Here’s everything we know about the 2024 Corvette E-Ray hybrid

When the hybrid 'Vette goes on sale later this year, it will be the quickest of them all.

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[Frodo Douchebaggins]

I'd just love it if the V8 aficionados in my neighborhood could go to work, or wherever it is they're going, without announcing their intentions to everyone.

Loud exhausts and loud stereos are for assholes. Nobody should have to hear someone else's car from inside their house.

 

[ColdWetDog]

Just like a Prius but with a V8. I'm thinking they should have gone with a plugin hybrid setup to get more electric miles.

Probably wouldn't do any good. See TFA but more importantly, I don't imagine any red blooded Corvette owner would want to silently motor about for more than a few miles. Otherwise it really would be a big Prius with a really tiny cargo compartment.

 

[Mechjaz]

It's still exciting to me that it's exciting to read about Corvettes. 20 years ago I'd have asked if you were seriously talking about the car for retirees and the mulleted. Something good got into the water back around the C6.

 

[jonah]

The C8 is a handsome, handsome car, and by most accounts a really good performer. Would love to see a BEV one down the road.

No mention of how much weight the hybrid system adds?

 

[whiteknave]

Just like a Prius but with a V8. I'm thinking they should have gone with a plugin hybrid setup to get more electric miles.

That would have added more weight to the vehicle and where would they put the batteries (without sacrificing room elsewhere)?

 

[Jivejebus]

It's still exciting to me that it's exciting to read about Corvettes. 20 years ago I'd have asked if you were seriously talking about the car for retirees and the mulleted. Something good got into the water back around the C6.

The c6 z06 is my dream car. There's just something about that 505 HP 427 small block that really sings to me. They're actually not as expensive as I was expecting either. Low milage examples are around $40k. They really hit it out of the park with that car

 

[Penforhire]

This is an exciting direction to me. Hybrid power train and AWD? Neat-o. I was an enthusiastic C5 Z06 owner. I'm certainly enticed by this one. Price feels steep, having bought that Z06 brand new for mid-$40K's in 2003 but I'm probably becoming like I remember my parents, "wow, the price of everything is so expensive now..."

I recall way back then some GM engineers I knew bemoaning the comparison to Vipers driven at the limits because the Vette had narrower tires. AWD certainly helps level that playing field.

I'm curious what fuel economy this gets when not driven in anger.

 

[Turbofrog]

It's still exciting to me that it's exciting to read about Corvettes. 20 years ago I'd have asked if you were seriously talking about the car for retirees and the mulleted. Something good got into the water back around the C6.

I think we're both getting old, but it's worth remembering that 20 years ago the Corvette C5-R was absolutely dominating the GTS class at Le Mans and all the other endurance racing series. So for anyone who was an enthusiast at the time, that generation of Corvette leaving all the Porsches and Ferraris in its dust was certainly a good way to change perceptions.

 

[Turbofrog]

The C8 is a handsome, handsome car, and by most accounts a really good performer. Would love to see a BEV one down the road.

No mention of how much weight the hybrid system adds?

It will be interesting to see what a dedicated BEV sports car looks like coming from a mass manufacturer. We can obviously see the extraordinary potential that the concept has (see Rimac), but the Tesla Roadster is complete vapourware (and is targeted at the same supercar price points, so not as relevant). Even the Porsche Taycan is a "practical" 4-door 2+2 despite it's silhouette.

I think GM would likely want to wait for a new generation that they can really afford to go all-in on electric, though. I can't see a C8 BEV being in the cards.

That said, what the world really needs is a $35K BEV Miata with a single 150 kW motor and a sub-50 kWh battery pack to keep the curb weight under 3000 lbs. 200 miles of range is plenty for such a car. It could even the retractable-hardtop version for the sake of aerodynamic efficiency...

 

[j_c]

Just like a Prius but with a V8. I'm thinking they should have gone with a plugin hybrid setup to get more electric miles.

There was a one-off (ok, 2) created for a Japanese racing series. Not very much Prius was left but they did use Toyota production car hybrid systems.

 

[rosen380]

Price feels steep, having bought that Z06 brand new for mid-$40K's in 2003

Can that be right? My 1993 Corvette (just a regular coupe, not a ZR-1 or anything special) stickered for $39k.

Even if your Z06 had no options of any kind, 10 years worth of inflation plus a premium trim for just a few thousand more sounds low.

[edit]
https://www.autoblog.com/buy/2003-Chevrolet-Corvette-Z06_Hardtop__2dr_Coupe/pricing/
That puts the un-optioned 2003 Z06 at $51,435... though assuming that their optional equipment list is right, there were very few options and at most were adding a couple hundred to that.

 

[rosen380]

Wow this looks amazi- wait. Is that a digital dash? Eww. Gross. I remember digital dashes. They break on you. Do not want this 100k dumpster fire now thanks.

Way to ruin it GM.*

(* Obviously I'm joking here. I could never afford this. If I won the lottery, this would be my car. I have a Dodge Stealth R/T Twin Turbo. AWD cars are my favorite. I wish I had one of these. If anyone wants to donate one to me PM me and I'll give you the details on where to send it please.)

