2024 Chevrolet Trax Review: The Best Affordable Car from Detroit

Call it an SUV, a crossover, a hatchback or whatever you want — the Trax is a stellar bargain.

By Will Sabel Courtney

Nov 9, 2023

a blue car parked on the side of a street

Will Sabel Courtney

Detroit's Big Three automakers — General Motors, the Ford Motor Company, and the Arm of Stellantis Formerly Known as Chrysler — do a lot of things well. Pickup trucks, big SUVs, sports cars, muscle cars — the mavens of Michigan know how to build ones worthy of praise and production.

Entry-level cars, however ... well, there not so much. Oh, sure, Detroit has made plenty of small sedans, hatchbacks, coupes and so forth for buyers on a budget over the years, but few of them have been worthy of high praise, especially compared to competitors from Japan and Korea. For every good one you can think of, there's half a dozen bad apples floating in history's barrel.

Partly as a result of this, in recent years, the Big Three have largely given up on small cars — or in many cases, mainstream cars in general. Ford no longer sells any sedans or hatchbacks in America; over at GM, apart from Cadillac's excellent CT4 and CT5, the sole sedan on sale is the outdated Chevy Malibu; meanwhile, over at Dodge and Chrysler, all you'll find are the equally aged 300, Charger and Challenger, all of which are leaving production in the next couple months.

Into this vacuum, however, have come some interesting, unorthodox alternatives. The most obvious example, of course, was the Ford Maverick — a compact pickup truck with a standard hybrid powertrain that went on sale for under $20,000 when it launched back in 2021. Here in 2023, though, it's GM's turn to reinvent the affordable American car ... and while the new 2024 Chevy Trax may not be as revolutionary as FoMoCo's baby pickup, it does so happen to be quite impressive in its own right.

2024 Chevrolet Trax: What We Think

In today's inflation-charged era, with average new vehicle prices hovering around $48,000, the idea of any all-new car worth a damn arriving at half that is remarkable — but it's arguably doubly so coming from Detroit. The Chevy Trax is good-looking, featured-laden, comfortable and easy to live with, all at a price that seems downright cheap these days. Whether it's a crossover or a hatchback is up for debate — the proportions say the former, the lack of available all-wheel-drive says the latter — but what's not up for discussion is that it's a damn fine vehicle for the money.

To learn more about our testing methodology and how we evaluate products, head here.

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The Trax packs a ton of value into a small (but not too small) package

Will Sabel Courtney

First things first: The Trax's base price of $21,495 is absolutely remarkable here in late 2023. (For what it's worth, that's the equivalent of $18,300 in pre-pandemic bucks.) But that doesn't mean it's objectly spartan. Even the starter LS model packs:

automatic emergency braking that detects cars and pedestrians
lane departure warning and lane keep assist
automatic high beams
an 8.0-inch touchscreen infotainment system with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto
cruise control
SiriusXM satellite radio
active noise cancellation
all the usual features we've come to expect like keyless entry, power windows, air conditioning, etc.

My 2RS test car, in turn, added plenty more into the mix: a larger 11.0-inch touchscreen, an all-glass instrument panel, automatic climate control, LED running lamps, heated seats and steering wheel, 19-inch rims, faux leather upholstery, wireless phone charging, a sunroof, adaptive cruise control, blind spot warning and rear cross traffic alert — the last six of which came as optional packages. Even so, with destination and one or two other options, my loaded tester came to $26,935. You can't even buy a Civic sedan from the top half of the lineup for that money — and the Trax offers a more usable rear seat and 10 extra cubic feet of cargo space behind the second row.

The value-jammed package reminds me, in some ways, of the Ford Maverick, which as mentioned above also broke new ground in terms of content, design and category for an entry-level American car. However, the Maverick was hoist on its own petard by its success; demand proved so high that Ford has hiked the price, pushing the base hybrid XL model that felt like a steal at $20K up to $25,640 as of this writing. Hopefully the Trax won't suffer the same fate.

The Trax's interior is more than worthy of its price

Will Sabel Courtney

Fairly or not, General Motors products have often been dinged for their interior quality: poor displays, creaking panels, and perhaps above all else, hard plastics and other cheap-feeling materials. That's growing better with time — something that often can't be said of the interiors of old GM cars — and the Trax does its best to look good on a budget.

Sure, it has uses much of the same solid black plastic found across the GM lineup — in fact, it uses more of it per square inch of interior than others — but it feels far more appropriate here in a vehicle at this price than it does in, say, a $50K pickup truck. Besides, most of what you actually are likely to touch feels fine, especially for the class of vehicle you're in — and doubly so when compared against a a lower-priced GM car of even a decade ago. (Hell, even compared with a nice GM car of a couple decades back, the interior quality is a big improvement.

And don't look past the forest for the hard plastic trees: the overall interior is an attractive, comfortable place. The screens are crisp and easy to read, the buttons and physical controls intuitive, the storage spaces prevalent; even the overall design impresses, with a sporty blend of raking lines and creases that brings to mind the Camaro / Corvette end of the company's lineup. And no matter which trim you opt for, you score an interior with enough actual room for four adults.

It may not be quick, but the Trax is fine for real life

Will Sabel Courtney

In this modern era of ubiquitous turbochargers and the rapid rise of electric vehicles, we've grown used to the idea of family vehicles delivering acceleration that would humble the sports cars of our youth. The Trax, however, boasts an engine that seems almost toy-like by modern standards: a 1.2-liter inline three, albeit one fitted with a turbocharger to help it act more like a four-cylinder.

That sounds bad on paper. On the streets, though, it's, well, fine. Not in the passive-aggressive way that word often gets used these days; it's literally fine — acceptable, unworthy of praise or damnation. Around town, the 162 lb-ft of torque raise their heads quickly, and the throttle pedal's fairly aggressive mapping means the Trax leaps off the line with decent vigor.

Once you pass 55–60 miles per hour, acceleration starts to take a noticeable downward turn as the 137 horses struggle against mass and drag. Downshifts require both attentive planning and curb-stomping the gas pedal, and even then, you may have to call off your attempts at the last minute.

I generally found it effective to use the gear lockout function like a shifter, keeping the engine from going all the way to the highest possible gear to keep it spinning in the heart of its meager power band. (Let's say a quiet thank-you to GM's engineers for giving the car a conventional six-speed automatic instead of a CVT.) Doing so kept the Trax feeling at least competent to keep up with New Jersey's fast-paced freeway traffic. Still, if you don't drive like an overcaffeinated Max Verstappen, you'll probably find it just fine.

2024 Chevrolet Trax