This Christmas couldn’t get any better for C8 enthusiasts. Corvette tipster Corvette Nut uploaded a 30-second teaser video of the upcoming E-Ray doing four-wheel drifts in the snow, a video that appears to feature the same camouflaged prototype teased by GM in a video from April 2022.
We’ve known that General Motors will electrify the C8 before the Stingray was presented in July 2018, with the convertible version of the Stingray following suit in October 2019. After taking the veils off, the biggest automaker of the Big Three in Detroit indirectly confirmed that electric assistance is coming by means of the 2020 model year Stingray owner’s manual.
Page 244 shows the fuse box and the purpose of each fuse. Number 7 is for the pedestrian-friendly alert system, which the Stingray and Z06 don’t have, and number 12 is for the lithium-ion battery module. The small-block and flat-plane crankshaft V8 variants make do with 12-volt batteries rather than Li-Ion units. The question is, can a case be made for an EV?
Not really, at least not for the time being. Had it been designed to be compatible with full electrification in the near future, the fuse box of the C8 would have featured a fuse for the rechargeable energy storage system à la Bolt EV, Bolt EUV, and every other EV produced by GM nowadays.
Prototypes of the E-Ray don’t show any charging port doors either, and the infamous visualizer leak from the beginning of December 2022 reveals the same location for the gas filler door as the Stingray and Z06. Speaking of these two, the E-Ray is a weird mix of both of its ICE-only siblings.
The front bumper’s design may be unique to the E-Ray, but the sides are unmistakably Z06 and the rear end features the quad-pipe layout of the Stingray. Also worthy of note, Z06 cars produced for export markets feature a similar exhaust layout as the Stingray due to emission regulations.
Over in Europe, for example, the Z06 features corner-mounted tips due to the addition of two gasoline particulate filters. The Stingray also runs gasoline particulate filters in this part of the world, explaining the difference in output compared to its counterpart for the North American market.
Turning our attention back to the E-Ray, the e-AWD sports car is expected to make approximately 600 horsepower in hybrid mode. The December 2022 visualizer leak further confirmed the existence of a Regen on Demand button on the driver’s side of the center tunnel that doesn’t house the transmission. The lithium-ion batteries are most likely to be located there, with the eight-speed dual-clutch transaxle located behind the engine.
It's not known if there’s a dedicated EV driving mode, but who cares anyway? The wider and stickier tires of the Z06 in combination with instant torque from the front-mounted electric motor and the grunt of the small-block V8 in the rear will make the E-Ray a stupidly fast car to 60 miles per hour (97 kilometers per hour). It’s also pretty certain the E-Ray is packing more torque than the flat-plane crankshaft V8-engined Corvette Z06.
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
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