GM cuts Chevy Blazer EV price as sales restart after software issues

DETROIT – General Motors is reducing the price of its new Chevrolet Blazer EV as it restarts sales of the vehicle Friday following an 11-week stoppage to address software issues.

GM halted sales of the EV in late December following reports by customers and media of problems involving the vehicle’s infotainment and charging systems, including an inability to charge its battery that could leave drivers stranded.

The issues all affected the vehicle’s software and were fixed without any physical changes to the vehicle, according to Baris Cetinok, GM vice president of product, software & services. They ranged from small bugs in coding to the vehicle’s ability to communicate with certain public EV chargers.

“There is not this singular, predominant root cause that causes all of these issues” Cetinok told CNBC during an interview. “It’s circumstances and rare cases coming together.”

Cetinok, a former Apple executive who joined GM in September, said many issues were “rare but still disruptive.” The automaker initiated the stop-sale to avoid issues for additional customers.

To find and address the problems, GM conducted a “testing matrix” involving repeatedly rewriting and testing coding as well as physical on-road testing across the country, Cetinok said.

“For us, it was important to get it right rather than fast. Right and fast is of course ideal, but the point is we rather put the pain on ourselves to take the time and pause and fix it,” he said.

GM said the processes to fix the Blazer EV have helped it strengthen its software quality validation testing for future vehicles.