FWIW-- my 1993 has a digital dash and it is all original and everything still works fine.

 

[halse]

Not at all my taste but I have a brother in law who will get one, he is already in line. He gets a new corvette about once every two years and curiously none of them have been red.

 

[Mechjaz]

I think we're both getting old, but it's worth remembering that 20 years ago the Corvette C5-R was absolutely dominating the GTS class at Le Mans and all the other endurance racing series. So for anyone who was an enthusiast at the time, that generation of Corvette leaving all the Porsches and Ferraris in its dust was certainly a good way to change perceptions.

I almost reached back to the C5. I think my oldest race day swag shirts have C5 branding on them, if they haven't disintegrated. While growing up though, the Corvette was more the butt of a car culture joke than a technological marvel and bargain supercar. I might need to reach back more than 20 years but I'll fess up to that being my own faulty memory.

 

[peachpuff]

That's a tiny battery, I have a 1.7kWh battery in my ebike

 

[ElCameron]

Sad about the lack of PHEV and a larger battery. I miss when the vette could be a daily driver.

That said, the fact that they didn’t lose the frunk means that they planned for this design from the get go. Which is cool.

 

[flunk]

I wonder about the thinking that goes into creating a low volume, halo product like this in the social milieu of urgent climate change. Yes, car makers love halo products. Or at least the marketing departments do. And it is an interesting bit of technology - hybrid ICE / electric vehicles as performance rather than fuel efficiency.

I suspect this is a preview of the near-future of supercars. They'll all be hybrids just to eke out that barely-legal fuel economy figure they'll need to have. We all know that no one is going to actually see those numbers of course, because the testing cycle requires the driver drive like a grandma, but at least in theory they'll be compliant and that's exactly what the car manufacturers want.

 

[Demento]

It was okay that the 'Vette had a chintzy interior when it was the cheapest thing in supercar territory. But at $100k? Or is that just a prototype interior and the real one will feel less... cheap?

 

[aleph_nought]

There was a one-off (ok, 2) created for a Japanese racing series. Not very much Prius was left but they did use Toyota production car hybrid systems.

That's a freaking wild Frankenstein's monster of a car - a Prius front half with a Le Mans V8 in the back seat and a battery pack in the passenger seat. I was giggling when I heard it move out from the pits like a Prius with a beefy e-motor and then the V8 roars to life, sounding like a cheaper version of the mad Porsche 919. You're right, the car used Prius and Camry parts on the EV side.

 

[Dr Gitlin]

I'm still not sure what the point of a hybrid that can only get power from the standard combustion engine is (and has practically no battery, at that)

So, you don't understand the point of a Toyota Prius either?

 

[Windowsrookie]

I wonder about the thinking that goes into creating a low volume, halo product like this in the social milieu of urgent climate change. Yes, car makers love halo products. Or at least the marketing departments do. And it is an interesting bit of technology - hybrid ICE / electric vehicles as performance rather than fuel efficiency.

But when consumers are apparently clamoring for BEVs that they can actually purchase, where does this vehicle fit in? I suppose GM can do more than 10 things at time and the Corvette People probably aren't the folks that should create the next mass market BEV, but it just looks odd.

They created this new corvette specifically because of the "social milieu of urgent climate change". This shows that we can still have fun cars and make them more environmentally friendly. This is likely just a stepping stone towards a fully electric corvette.

"But when consumers are apparently clamoring for BEVs that they can actually purchase, where does this vehicle fit in?"

GM already makes an affordable EV, and they are releasing another affordable EV soon. Not every car they make has to be an affordable commuter car. There are still people who like to have fun sports cars, and this is a product for them.

Also, while there are a great number of people buying EV's I would not say that "consumers are apparently clamoring for BEVs" The survey's I have seen show that as of now, less than 40% of Americans are considering purchasing an Electric vehicle.

-------

I live in the frigid midwest and literally nobody in my social circle wants one yet. Until there are more fast chargers, and longer range EV's it will not happen. It is regularly below 0F in the winter and using an electric heater in an EV would drop the range to under 150 miles in any of the affordable EVs available today. There are no fast chargers within 10 miles of me and I live in the suburbs of a large metropolitan area, less than a 20 minute drive to downtown. Also, All of the new apartment buildings they build here only have a couple of 240v EV chargers in the garage.

I like EV cars. They are the future. But for the majority of people they won't work yet. When it's -10F outside, people are not going to give up the comfort of pulling up to any of the 5+ gas stations close to their home and filling up the tank in less than 5 minutes. #1 priority right now I think should be building a large fast charging network.

 

[Dr Gitlin]

That's a tiny battery, I have a 1.7kWh battery in my ebike

It's the same capacity as the battery in a Toyota Prius, which weirdly no one seems to complain about or make fun of. I wonder why?

 

[sterlingdax]

“Behind the cockpit, as with other C8 Corvettes, you'll find a short-block V8”

Is this supposed to be small block? Short block, to me at least, is an engine with just the lower end.

