The Chevrolet Equinox EV is high on comfort and convenience
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Just bought a 2025 EQ EV in August. Paid 23k after federal, state, GM and Costco incentives. Hard to beat that for almost any new car. Have the base with convenience package 1 and advanced safety package, MSRP was about 37k. So seat and steering wheel heaters, driver power seat and all of the advanced safety features including pedestrian detection. Extremely quiet and great drivability.
Seat heaters turn on when you precondition the car IF you have that in the setup. The screen UI starts instantly when you start the car. It charges at 150kw on most Tesla chargers and 350kw CCS chargers.
Way too many people with just incorrect information commenting today!
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ACC is a choice. Hold the set button down for longer and it will engage standard cruise control, even has nice text instructions that come up when you set the cruise control speed.
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Except that I shouldn't have to reaffirm my choice every single time simply because I prefer classic cruise control and the manufacturer is too damn proud of their ACC implementation to give me the option to switch the default cruise control version. It may be only a couple extra seconds, but after 9 months of having to bypass it twice a day, every day, it only gets more annoying over time. There are some things I miss about that truck. The Cruise Control isn't one of is them.
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Gnafu the Great
Ars Centurion
I understand that's how it is on some vehicles, but for the topic at hand you don't need to do it more than once in the Equinox EV. It saves your setting. So it's a single three-second action the first time you sit in the car and then never again.
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You're in luck, Chevy's spec page says Adaptive Cruise is standard. Not sure why the article claims otherwise.
Edit: I think the confusion is the $3,355 Active Safety Package adds Super Cruise, not adaptive cruise.
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I think it's closer to most vehicles at the moment. But, that should be the standard behavior of these features and it baffles me that it isn't already. Unfortunately, there are several other reasons why the Equinox is not in the running for my next new vehicle, so even if they did this one thing right it doesn't make a difference.
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We wanted to buy the Equinox until we saw we'd be giving up CarPlay. We bought a Ford Escape PHEV a few weeks ago instead. If there's no CarPlay, there's absolutely zero chance we're looking at it.
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Having driven one of these, the decision to put a grill design on the top of the dashboard that reflects directly up onto the windshield in such a way that it's completely distracting is mind boggling. It is so, so bad and I can't believe this got past design phase.
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You can still connect a phone via Bluetooth though, yes? to me that's not nearly enough reason to skip over all the rest of what looks like a very good vehicle. And if enough potential customers put pressure on GM, it's just software… they may provide a software update to give you what you want
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THIS! I don't know why people bitch about lack of CarPlay support when fast charging and big enough batteries seem so much more important on any kind of road trip (we are on one right now from Michigan to the Florida Keys and back in a new-to-us 2017 model X 100D). I would love to have even 50 more miles of range
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I implore people to consider used EVs because I just recently bought a 2021 Hyundai Kona EV with 40k miles on it that has almost everything this car doesn't (as standard), including wireless phone charging and android auto, for less than £13k. The nickel-and-diming on this chevvy seems a bit much.
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Gnafu the Great
Ars Centurion
I agree there are some great used deals starting to show up, but I do feel like it's important people who can afford to buy new do so right now. It was a stretch for me and it was the first and likely last time I'll buy new, but we're at a turning point where we need to get more EVs on the road and the only way we do that is by selling new ones. If you can't afford new, sure, please by a used EV before you consider anything else (and I don't count hybrids; I won't let marketing departments convince me they're EVs in any meaningful sense).
I will likely replace my Equinox EV in 8-10 years with a used EV that hasn't even been released yet, but my Equinox EV will then enter the used market as another affordable option for people who can't afford something newer. By then, I hope most new cars are fully electric. Dreaming, I'm sure.
EDIT: Ideally, all new cars would be fully electric by now and those who have unique needs for combustion vehicles would keep swapping around the insane number of existing vehicles out there until an EV can do what they need.
