well. The wait is finally over. General Motors
officially unveiling its all electric midsized Suv, the Chevy
Blazer are in direct competition to ford's Mustang Mach E
and Tesla's model Y welcomes as E. V.
Adoption continues to skyrocket across the country amid a broader
shift away from gas powered cars and the 2024 Blazer
E. V. Is gonna hit the road next
summer. So, for more on this, I
do want to bring in scott bell Global head of
Chevrolet joining me now, scott, Congratulations. This
car looks pretty great from the outside. Tell me
more about the specs and what drivers can expect.
Yeah, Thank you. Good morning. This is
, it's great to get it out in the public
here. Very excited about it. Yeah. So
we've got three variants here. So an L.
T and R. S and Ss. Um,
the S. S, you know, 557 horsepower
0 to 60 in less than 60 seconds of just
an outstanding performance vehicle range up to 320 miles here
. Um, on a full charge, we've got
front wheel drive, rear wheel drive, all wheel
drive, great technology, great styling and design.
So this, this vehicle's got it all, all
of the specs extremely impressive. It looks very shiny
red from the outside, smooth ride as well.
My biggest question scott is, what is the inside
? Like, what is the inside experience like for
consumers? Yeah, almost I would argue as good
as the outside. So the feedback we got at
the reveal was phenomenal and and all day today has
been really good. The inside, stunning 17 inch
screen, 11 inch driver information center over top of
the steering wheel. Great styling, great cues,
hats off to our design team who, who put
this together, but really, really excited to get
it in the consumer's hands. So are you feeling
confident that next summer this can actually roll out and
hit dealerships because we continue to see supply chain challenges
scott and this pandemic continue to weigh on all industries
out there and certainly the auto industry has been hit
hard as well, especially when it comes to chip
production. I have a semiconductor is needed in every
single car out there. What can you tell me
? Do you feel confident you'll be able to meet
that delivery goal? Yeah, we do. I
certainly, there are challenges in the industry and,
and, and you know, we've, we've had
our fair share as well. We're getting better at
it. Production is improving, but we're not out
of the woods yet, but all the work that
we've been doing uh, you know, we've learned
a ton. I think we're gonna be in a
good place. We've, we've been rolling out new
vehicles on our all tM platform at general motors.
This is a chance for us to get after one
of the biggest segments in the industry, uh,
and, and do it in volume here. So
we're very optimistic about our ability to bring this to
market on time next summer. The new electric Chevy
blazer a little bit more expensive by several$1000 than
the gas powered version that your company does still sell
. Walk me through some of the money that consumers
can save on this via credits as well as any
sort of financing plans that GM might be offering.
Yeah, we've, we've got a great price um
, you know, right in the heart of the
market where we're at today. So I$45-
$5,000 on the base and um, you know,
a lot of variants above and beyond that. We
feel like we're in the sweet spot of where that
we the range 300 Plus Miles, 320 here,
all the different options and variants that we have.
We're very optimistic that this is right where the consumer
, where, where, where it needs to be
to, to do the kind of volume that we
want to do here and like I said, one
of the biggest segments in the industry, higher gas
prices, certainly hurting the wallets of consumers scott that
has been the case all year long and prices still
elevated from the same time a year ago, even
though we've seen them fortunately come down this past month
or so, what would you tell anyone who's still
on the fence about an electric vehicle? What makes
sense to shift to electric from an original gas powered
car? Well, certainly, you know, the
performance. If you haven't driven an E V.
Uh, you know, it definitely is a whole
different experience and this one given us the ability to
, to put that kind of horsepower. Um,
in this vehicle that 0 to 60 in under four
seconds is comparable of any sports vehicle that's out there
. Uh, you know, the biggest thing that
consumers are dealing with is range anxiety. So having
320 miles is one of the best in the industry
. So we're, we're really in a good,
good place there and we're doing a lot of work
on, on infrastructure and charging. So consumers,
you know, want to see chargers more chargers.
They don't necessarily understand just yet that most of that
charging will happen either in their home or probably at
their place of work. But um, so we're
working, we're doing a lot of things to improve
that infrastructure across the country. So I think those
things together with a great product and a big segment
is gonna help adopt the adoption rate pick up here
. Certainly electric vehicles, the cars of the future
scott every automaker virtually pivoting into the space. And
of course, the hope is that it will help
the climate as well. But for consumers who want
to purchase one of these vehicles, I'm sure they
do see it as an investment And again, with
gas prices always volatile elevated at these levels, how
much money do you think consumers could save over the
long term by switching to an electric vehicle. Yeah
, it's, uh you know, um it's significant
for sure. Um you think about any time that
you're going to a gas station today to to fill
up for the most part these cars, you know
, charge at home. It's no different than your
, your phone. You know, you bring it
into the garage and you just kind of top it
off each night. So, you know, think
of all those trips that you're making today to a
fuel station. Um, you wouldn't have to do
that here with it with an E. V.
And with 320 miles of range, you know,
really can accommodate um, a majority of what people
or consumers use their vehicles for. Well GM making
a big pivot into electric vehicles as we've been discussing
, plans to roll out dozens of electric vehicles by
2035. This is an early model here in that
big ambitious goal. And obviously a lot of loyal
shoppers for your brand as well Scott who's the average
clientele of a vehicle like this? Is it a
family? Is it someone looking for long haul trips
? Is it someone looking maybe for more of an
adventure or someone looking for a sports, you know
, performance vehicle. Right. So there's there's a
lot of, a lot of things here um,
for this vehicle, the adoption rate is picking up
greatly and and to to see that you continue,
we're gonna need to be in segments where consumers are
today. So um it's time to have a brand
like Chevrolet, you know, bring vehicles into the
mainstream and and bring them into segments that are very
popular today. So Silverado earlier this year we unveiled
obviously a massive segment, large pickups. We've done
blazer here. Um, and in just a few
weeks we'll be talking about an Equinox E. V
. Which is the largest segment in the industry.
So having one entry in each of those three segments
, the three biggest segments in the in in the
industry is going to give us a chance to do
some real volume here and show customers just what they
can benefit from by having an E. V.
Vehicle scott. My last question to you, I
do want to talk about the infrastructure of electric vehicles
charging on the road so that you can make some
of these long haul trips. I know GM the
biden administration, other automakers investing in putting more charging
stations near highways and interstates and elsewhere in the public
to make this a more feasible lifestyle option. Will
those charging stations be free of charge to GM electric
vehicle owners? So there's, there's um you said
we've invested nearly three quarters of a billion dollars in
infrastructure at GM or in the process of doing that
. Um, there's home charging. So we're helping
consumers today with both in both the U. V
. That we have out in the marketplace now to
install those chargers in their home and we're paying for
that installation to help with that adoption, we just
announced some charging activity with a pilot Flying J facilities
across the country. 2000 chargers. These are dc
fast chargers. So in the blazer, that means
you can put 78 miles of range into that vehicle
in in 10 minutes. So that's uh, we're
working hard on that. And then we've been working
with our dealers. We've got 3000 of them in
communities all across the country to do charging, help
them fund charging infrastructure in their own communities. So
, lots of great activity here and will continue to
do that. All right, scott bell. Congratulations
. It's a beautiful car scott's global head of Chevrolet
at GM. We appreciate it. Thank you.