Chevrolet breaks the range record—with a four-ton pickup truck! And it's a record run that's so bizarre that even Don Quixote would say: “Guys, this is too weird for me.”
The key figures of this rolling record fairy tale: 1,059.2 miles or 1,704.6 kilometers on a single battery charge. Respect? Maybe. But let's take a quick look at the “how”—because the devil lies not only in the detail here, but is probably laughing at the wheel.
The four-ton aerodynamic nightmare
The vehicle of choice? Not a sleek aero bolide with a carbon fiber body, but a Chevrolet Silverado EV. Specifically: the “Max Range Work Truck.” Sounds heavy already – and it is. The beast weighs in at over four tons. And if there
is an antithesis to wind slip, then it is probably carved into the front of this pickup. And with its 205 kWh battery capacity, this behemoth has more battery in its belly than some European manufacturers have in their entire model portfolio.
The price for the production version? At least $76,295 – taxes excluded, of course. For that you get not only a cargo bed, but also a new definition of “long-haul.”
Tricks, creeping pace and a little bit of self-deception
Of course, sheer mass alone isn’t enough for 1,700 kilometers. So they reached deep into the bag of tricks:
- The tires were inflated to the limit to minimize rolling resistance
- The air conditioning? Turned off!
- The cargo bed? Covered.
- The spare tire?
- Out with it.
And to improve the aerodynamics at least a little, they lowered the windshield wipers...
But the really impressive thing: the pace. It was driven with the speed of a lost golf cart – 20 to 25 miles per hour, i.e., a maximum of 40 km/h! The journey ran from the Milford test site on public roads to the idyllic Belle Isle in the Detroit River. There, where you aren’t allowed to drive faster than 25 miles per hour anyway, the last miles were slowly chewed away.
And the world record? Officially unofficial and GM-internal…
A small snag in the whole story: Guinness World Records wasn’t there. Officially the Lucid Air with its 1,205 kilometers from July 2025 remains the range
king – driven under supervision, mind you. Chevrolet, meanwhile, has celebrated itself. Whoever crawls over 1,700 kilometers with a 4-ton truck at turtle’s pace has earned at least a bit of PR. One thing remains certain: The real winner of this record drive was probably the testers’ patience.
What does that mean?
Donald Trump rubs off – even on General Motors. The motto: If I want a record, I simply wring it for myself! Chevy isn’t even lying here – at most, they’re lying to themselves. Because realistically this range would only be achievable by gardeners on Belle Isle, who could do without air conditioning or heating in spring or autumn. And, since they need the bed open, they’d have to crawl even