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Gnafu the Great
Ars Centurion
What does that have to do with the utterly ridiculous claim that hybrids are the future? Hybrids were a stopgap for 10+ years ago. If it weren't for greed and pride, we could be much further along and all new vehicles could be fully electric. The technology is there, and we could have the manufacturing if it weren't for republicans cutting off everyone's noses to spite gestures broadly at everything.
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They aren't, but it's largely a matter of policy and, therefore, location. The American government has a dial that it can turn at any time to tilt the operating cost equation in favor of EVs and against gas: the motor fuel tax. We know this is effective, since even the relatively tiny (by foreign standards) California fuel tax gives California very different car market outcomes from the rest of the American states. This article is discussing an EV that is only about 1/3rd more expensive than a PHEV, so operating costs over the lifetime of the vehicle can easily change the total cost equation in favor of EVs. Vehicles have 20 year economic lives so when you're buying one you cannot just assume the continuance of current conditions into the future.
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People who hate EVs sure do spend a lot of time posting on EV forums and techblog EV posts, don't they? Probably a feelings-of-inadequacy thing.
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Even in China, not all new vehicles are fully electric, so I think there's a place and a reason for hybrids in the near-to-medium term future at least. At the very, very least, we should be at a point where every vehicle sold should be a strong hybrid or PHEV, with incentives for EREVs and BEVs and penalties for vehicles above a certain price point that are not PHEV or BEV.
But that aside, yes, absolutely. The state of our charging infrastructure, the state of our power grid, the rate of adoption of renewables, and the degree to which we have a coherent industrial policy supportive of climate mitigation are all choices we made. I'd wager most of the people currently blathering about how hybrids are the future largely supported those choices. We could have and should have chosen a different path 40 years ago or so, and the off-ramps to a different outcome were obvious even in 1980-1982, as was the rationale for taking them.
Every new car ever has been a bad deal compared to a used one that has already let the first owner eat the depreciation hit. This is not really a useful insight or a valid comparison, and I say that as the buyer of a used EV.
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American culture will be one of the bigger obstacle for EV's growth in the US.
Americans love the idea of "hitting the open road" ...stopping to fill up the tank, restroom, get snacks, and go. A 30 minute break for a partial charge isn't an easy sell for most Americans. When a full charge can get done in 5-10min, things will definitely change.
But there's also the American mentality that smaller fuel efficient cars/EVs are not "masculine" or "tough" enough or somehow associated with certain political leans. I don't know if that happens in other countries, but it just seems ridiculous.
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Just like to point out that some of the Chinese made electronic cars are selling in New Zealand for under 30k New Zealand dollars, which is around 17k usd. That figure is including our goods tax!
Sure they are small cars with ranges around 350km, but this is what the bottom end looks like in the rest of the world!
Sure they are small cars with ranges around 350km, but this is what the bottom end looks like in the rest of the world!
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GM lost out on the entertainment business a long time ago. Selling new cars without the ability to use Android or Apple Carplay systems will alienate the young customers that they need to stay in business. Also the old guys like me who enjoy the march of technology 
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Yes! I had an old Saab 900 (pre-GM) and loved that feature, and also that the dash was designed to be operable with mittens (yes, mittens, not just gloves). There's your heritage as a winter rally car becoming useful for average MA and CO drivers.
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A neighbor has one and loves it. One of my girls needed a car six months ago after being rear-ended at a stoplight and I would have strongly considered this because she has access to free charging and never need to drive that long. But lack of CarPlay is a complete deal-killer.
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I have recently had a Corolla hybrid rental and it struggled with off ramps. A car would exit the highway and the cruise would fail to recognise they had moved lanes and would jam on the brakes.
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No joke, I actually but accidentally almost downvoted your post as a gut reaction to seeing the car, not the context your post put around it. Woof.
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Genuine question:
What does CarPlay bring that it's such a powerful deal breaker not to have it?
