There aren’t many upsides to getting arrested – it tends to be inconvenient, uncomfortable and expensive – but at least it might soon allow you to check out the ride quality, road noise and rear packaging of Chevy’s cool new Blazer EV.
General Motors’ GM Evolve division has just revealed its Police Pursuit Vehicle Package for the 2024 electric Blazer and its crammed with features designed to make life easy for police officers out in the field, and for their fleet managers who have to pay out every time they get damaged.
So while the PPV is based on the sporty civilian Blazer SS package, it features special 20-inch steel wheels covering its Brembo brake package, underbody skid plates and a certified speedometer. There are standard power folding mirrors – but the liftgate is manual because no cop has go time to wait for an electric version to cycle through its moves – a rear camera mirror and a Protected Idle feature for the keyless entry system that allows the emergency equipment to run for 20-50 hours with a full battery.
Related: Chevrolet Blazer EV Gets At Least 279 Miles Of Range And Initial Base Price Of $56,715
Standard equipment includes special police-spec cloth-covered front seats built to work with duty belts and vests, and a vinyl bench out back, but there are plenty of options available, including a detective package that brings a retail center console, cloth rear seats and carpeted flooring, a package to render the rear doors and windows inoperative, wiring for siren speakers, Whelen ION light heads mounted on each exterior corner, and even a DLR-delete option for extra stealthy stakeouts.
Like all Blazers, this one is built around GM’s Ultium platform, and while the bi-motor, all-wheel drive powertrain’s 498 hp (505 PS) output doesn’t match the 557 hp (565 PS) of the civilian SS, it should still make the 130 mph (209 km/h) cop Blazer reasonably punchy off the line and the low center of gravity and near 50:50 weight distribution ought to mean the handling is decent too. What’ll be equally important to police forces thinking about investing in a fleet is the claimed 250-mile (402 km) range (even loaded down with emergency equipment), ability to add 71 miles (114 km) of charge in 10 minutes, and GM’s 8-year, 100,000-mile (160,000 km) warranty.
Chevy announced last month that while the Blazer RS will be available later this year, the hot Blazer SS has been delayed until spring 2024, and we’d expect the PPV to arrive around the same time. Mean old GM won’t let us embed the PPV promo video, but you can watch it on YouTube here.
