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It’s no big surprise that General Motors Co.'s best-selling vehicles last year were its big Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra pickup trucks, which combined sold nearly 765,000 total units.
That’s more than a third of all of the automaker’s 2022 output of 2.27 million vehicles.
But guess what the second-best-selling vehicle was for GM (NYSE: GM) last year.
The sporty Chevy Camaro or Corvette? The all-electric Bolt? Puh-lease! Those three models didn’t account for more than a combined 100,000 vehicles.
Nope, the prize goes to the Chevrolet Equinox, which sold more than 212,000 units — a 28% increase over 2021. GM’s total sales increased only 2.5% from 2021.
Don’t count me among the surprised who discovered the Equinox’s popularity. Three years ago, I wrote about how the Equinox was dominating the small SUV sales world, and it appears to not have slowed down a bit since then.
All photos by Ben Miller | Business Journals
What’s the allure?
It’s not one big thing but a combination of little things that contribute to the Equinox’s popularity.
Start with the engine: The 1.5-liter turbocharged four-cylinder’s horsepower has been increased to 175 for 2023. Not an astounding amount of power, but more than enough to adequately propel the 3,500-pound vehicle (in “premier” trim and all-wheel drive) around town. Mileage is pretty good, too, rated at 24 miles per gallon in the city and 30 mpg on the highway for a combined mileage rating of 26 mpg.
Inside, the Equinox can’t be described as “cavernous” (it is rated a “small SUV” by the EPA), but there’s enough room for four normal-sized people and their luggage.
I was impressed with the premier edition’s two-toned leather-trimmed seats. The “jet black/maple sugar(!)” toned seats look like they’d feel at home in a much more expensive vehicle.
The premier trim level is the most decked-out Equinox, but the 2023 test model added a few things, like a $1,745 “confidence and convenience” package that included surround cameras, ventilated front seats and something called “automatic parking assist.” My Iowa-born wife believes that if you don’t know how to parallel park, you shouldn’t be behind the wheel of a vehicle, but Chevy says the “automatic parking assist” system lets you cheat. It automatically steers “your vehicle into a detected parallel or perpendicular parking space while you brake and shift gears,” the company says in its marketing.
I guess they won’t need to teach proper parallel parking skills in driver’s ed anymore.
A $1,125 “infotainment” package included an upgraded Bose stereo system with seven speakers, an eight-inch color touchscreen with voice recognition and a navigation system. Also added was a $1,495 power sunroof that brought the 2023 Equinox price tag with premier trim and all-wheel drive to $38,860.
Not bad, considering the average price for a new vehicle in 2022 was more than $48,000.
The Chevy Equinox doesn’t do one thing extraordinarily well. Rather, it does all the little things a little bit better than adequately, which is why it’s so darn popular.