My angle, for context (I'm open to being persuaded!):
I don't want screens, notifications, messaging, or usually even a visible map for navigation scenarios. I just let Bluetooth and a couple basic commands from the head unit take care of things. It'd be nice if I had a cleverer way to handle switching between VLC and apple music, or moving around inside those apps without touching my phone. But there's no way that I would walk away from an otherwise ideal vehicle because the infotainment wasn't some kind of way or another. I'm much more likely to pass on it because of the privacy issues, to be honest.
Tl;dr: am I missing out on something amazing or just not the target audience?
What does CarPlay bring that it's such a powerful deal breaker not to have it?
My angle, for context (I'm open to being persuaded!):
I don't want screens, notifications, messaging, or usually even a visible map for navigation scenarios. I just let Bluetooth and a couple basic commands from the head unit take care of things. It'd be nice if I had a cleverer way to handle switching between VLC and apple music, or moving around inside those apps without touching my phone. But there's no way that I would walk away from an otherwise ideal vehicle because the infotainment wasn't some kind of way or another. I'm much more likely to pass on it because of the privacy issues, to be honest.
Tl;dr: am I missing out on something amazing or just not the target audience?
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My personal take is that AA and CP themselves are not actually that good, in and of themselves. I think what most people actually like about them is that they cover up the almost invariably garbage OEM infotainment system screen with something that has a better-looking and familiar interface.
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Historically, Bluetooth performance was not great. My parents' old car would often cut off the first second or two of navigation instructions. That may have gotten better recently.
CarPlay gives you that "cleverer way" to handle switching between apps that you asked for. (Well, if the app supports it. I don't think VLC is actually one of those.)
Some people do want the on-screen map, though as you say, it may just be that you're not the target audience.
CarPlay and Android Auto are more likely to operate long-term; no worries about the car manufacturer shutting down the navigation service or music streaming service in 3-4 years after buying the car.
And it's minor, but with CarPlay, I know that in a rental car the navigation system will work like I'm used to in my own car. It's one less thing I'm fighting in the car, making the drive easier and safer.
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I buy used and keep vehicles for a long time, so the best part of CarPlay/AA for me is that I’m not stuck using crummy unsupported navigation and media apps. I get whatever my phone supports, and I can get updated hardware/os to run the newest apps for $500 whenever I need it, instead of spending $30,000 for a whole new car.
If cars need a big honkin’ screen on the dash for the various cameras anyway, it makes a lot of sense to screen cast your phone to it, rather than mount the phone. It’s a silly waste of a perfectly good screen otherwise.
Think of CarPlay/AA like this - it’s the modern equivalent of having a double-DIN compatible head unit slot in the dash. It gives you the ability to easily upgrade the built-in media support in the car with third-party solutions. It’s just all done in software now, for much less cost and effort than actually swapping a head unit, and it can be done by completely nontechnical users.
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I thought the anti-NACS alliance spontaneously folded years ago. Is the pipeline really so locked-in that they can't change just the socket with two years' notice?
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Possibly GM changes after the article was written but before publication?
The Equinox EV LT1 FWD on the Chevy website says that Adaptive Cruise Control is standard, but the base price is also $36,795 not $34,995. The current price includes freight but not TTL, and I don't know if freight was included in the lower price in the article.
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thelongdarkteatimeof
Ars Scholae Palatinae
Somehow uglier than the Mustang Mach-E. I didn't think you could make anything more hideous than that eyesore, but I was wrong.
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Dunno; GM's certainly making at least some new Cadillacs with NACS plugs already and the article says this is a review of the 2025 model.
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That...actually seems like a safety hazard. I imagine we are all almost as surprised as you were.
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The sad part is ebook readers already have pleasant nighttime lighting figured out. God forbid a $50,000 car comes with a $150 E-ink display with gentle night lighting.
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Of all the eyesores on the road, the Mach-E is the worst? I hate the Mach-E too, well documented, but there's a lot of uglier vehicles. Especially when it's in that surprisingly good looking green.
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