Chevrolet Equinox EV To Enter Production In Q1 2024: GM Mexico CEO

Equinox EV assembly at GM's Ramos Arizpe plant was initially expected to start in Q4 2023 but got delayed by "a few months."

2024 Chevrolet Equinox EV 3RS Front 2024 Chevrolet Equinox EV 3RS Front

The 2024 Chevrolet Equinox EV will enter production at General Motors' Ramos Arizpe plant in Mexico in the first quarter of next year, GM Mexico CEO reportedly announced.

Francisco Garza, President and CEO of GM Mexico, Central America and the Carribean, told the Vanguardia newspaper that Chevy's compact electric SUV will become the second GM EV assembled in the country after the Blazer EV starting next quarter.

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Can GM finally deliver the Equinox EV to buyers?

After some delay, GM now says that production of the Equinox EV will start in Q1 2024, but with GM's EV production issues, we wonder how many will be made.

"For Chevrolet, we confirm the arrival of the Blazer EV, which is produced in Ramos Arizpe, the first electric vehicle manufacturing site in our country. The Chevrolet Equinox EV will also arrive in Mexico, and it will begin production during the first quarter of next year," Garza told the newspaper.

He revealed that the factory currently makes 200 Blazer EVs a day in two shifts. However, when production of the Equinox EV begins early next year, the output of electric vehicles is expected to grow significantly.

At the end of October, GM Mexico's director of Government Relations, Rogelio Arzate, noted that workers at the Ramos Arizpe site assigned to the gas-powered Equinox production line started undergoing training for the assembly of Equinox EV SUVs.

GM confirmed the Q1 2024 start of Equinox EV production to InsideEVs and said that doesn't affect the model's U.S. launch timing. 

"When we announced the pricing for the first Equinox EV trims in October, which you covered here, we provided our updated launch timing," a GM spokesperson told us. "The launch model comes in early 2024 and the others launch throughout the 2024 calendar year as the Chevrolet.com site indicates. The mention coming out of Mexico is not a change or new to what we mentioned in October from a timing standpoint."

We also asked GM if the Equinox EV will be eligible for the $7,500 federal tax credit under the updated IRA guidance for 2024, and the automaker seemed pretty confident about it, even though it couldn't provide a straight answer.

"We are reviewing the new Treasury guidance now. Because of GM's historic investments in the U.S and efforts to build more secure and resilient supply chains we believe GM is well positioned to maintain the consumer purchase incentive for many of our EVs in 2024 and beyond," the representative told InsideEVs.

As a reminder, the Equinox EV was initially projected to enter production in Q4 2023, but GM CEO Mary Barra said on the company's Q3 2023 earnings call in October that the start of production had been delayed by "a few months."

In late October, Chevrolet announced updated pricing for the 2025 Equinox EV and opened order books for the compact electric SUV. Prices start from $34,995 (including destination) for the base 1LT trim, which was previously supposed to have a base MSRP under $30,000.

Unfortunately, the base 1LT trim won't be the first to arrive in the U.S.; Chevrolet's customer website lists it as coming in mid-2024. The first Equinox EV variants to reach U.S. showrooms are the more expensive ones, namely the 2RS FWD and 2RS AWD, which start at $48,995 and $52,395, respectively.

All Chevrolet Equinox EV models will feature the same battery pack, but GM hasn't disclosed its storage capacity yet. We only know that it enables a manufacturer-estimated driving range of 319 miles for single-motor FWD variants—an additional 19 miles compared to the previous estimate.

As of October, GM said it had 200,000 reservations for the Equinox EV.

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