2024 Chevrolet Silverado Heavy Duty First Look - Hands On with Chevy's New Big Trucks

Hey folks, welcome to the Truck King YouTube channel, and welcome back to State Fair of Texas here in Dallas. We're checking out all the new heavy-duty trucks, and now we've got a look at this beast, the brand new 2024 Chevy Silverado HDs. It's got revised powertrains, a new interior, and a new look, and I'm going to tell you all about it right now. Let's start by talking about powertrains. So there are still two different engines available, the base 6.6 liter gas V8, and then this big 6.6 liter Duramax diesel. Now if you go for the gas, you're getting the same numbers as before, 401 horsepower, 464 pound-feet of torque, and that is now sent through a 10-speed automatic. That is a big upgrade for this model here, they've taken the gas and matched it with the 10-speed. But if you want the big numbers, you go for this diesel, and GM has upped its game. This is 470 horsepower, 975 pound-feet of torque, also paired with that 10-speed auto. Now interestingly, GM didn't boost all of its tow numbers, they just focused on the power. And it wasn't just the overall number, they say that this engine has 25% more torque lower in the rev range. So they boosted the number, but then they also went back to the turbocharger technology here to make sure you could get more power sooner. Now we have to just talk about the styling because it has been revised. First thing I'm going to point out, this right here is the new Midnight Edition High Country, so you're getting this monochromatic blacked-out look. It's pretty cool. And you may have noticed that those are huge wheels, those are 22-inch wheels now available on this heavy-duty pickup truck. Now the other thing that's really been revised is the front end. You have a new grille, it's been pushed out to the corners, kind of the lights wrap around it. I don't think it's a huge change from the last gen, although I do think it looks a bit better. And I think maybe the most important thing is this truck was polarizing when it was released. People either loved it or they hated it, and I think they've moved away from that a little bit. But of course, you've got eyeballs too, so why don't you tell me in the comments right now, do you think this is a good-looking heavy-duty truck? So this truck looks different from the outside, but I think it looks even more different inside. This interior was in great need of an overhaul, General Motors knew that. So they first focused on the 1500 Silverado and Sierra, and now those interiors have migrated here to the HDs, and that is a good thing. The truck we're looking at right here is a High Country, top-of-the-line, so you're getting a nearly 14-inch screen up there in the center stack, just over a 12-inch driver info cluster screen, fully digital to deliver all your information. You're getting other features here like wireless cell phone charging and a rear camera mirror and a head-up display. So all the technology is here, but more so than the tech, I just think it looks a lot nicer now. There's some real wood used in here, which looks good. The screen setup, yeah, they've really come a long way in the interior. And once again, why don't you let me know what you think of this new HD interior. Now I have to mention the new off-road truck. Yes, there's going to be a heavy-duty ZR2 or ZR2, we just don't know anything about it. Chevy went ahead and released this teaser photo, so all we've seen is the little badge. But if HD ZR2 follows the formula, we're gonna be getting lockers in the front and the rear, and that really cool suspension setup by Multimatic. So this is becoming a really crowded space. We now have the Rebel from Ram, Ford up their game with the new Tremor, and Chevy stepping into this space too with the ZR2. And as soon as we have details on that HD off-roader, we'll share them with you. Now we're here at the business end of this Silverado, and yes, for 2024, the HD now gets the multi-flex tailgate. This is a neat solution, really gives you all kinds of functionality. You've got a bed step there, and there's even a handle here for climbing up and in, that's pretty nice. Now once you fold this guy up, you can also just open this section, have a nice little workstation, you can use the load stopper here to have two levels of storage in your bed. It's a pretty smart solution, and we'll have to still wait and see because it's still kind of new, you know, in 5, 10 years how these things are looking. I think there's concerns there. Besides that though, functionality here is excellent. Now the other thing that GM spent a lot of time doing was adding trailering technology to this truck. It wasn't just about the numbers, it was about making it easier to tow. So we have things like adaptive cruise control with the trailer, and that's actually going to account for the weight of the trailer. So it's gonna know exactly what you have on, and then adjust your stopping distances and your following distances, which is a smart thing. There's a new gross combined weight alert