Here’s something you don’t see often in 2022, the year of the $48,000 average new car: A redesigned vehicle carrying a lower MSRP than the model it replaces. Yet here the 2024 Chevrolet Trax is, bucking industry trend by being cheaper than the old Trax. With a starting price of $21,495, the second-generation Trax will undercut its predecessor by $1,400, or six percent, when it goes on sale in spring 2023.

Ask the Chevrolet Trax team about inflation and they’ll tell you how their new baby has ballooned into a bigger subcompact SUV, not ballooned in price. The 2024 model measures 11 inches longer and two inches wider with a roofline that’s four inches lower than the outgoing car. The design transformation that results is radical—the current Trax has the proportions of a dumpling and a generic look that screams “rental car.”

The new one, with styling cues inspired by the Chevrolet Blazer, looks athletic and fresh. The growth spurt does wonders for utility, too. A six-inch wheelbase stretch adds three inches of rear-seat legroom, and cargo capacity swells from 18.7 to 25.6 cubic feet.

If Chevy’s selling more car for less money, surely there has to be a catch, right? The answer to that question hides under the hood, where the Trax trades its 155-hp turbocharged inline-four for a turbocharged 1.2-liter three-cylinder engine that makes 137 horsepower and 162 lb-ft of torque.

The 2024 model’s six-speed automatic saves weight and cost compared to the the nine-speed automatic and continuously variable transmission that were previously offered. All-wheel drive is also no longer available; all 2024 models will be front-wheel drive. Front-drivers in this segment aren’t exactly rare. Look no further than the Nissan Kicks, Hyundai Venue, and Kia Soul.

Don’t go jumping to conclusions about that power cut, though. Seth Valentine, program engineering manager for the Trax, says that despite the 18-hp hit, the Trax’s 0-60-mph time improves by a full second. If our test numbers confirm that to be true, the leisurely mid-nine-second shuffle would become a more tolerable eight-second jaunt.

Valentine also notes that engineers have improved shift quality and shift speed, all while raising the fuel economy figures by an unspecified amount. The old version earned a 24-mpg city estimate and a 32-mpg highway figure, and we expect the city number to jump several ticks. Standard active noise cancellation should also help tame any bad vibes from three-cylinder engine.

The Trax’s low entry price doesn’t come without a few sacrifices. The base model wears steel wheels and unheated exterior mirrors, although it does include the all-important 8.0-inch infotainment touchscreen with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto compatibility. Every Trax also comes with automated emergency braking, automatic high beams, and lane-keeping assistance as well.

Spend a little more cheddar and Chevy throws in more amenities without eroding the value proposition. Remote start is standard on every Trax above the base model. Heated seats, which are optional on LS and LT trims, come standard along with a heated steering wheel on 1RS, 2RS, and Activ models. The infotainment screen grows to 11.0 inches and is joined by an 8.0-inch digital instrument cluster, which replaces analog gauges in the LT, 2RS, and Activ trims.

Those models are also equipped with automatic climate control, push-button start, and rear-seat USB ports. Wireless phone charging, adaptive cruise control, blind-spot monitoring, rear parking sensors, a sunroof, and a power driver’s seat are available either as options or as standard equipment on higher trims.

The Trax starts about $1,200 above that of the smaller Hyundai Venue and within a couple hundred dollars of the Nissan Kicks’ price. It’s positioned more than $2,000 below the Toyota Corolla Cross and nearly $5,000 under the inexplicably expensive new Honda HR-V. This isn’t just a misleading base price trick either, as even the top Trax model starts below $25,000.

Chevy’s five-trim Trax lineup includes RS models with a unique grille and black badging and an Activ model with a monochromatic motif. Pricing is as follows:

The Trax will also compete with the similarly sized, similarly styled Chevy Trailblazer. We’ll admit that we’re still trying to figure out why someone might choose one of these small SUVs over the other. Here’s two considerations: The Trailblazer, with a starting price of $23,295, is slightly more expensive. It also offers all-wheel drive as an option.

We started this story with something you rarely hear in 2022: Here’s a new SUV that will cost less in the future than what you’d pay today. We’re going to end it with something you’ve probably never before read: Let’s give it up for GM’s bean counters. Seriously.

The General’s accountants have rightly been pilloried in the past for making the bad kind of cheap cars with cuts to all the wrong features and design choices. But between the $26,595 Bolt EV, the roughly $30,000 Equinox EV, and the 2024 Trax, it looks like Chevy may be kicking off a streak of making the good kind of cheap cars—affordable vehicles that don’t cut corners where it matters.

We’ll need to drive the 2024 Trax before we can pass full judgment on it, but at the very least, it looks to easily be a better version of its predecessor at a better price.