Chevy Equinox EV Cargo Test: How Big Is the Trunk?

• Chevy says the Equinox EV has 26.4 cubic feet of cargo space.
• That's a higher figure than the Chevy Blazer EV.
• Our real-world test shows how much stuff it can hold and how it really compares.

Here is the Chevy Equinox EV's cargo area. There is a cargo cover available, but my test vehicle did not have it, so I was unable to test with and without the cargo cover.

However, the above photo doesn't actually show the entire cargo area.

This is the main difference between the Equinox EV and Blazer EV. The Equinox EV is one of many SUVs that has a dual-level cargo floor; the Blazer EV is not one of them. (Neither is the Chevy Trax, as we learned last week.) The upper position is really just there to create a continuous, flat space when the back seat is lowered. As I'm not testing maximum cargo space, the upper position is irrelevant to this test, and this is the last you'll be hearing about it.

The lower position is quite obviously not completely flat. There is a ramp of sorts leading up to the seatback, which is not uncommon. The Kia Niro EV has the same thing. This may seem like a problem, but considering that the seatback is at an angle, you can't really push a bag all the way to the seat base and have it perpendicular with the floor. It's like the ramp is canceled out by the seatback.

Anyway, that's still not all the cargo space.

There is a sizable underfloor storage bin. The Blazer EV does have one of these, but the Equinox's obviously has more north-south space in it. I'll be testing this bin as well.

OK, time to get to the bags. As always here's some nice boilerplate information about the bags I use and their dimensions. There are two bags you'd definitely have to check at the airport: Big Gray (26 inches long x 16.5 inches wide x 12 inches deep) and Big Blue (26 x 16.5 x 10). There are three roll-aboards that usually fit as carry-on: Medium Tall (24 x 14 x 9), Medium Wide (23 x 15 x 9) and the smaller Green Bag (21 x 14 x 9.5). Finally, there's everyone's favorite Fancy Bag (21 x 12 x 11), a medium-size duffle.

There you go — all the bags fit. It wasn't a difficult load either. The two biggest bags sat atop each other positioned laterally in the cargo area, with the Green Bag and Fancy Bag behind them. The two black medium bags were then stacked length-wise (albeit at an angle because of the ramp) with room to spare in front of them.

There was no issue closing the liftgate or with rear visibility. Easy cheese.

While the Blazer EV could also fit the same number of bags with roughly the same amount of space left over, the bags were much closer to the roof and it was harder to load. Both can perhaps be attributed to the Blazer not having the lower floor position available.

Ah, but we're not done yet.

The underfloor bin was perfectly sized to swallow one of my bonus bags, a small cylindrical duffle that measures 20 inches long and 10.5 inches in diameter. The Blazer EV's bin was not big enough to swallow this bag.

Another note about this picture. See that square-ish case up there? That's for the charge cord. Because the Equinox EV does not have a frunk, or even just a glorified bin under the hood, it's nice that Chevrolet carved out this space under the cargo floor for the charge cord case. Otherwise, it would have to go into the bin and kill a bag in the process.

OK, so how does this Cargo Test performance compare to other electric SUVs in its price range? The Ford Mustang Mach-E (29.7 cubic feet) could not only fit all my bags, but it could fit them under its cargo cover. Take that out and it could stuff more in. It also has a frunk, though it's weirdly chopped into bin-like segments preventing you from using it for a bag. The Volkswagen ID.4 (30.3 cubes) did just a little better than the Ford. The Ioniq 5 (27.2 cubes) could not fit all my bags (no Fancy Bag) due to a compromised shape that results in lots of unusable space. The Kia Niro EV (22.8 cubes) was actually better than the Ioniq 5 in my cargo test and equal to the EV6 (24.4 cubes). It was also basically equal to the Equinox EV if you ignore the underfloor bin.

That's a lot of comparative info and it's understandable if you skimmed it. Here's the takeaway: The cubic foot volume numbers do not correspond to how well each vehicle did in my cargo test.

The list, in order of specs would be: ID.4, Mach-E, Ioniq 5, Equinox EV, Blazer EV (25.5 cubes), EV6 and Niro.

The list, in order of Cargo Test results would be: ID.4, Mach-E, Equinox EV, Niro, EV6, Blazer EV, Ioniq 5.

Results like this are literally why I do these tests.

And finally, I don't do this often, but here's a little bonus showing how a golf bag fits in the Chevy Equinox EV. It can not only fit width-wise, but as you can see, it can do so when inside a travel bag and therefore longer than the norm. Good news, golfers.