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.