 

[rosen380]

Just one more thing on price-- Corvette price changes have pretty historically hugged inflation, outside of the end of the C3 into the C4.

Take the base MSRP of a 1953 Corvette and add annual inflation to it each year. Once the price kind of settled in (started high in 1953 and then was cut drastically for 1954-1955), from 1958 through 1976 that "calculated MSRP from the 1953 model was always in the range of 93-105% of the actual MSRP.

Then from 1977 to 1984, the prices jumped significantly, but resetting the "adjusted price" for 1985 and then going back to just adding inflation each year, we get 38 years where the "calculated" MSRP is always in the range of 89-108% of actual.

And split that range up to 1985-2005 vs 2006-2023 and the ranges are 89-100% and 94-105%.

 

[isidorem]

That's a tiny battery, I have a 1.7kWh battery in my ebike

Less than half the capacity of a set of Segway batteries....

 

[mir-teiwaz]

So, you don't understand the point of a Toyota Prius either?

For the Prius, I thought the argument was that the hybrid can run with more efficiency than direct ICE and thus cleaner (always in the max mpg mode essentially), but it doesn't seem like this vehicle has that advantage- am I wrong?

Happy to be educated...

 

[Penforhire]

Rosen, I recall paying $46K. Don't recall any significant options. I'm sure I got it for a bit under MSRP because I do recall shopping around the So Cal region for a dealer who would bargain on it.

 

[ERIFNOMI]

Wow this looks amazi- wait. Is that a digital dash? Eww. Gross. I remember digital dashes. They break on you. Do not want this 100k dumpster fire now thanks.

Way to ruin it GM.*

(* Obviously I'm joking here. I could never afford this. If I won the lottery, this would be my car. I have a Dodge Stealth R/T Twin Turbo. AWD cars are my favorite. I wish I had one of these. If anyone wants to donate one to me PM me and I'll give you the details on where to send it please.)

Any modern "analog" dash is plenty digital, I guarantee it. The dials haven't been directly connected to whatever they're displaying in quite awhile.

Having the instrument cluster implemented on a screen instead of physical dials is a great improvement. You can emulate dials if you want, but it gives you the freedom to do anything. That means the instrument cluster can change to fit specific use cases. Flying around the track? Have a huge tachometer front and center. Cruising down the highway on a long road trip? Get navigation updates right in front of you.

 

[Frodo Douchebaggins]

It's the same capacity as the battery in a Toyota Prius, which weirdly no one seems to complain about or make fun of. I wonder why?

Hey hold up Doc, I complain about and make fun of the Prius all the time. Just not for its battery size.

Mostly for the fact that every Uber or Lyft driver with one seems to have a CEL illuminated full-time. What's with that?

 

[Frodo Douchebaggins]

Any modern "analog" dash is plenty digital, I guarantee it. The dials haven't been directly connected to whatever they're displaying in quite awhile.

Having the instrument cluster implemented on a screen instead of physical dials is a great improvement. You can emulate dials if you want, but it gives you the freedom to do anything. That means the instrument cluster can change to fit specific use cases. Flying around the track? Have a huge tachometer front and center. Cruising down the highway on a long road trip? Get navigation updates right in front of you.

But know what sucks about it? The amount of stupid assholes running around with their headlights off because they no longer need to flip a switch that enables exterior lighting AND makes the dash instruments readable.

I'm unequivocally in favor of automatic exterior lights on all new cars. Put in the ability to manually turn OFF the lights if needed, but it should reset back to automatic next time the car is driven.

Also something that gives the driver 1 hour of explosive diarrhea the first time they enable fog lights in non-foggy conditions, and doubles each time thereafter.

 

[Dr Gitlin]

For the Prius, I thought the argument was that the hybrid can run with more efficiency than direct ICE and thus cleaner (always in the max mpg mode essentially), but it doesn't seem like this vehicle has that advantage- am I wrong?

Happy to be educated...

Yes, you're wrong, and we should expect this Corvette to be much more efficient than the Stingray.

 

[ERIFNOMI]

For the Prius, I thought the argument was that the hybrid can run with more efficiency than direct ICE and thus cleaner (always in the max mpg mode essentially), but it doesn't seem like this vehicle has that advantage- am I wrong?

Happy to be educated...

Do you not think an additional ~160HP and ~120ftlb torque added by the electric motor is an advantage? The engine alone makes the same power as the regular C8. The huge bump in specs comes from the electric motor. That's not efficient enough for you?

Also mentioned in the article, it can drive on electric only for a short distance and it has start/stop. It's hard to imagine the hybrid not getting at least a small bump in efficiency when they release those specs. More power, less fuel.

How is this any different than the Prius, except that it's in a high performance sports car?

 

[rosen380]

Also something that gives the driver 1 hour of explosive diarrhea the first time they enable fog lights in non-foggy conditions, and doubles each time thereafter.

In my Wrangler, the act of turning off the headlights also triggers the fog lights to turn off, so the only way to accidentally leave the fog lights on for next time is if you chose to also leave the headlights on (which would have some issues of it's own ).