As GM Authority exclusively reported, the upcoming 2026 Chevy Captiva EV was spotted in South America as a brand-new Chevrolet crossover that’s actually a rebadged Wuling Starlight S.
The 2026 Chevy Captiva EV will be the next product to emerge from Chevrolet’s ongoing and increasingly strong strategic alliance with SAIC-GM-Wuling (SGMW), General Motors’ second joint venture in China that owns Wuling and Baojun, which specialize in highly competitive and basic vehicles. However, the brand-new Captiva EV is a rebadged Wuling Starlight S, unlike the three previous crossovers based on Baojun models.
2025 Wuling Starlight S EV
Notably, the upcoming 2026 Chevy Captiva EV will be the first product in Wuling’s Global Silver-branded vehicle lineup to be rebranded as a Chevrolet for sale outside of China in emerging markets such as the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa. In fact, the electric crossover is the first in the new model lineup from GM’s best-selling brand in the Asian country to join the Chevy portfolio.
Spy photos of the upcoming 2026 Chevy Captiva EV captured fully uncovered in a customs parking lot in Colombia show that the zero-emission crossover will have several exterior design tweaks over the Wuling Starlight S. The Captiva EV features a unique front end with a new bumper that adopts a black horizontal stripe across the top, a more prominent air intake, and new headlight surrounds for a sporty look.
Additionally, the 2026 Chevy Captiva EV distinguishes itself from the Starlight S with a two-tone body style incorporating a black roof, which is currently unavailable on the model sold in China. It’s also notable that the Captiva EV units seen in South America feature the black Chevrolet logos and blacked-out emblems characteristic of the brand’s RS trim level, but curiously, they bear the Premier badge – which typically features a glossy finish.
The upcoming 2026 Chevy Captiva EV is expected to make its global debut soon in a South American country, possibly in Brazil, where test prototypes were first seen. The next-generation electric crossover will bolster the brand’s zero-emission vehicle portfolio with a compelling value proposition that seeks to increase the popularity of propulsion technology in emerging markets, just like the brand-new Chevy Spark EUV.
Comments
Chinese everywhere! not good
yesteday saw good pictures of this coming to port Vitoria in Brasil, a ship caring out a lot of those cars, the news appeared in k o l e s a and tried to find out which wuling cars they produce, indeed seems it has 2 wuling a red one with special vehicles and a saic GM Wuling wit lot of cars, among all them find out not really attractive other than a huge quantity, it is a too chinese appearance, not beautiful but generic chinese, now in Brasil has 2 wuling models this and the spark baojun both EV. Find it sad because it means the engineering and design in S. Caetano do sul has almost none own project, once at my time was derivative of opel products, now they receive the projects of china or import entire from there. In future means GMB could be just import like local Ford did. Myself worked at brazilian projects like Blue macaw celta first generation a bit and worded in some derivatives like corsa sedan .. of course since with GM… then chinese cars has none strong character, they do whatever design in whatever time without a genetic brand appearance and so chevrolet brasil will remain without identity. If rich people there will buy EVs for R$ 500000 really do not know, since 25 years am not in south america anymore to see …
Made in China? No thanks!
This is for Chevrolet global sales, not North America. Lower case gm is using a successful strategy with this new EV, rebadging Wuling cars as Chevrolets for select global markets.
Even if assembled in China, Chevy and GM gets the profits back to the U.S. to pay their employees, including Mary. So we do win some.