on this truck. Essentially, it's just gonna use torque inputs from the transmission and the engine to calculate how big your trailer is. And if you're overloaded, the truck's gonna say, hey, you're overloaded, you have too much weight, you need to take some off. I think that's a smart idea. It's a different kind of application of it than Ford's bed scales, because you don't get specific weights. But still, all you really ever need to know is, am I over or not? And this Chevy will tell you. Another smart feature, transparent trailer. Now, again, this is not new, but here on the HDs, it has been optimized for fifth-wheel and gooseneck trailers. Of course, they have to use the cameras up there in the chimsel along with the rear cameras. So that was a whole different setup, and that now works on HDs, plus a new trailer blind spot monitoring system. So when you've got your big old trailer on, the truck will actually look all the way down the side of it to make sure there's no cars back there in your blind spot. So yeah, again, this truck really wasn't focused on, hey, we need the biggest number, but you can tell GM put some time into making trailering easier. So Mike, thanks for having us down here to look at your new truck. I think after seeing all the new HDs today, our question with GM is that you're not chasing that crazy huge torque number that everyone else seems to be chasing, and yet you still made revisions to the powertrain, there still is more torque, more torque down low. I guess, can you just talk about the powertrains and why you went the way you did and what customers, what were they asking for? Yeah, without a doubt, our customers weren't telling us to try and hit a really crazy max torque number for a very specific RPM range. What they did ask for is we want more usable powertrain opportunities, we want more usable power to put to the ground. And that's really enabled by two new things. So the first one, we've got our Allison transmission, that's going to work really hard in gas now and diesel. And the other thing was our new turbocharger update. So we've made some enhancements to the turbocharger, some enhancements to the injectors and the fuel pressure. What that's allowed us to do, not only having 975 pounds of max torque, which is going to be more than enough for our customers, but it's going to allow us to put 25% more torque down at the low RPMs. And that's where it's going to be a noticeable difference. Put the power to the ground when you're towing out of the boat ramp, when you're getting that big load going, and that's going to be a meaningful difference. It's going to build confidence for our customers, and it's really going to make a noticeable impact. Another one I got for you, and I know there's no details on ZR2, but can you maybe just talk about why Chevy thought they should get into that space? So ZR2 for us has been just an amazing opportunity for us when we launched it on mid-truck with Colorado. Customers absolutely fell in love with it. That's really the precursor for doing it on our light-duty Silverado. So we got ZR2 and ZR2 Bison in partnership with AEV, again, tremendous customer feedback. They're saying, I want more ZR2 opportunities. Our HD customers came to us and they said, hey, ZR2, you're getting it with light-duty, you're getting it with the mid-truck buyer in Colorado, where's our opportunities? They didn't want to be left out and left behind. So we're going to be announcing that, the ZR2 on heavy-duty. It's going to really play on a formula that we know works hard, and it's going to be done in a way that's unique to HD. So we know at the root of it, towing, hauling, that's big for our customers. Having a little bit of off-road capability is going to be taken to the next level. And then I guess finally, do you have one thing that you love about the truck? One favorite thing that you're like, dang, that for this year is just so cool? There's so many things. For me, it's actually the High Country Midnight Edition. Absolutely love the monochromatic look. You get that blacked-out, menacing, bold appearance. Big wheels, too. Big wheels, black chrome. That's going to be a really great, bold update on the outside. And of course, the new interior. 13.4-inch screen, you get all the information right in front of you. I think that's going to be a big difference for a lot of our owners, too. Cool. Thanks, Mike. Appreciate it, man. Awesome. Thank you, Steve. Appreciate it. Well, folks, we have come to the end of this one. Now, as you can see, Chevy went back to the drawing board in a lot of the places where it really matters. And if you want to keep up in HDs these days, you need towing tech, and you need off-road cred, and this new truck has both of them. But now, of course, I need to hear from you, so please go below in the comments. Let me know what you think of this new heavy-duty. As always, while you're down there, don't forget to hit like, hit subscribe, hit join to become a member of our channel, and then come right back here to Truck King to see what we are testing next. See you.