch that might be related to these reported issues. On one (but not both) of the Blazer EVs driven as part of a 2024 Chevy Blazer review, toggling one-pedal driving would cause the screen to momentarily go blank and unresponsive, with a tap of the upper app tray eventually bringing normal operation back. 

2024 Chevrolet Blazer EV

Chevrolet told media in attendance at the recent Blazer EV event that this model is capable of over-the-air updates for all vehicle systems, so even a major update might not require a trip back to the dealership.

GM didn’t have updated sales numbers for the Blazer EV, which is the first of GM’s Ultium EVs to be made in Mexico, but it underscored that “the issue affects only a limited group of customers.” Deliveries have been happening over the past several weeks and totals through the quarter and month are expected from the company the first week of January.

With deliveries on hold, some buyers may also have missed a window of opportunity. GM last week confirmed that due to last-minute sourcing rules imposed by the Biden administration, most of its new electric vehicles, including the Blazer EV, will lose their tax-credit eligibility in January—although they’ll earn it back later in the year.