The 2024 Chevrolet Trax is a cheap car with an interior that partially feels its price. I say partially because the tech inside the Trax and the sheer amount of space it offers genuinely punch above its weight. It’s most of the things you touch that make it come off as the low-to-mid $20,000 car that it is.

My particular tester is the 2RS with a final price of $26,685, which, frankly isn’t too far off the base LS trim’s $22,590 starting price. There aren’t many new cars cheaper than the Trax on sale today, and if it is cheaper, there’s a good chance that it’s also smaller. So, where are the compromises? One of them is armrest construction. Chevy uses some brutally hard and uncomfortable plastic for the door armrests of the Trax, no matter the trim – its pricier Buick Envista twin fixes this. And while the center armrest is rubberized, it’s nearly as hard and uncomfortable as the door armrests are. Would it have really killed GM to put some padding down? I’d argue it’s worth however much the MSRP needs to go up to do so, as I’d be DIYing a solution to this elbow catastrophe if I owned a Trax.

But to take a step back, if complaining about the armrests is the worst part of this interior, maybe Chevy is doing an alright job at screwing together a cheap car. The 2RS model seen in the photos here injects a necessary dose of personality in the form of red accents throughout the interior. Specifically, the red stitching, stripe and logo on the seats give a small sense of occasion when hopping in. Plus, those Camaro-like air vents with red-lined outer rims look rather sporty, too.

What I could do without is all the piano black plastic used in places it really shouldn’t be. The gear lever surround will be scratched to hell in no time, and the same goes for the steering wheel surround. The perforated leather used for most of the wheel is great, so it’s a bit of a shame to see a section of plastic at the bottom where people will surely rest their hands and mar the finish.

Chevy smartly integrates a pair of bright and prominent screens as the interior’s centerpiece. The central 11-inch touchscreen (the base model has a smaller 8-inch version) infotainment system is angled toward the driver, and the wireless Apple CarPlay/Android Auto tech works flawlessly. You’ll definitely want to use smartphone connectivity here, as the native interface is barebones compared to other GM infotainments.

The same can be said for the digital instrument cluster. It uses a blue and black color scheme and only displays the truly necessary information with very little customization possible. Digital clusters might still be considered a premium feature these days, but this one is about as basic as it gets, going so far as to push most of the car status/gauge information to the infotainment system. That said, it serves its purpose perfectly fine and will surely grab eyeballs and “wows” during a test drive.

Another element to appreciate about the Trax’s simple interior is its use of physical controls for climate and volume control. Knobs can be used to easily adjust temperature; the heated seats/heated steering wheel are activated via simple buttons, and you can choose to use either the central volume knob or the behind-wheel buttons to adjust radio volume. The one physical control that can be a little annoying is the gear shifter, which has a propensity to drag all the way down into Low instead of Drive when pulling it back from Park – I struggled with this throughout the whole week of it being in my driveway.

We’ve already praised the Trax’s utility on several occasions, but it bears repeating here. Despite the coupe-like roofline, its cargo area is huge for its price point – get the full lowdown in our luggage test here. The same can be said for its large rear seat (that notably has no hump in the floor’s center thanks to the Trax being FWD-only) which even includes both a USB-C and USB-A port for rear seat charging needs. Course, those backseat passengers will be dealing with the same annoyingly hard armrests as the those in front, but that’s just one thing you’re going to need to learn to live with.

The Trax adheres closely to the definition of an appliance in many ways, but sometimes that’s just what the car-buying masses need: a cheap car with tons of space that nails the bare minimum. Its sales success speaks for itself — Chevy sold 37,588 of these in the first quarter. Just like the Buick Envista, Chevy has a real winner on its hands with this budget crossover.

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