The 2026 Chevrolet Silverado EV has set a new standard for the longest range achieved by an electric vehicle on a single charge. That’s more than twice as far as the EPA thought the Silverado EV Work Truck could go, with a range of 1059.2 miles on the largest battery offered. Chevy’s crew employed common hypermiling techniques, such as driving too slowly. The simple lesson of “Don’t be proud, just go the distance” in The Tortoise and the Hare, one of the oldest stories ever told, remains true today. GM has done just that with the Chevy Silverado EV, which more than doubles the truck’s expected EPA range and breaks the record for the most miles driven on a single charge. How were the experts able to do it? By wearing clothing that resembles a tortoise and going out. The Silverado EV traveled 1059.2 miles on public roads near GM’s testing sites in Milford, Michigan, and Belle Isle, which is close by in Detroit. This exceeds the record set just last month by the Lucid Air Grand Touring. The old record was 749 miles, which is along the road between Munich, Germany, and St. Moritz, Switzerland. If you’re feeling really fancy, you could drive that route. The Silverado’s path was better made for the blue-collar workers it was meant for—the kind of trip you’d take in a city work truck or a landscaping vehicle. GM achieved this using the fleet-oriented Work Truck trim of the electric Silverado, equipped with the largest available battery—a 205-kWh Max battery. To enhance efficiency, they removed the spare tire and added a tonneau cover, reducing weight and improving aerodynamics. They also adjusted the angle of the wipers to reduce drag and ensured the balance was correct. Engineers also pumped up the tires to 80 psi, which is the highest pressure that is allowed. This may have reminded you to check your tire pressure, which you haven’t done in a while. Check it now. It’s the simplest and cheapest way to save gas or get more range out of your batteries. GM says that 40 engineers offered to try the range, indicating they encountered some issues. It took seven days to drive in the blazing summer heat. They didn’t use the air conditioning to go the whole way. For our own real-life EV range test, we set the cruise control to 75 mph and the automatic climate control to 72 degrees on our out-and-back highway run. The 2024 Silverado EV RST, which we tried, had the second-longest range of all the electric cars we looked at. It managed to cover 400 miles on just one charge. If you’re adding up 1059.2 miles over seven days with a puzzled look on your face, then yes, this route was traveled slowly. Very slowly. No hard acceleration or stopping was used, and speeds between 20 and 25 mph were kept as much as possible. Essentially, forming a face that resembled that of a tortoise. Our most recent study of the link between speed and EV range found that the range dropped almost in half when the speed went from 35 mph—our users said they got bored going at this speed for short periods—to 75 mph. Silverado EV drivers might not always be able or willing to drive this slowly, but it shows how well the truck can extract every electron. The EPA says it can go 493 miles, so think of this as a modern-day Aesop’s fable. Once more, going slowly and steadily wins the race.
