- Rumours are flying the Chevrolet Blazer won’t have a gas version after 2025
- General Motors wouldn’t comment other than to say it’s “speculation”
- But the plant that builds it dropped a shift, and that model’s the only ICE it makes
Will Chevrolet keep its internal-combustion engine (ICE) or will it go out in a “Blazer” of glory? According to a rumour making its way around town, it could be the latter, with the Chevrolet Blazer losing its ICE after the 2025 model year, leaving only the all-electric Blazer EV. That’s according to a report by GM Authority, which said that “sources close to the matter” said General Motors will discontinue the Cadillac XT5 and XT6 in the U.S. market once the 2025s are finished, and that now the gasoline-powered Blazer will roll off into the sunset with them.
That will be for North American buyers, mind you, since the “Blazer” name will still be used on a model in China that’s a bit larger than our Blazer, and with three rows of seats. Here in North America, the Blazer underwent no changes for 2025, other than two new exterior colours.
When American outlets asked GM, a spokesperson said the no-more-ICE-in-my-Blazer report was “speculation.” And it is, but there are a few factors at work here. Both the Blazer ICE and Blazer EV are built at GM’s Ramos Arizpe plant in Mexico — along with the electric Cadillac Optiq, and the Honda Prologue that it builds on the Blazer EV’s underpinnings for Honda.
The plant went to three shifts in May 2024, but dropped back to two in January 2025. In a statement to Automotive News, GM said that early in 2025, “we changed the plant’s production schedule to increase efficiency” after Honda cut the number of Prologues it wanted. GM also made “an adjustment in the mix of production of GM vehicles at the site.” The plant made more than 350,000 vehicles in 2024, but the Prologue accounted for only 46,505 of them. Following the change in shifts, 800 employees lost their jobs.
While GM Authority reports the XT5 is on its way out, earlier this year we reported that it was, but now it looks like it’s back on again — and with a turbocharged 2.0L engine. That’s after a redesigned XT5 was unveiled for the Chinese market and possibly for North America as well, where it could be sold alongside the electric Optiq.
In Canada, Chevrolet sold 9,793 copies of the Blazer in 2024 (which wasn’t broken out between EV and ICE) but that was dwarfed by the Equinox, with 28,499 of them finding new homes.
In other Blazer news, a 2025 Blazer EV SS will be the pace car for the 67th Daytona 500, which runs at the Daytona International Speedway on February 16. Chevrolet said the Blazer EV SS is the quickest Chevrolet SS model ever produced, with 615 horsepower and 650 lb-ft of torque, and able to go from zero to 60 mph (96 km/h) in 3.4 seconds.
The pace car is a production vehicle with no performance upgrades, but with custom graphics and strobe lighting. It’s the first time ever for an EV to pace the race, as well as a first for the Blazer nameplate, although it’ll be the 16th time a Chevrolet vehicle has performed the honours.
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