Knew it was going to happen at some point. No details on release just hybrid for the moment and maybe awd.

The Chevrolet Corvette is officially going electric (msn.com)

 

I have raced radio controlled cars, they are electric and very fast, faster in a straight line over 100 feet than just about any car on this site. Electric cars can very good and very fun. They can be a perfectly good city car, but they have problems that nobody talks about because they don't want electric cars to get bad press. To the credit of engineers around the world effort is being put into solving these issues (range, battery degradation, battery recycling, fires, and so on) but they still exist.

GM is doing this for political reasons. They aren't called Government Motors for nothing.

 

It was always known though that the C8 ZR1 replacement was likely to be a partial hybrid with front motors to make it AWD and provide the off idle torque of electric motors.

It's not just political, the Vette is supposed to be their performance halo. The reality is even at current technology, from a purely performance standpoint (ignoring cost, weight, range, charge times and measures of practicality) electrics are already dominating gassers. When a family car can go 9.6@150+ (Tesla Plaid), and the hypercars like the Estrema pushing the equivalent of 2,000hp, it is logical GM would explore the application on the Vette to keep up with the automotive jones's.

 

The plaid broke into the 8s. 8.994 @ 155.10

A Tesla Model S Plaid becomes first to hit 8-second quarter-mile - Electrek

And the guy that runs the youtube channel tesla plaid channel consistently runs 9.2 @ 151 with a 1.5 60'. It's insane for a close to 5000lb vehicle.

 

I guess fast electric cars might be exciting to folks who live their lives a quarter mile at a time, but for those of us who spend 95%+ of our road time at part throttle, the silence of electric is deafening to the soul. Hard PASS for me, unless maybe I can use this Corvette to replace my microwave and several other major home appliances.

 

Aint that the damn truth, no soul is more like it.

 

my daily is a plaid and i can tell you hands down that is not the experience in the slightest. that pedal on the floor is 0-1000ft/lbs ALWAYS. and with the AWD you arent spinning or waiting for a down shift.
all my disbelieving hot rod buddies that have gotten rides couldnt stop telling me how surprised they were with the feel of the power.
you get used to still being able to hear yourself think after a ride in to town.

 

People have been running 8's in family cars for a long time, and it doesn't cost $135k+ to do it. The electric C8 could run 8's and I still wouldn't want one. Like everything else I'd glad people have a choice, some people like Miatas and others like EVs, neither are for me.

 

I love my Gasoline, Methanol, Nitromethane engines and much as anyone else but EV's are pretty much running blowing them away right off the showroom floor, No way in hell am I giving up my current vehicles but I'm smart enough to see the future of high performance will be dominated by EV's and I will own one sooner or later.
If they ever get power storage figured out or onboard power production so they can shave some weight while gaining range...it's going to be the nail in the coffin for gasoline powered anything. I can always turn up the tunes to make up for the lack of noise while out cruising around. I'll still need to hear a badass V8 some of the time they will always have a place in the shop.

 

In a crowded urban setting, you might go quite a distance without ever being able to experience anything meaningful from that 1000ft/lbs. Perhaps the sound of an IC engine is not important to some, but it is to me. To each his own. I do appreciate my super quiet high powered Miele vacuum cleaner, so if the electric Corvette can get my carpets just as clean then I might have some use for it yet.

I won't ever own an EV as any sort of toy, nor even transportation until maybe there are better rapid charging options. I don't really care how fast they are; sport bikes are pretty quick too, lots of people love them, but those aren't for me either.

 

I figure one day someone's going to rig up a 90s style 10k+ watt sound system with massive subs and program it with the soundtrack of a cam'd BBC synched to the speed of the EV, and install a scent diffuser of uncatalyzed exhaust odor. Should cause some head scratching.

 

Driving them is fine, even riding in them. But I agree with some comments above, from a spectators point of view electric race cars just plain suck!
I would almost rather hear a Honda with a fart can so I can at least hear the engine being loaded down and shifting gears... lol

 

Wonder what Hollyweird will do for car chase scenes? Imagine the "drama" of the golf cart whirr as the hero makes their getaway from the equally-silent villains. I'm guess either we'll hear some really amplified motors that sound more like jet engines starting, or all movie cars will suddenly sounds like Ferrari V12s with a dozen gears.

 

Except saying they are blowing anything away is a fallacy, you're talking about .001% of less than 4% of the total market, I see more turbo lambos on the road than I do plaids they are so few and far between. Sure I've seen a couple tesla's at the track and one ran 9's which made them the slowest car at the track that day, nobody cared. All the EV's combined have such a low market share they aren't doing anything other than providing a niche market for some wanna be greenies. There isn't a nail in the coffin when over 95% of the market is still based on ICE despite EV's being on the market for decades. I'd consider an EV if they made one worth owning that met my needs, but so far they aren't anywhere close, I'd guess at least two more generations of vehicles before they are even in the ballpark.

 

I wasn't talking about blowing then away based on number of cars seen at the track I was referring to the fact that you can buy one today right off the sales floor and drive to the track and click off numbers that no other production car that I know of can do without at least some mods.
I get that people don't want them and I don't see me owning one in the next decade or longer but they are in their infancy and will continue to improve in range and performance. I hate the idea that EV are being pushed on everyone but the fact is the government is going to make it so you'll have little choice. Gas prices will keep going up to the point that it won't be economical to daily drive them and you will calculate it in dollars per mile. Hell even now with gas in my area at just under $4 per gallon it costs me about 10$ a day to drive to work and back, That's more than I pay for any of my other daily expenses except my house payment.
It will be several decades before they can replace all the current models with EV's and even then you'll still be able to use them...you just may not be able to afford to as much as you would like.

 

I mean it's 2022, running 9's in an almost $150k vehicle isn't very impressive. Guys go faster in $10k **** boxes that run on $2 gal fuel.

How do you eat without spending $10 a day?

 

come on man, youre smarter than this kind of argument.

 

I will never drive an electric car. Building an electric Corvette has to be a joke. I have owned three Corvettes in my seventy eight years and the sound of the cars was one of the motivations of buying the cars.

 

Not an argument, it was a statement. Nobody cares how fast a vehicle is stock, its about the potential and so far other than stripping the interior out of a $100k+ vehicle hardly anyone has modded Tesla's to be any faster than stock. I do have to admit the guy who drove his into the water and went at it with a whiz wheel on drag week was pretty funny, wonder if he got enough youtube views to justify it?

 

Don't believe everything that you read and yes GM is proposing to have ALL electric options for most of their vehicles by 2035 but mark my word the Corvette will not be one of them. That would be like sacrilegious!