Can The Chevy Corvette E-Ray Really Get To 60 MPH in 2.5 Seconds?

Hey everybody, welcome to beautiful Colorado and welcome to the all new Chevrolet Corvette E-Ray, the first ever all-wheel drive Corvette, the first ever electrified Corvette. And in this video, we're taking it for a drive. We're going to find out, is this E-Ray as good as every Corvette ever has been? And does the electrification actually make this car better? He's the Corvette owner. I co-own it, but it's it. Look at this, in electricity alone, it allows you to accelerate fairly quickly. Oh, hit the gas too hard. This Corvette is not set up like any Corvette that's ever been made. In the middle of the car is a 6.2 liter LT2 naturally aspirated V8 that makes about 490 horsepower that feeds the rear wheels via an 8-speed dual clutch automatic transmission. In the middle is a 1.9 kilowatt hour lithium ion battery, and in the front is a 160 horsepower electric motor that feeds the front wheels. There is no mechanical connection whatsoever between the front and the back. 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That's pound 529 from your cell phone. The new C8 E-Ray Corvette starts at $113,000, but this car is equipped closer to $130,000. Let's see if this interior lives up to $130,000. Well certainly, this kind of two-tone color, this beige, or maybe it's more of like an orange on black, looks really cool. I love how they incorporate the stitching across the dash. This car has the leather everywhere. There's a long, continuous row of climate controls down here where you've got everything from your temperature adjustment to your heated and cooled seats. Here we've got this leather-wrapped mode selector with this knob you twist to change the different modes. Here we've got the adjustability for park versus neutral drive, foot on the brake. That's how you change the gears. It even has a carbon fiber cup holder. Look at that. We've got this carbon steering wheel with, of course, that beige stitching and the flat bottom and top. This is a nice interior. It really is. It's a little busy. There's a lot of shapes and geometric squares and patterns going on here, but it's easily on the same standard. I'm going to say it's going to piss some people off, but this is a 911-like interior. It's very nice. Look at the headliner. It's beautiful. Starting the Corvette, it starts like any other Stingray. Foot on the brake, push the button, and that magnificent LT2 engine roars into life. And you're probably thinking, that's not very hybrid-like. Where is the silent start up? Well, there is a super secret mode to start this car on electricity. So what you do is you don't push the start button. You get in, you put your foot on the brake, and then you twist the mode knob, and then look at this. There are a couple of different starting modes. There is a normal mode, which is what we just saw. There's a stealth mode, where you can drive the car on electricity for up to 45 miles an hour. And then there is a shuttle mode, which starts the car on electricity and only lets you go up to 15 miles an hour, top speed. I'm going to floor it. Ready? In 3, 2, 1, full throttle, electricity only. Only the front wheel's being powered. 15. Okay. It is not fast in shuttle mode, but it's not supposed to be. This is a cool mode where if you want to move it in your garage, not have to open the garage in the winter, stick it in shuttle mode, and you can do that. And you can even see what percentage of battery we're at, which is 96% right now. So I'm going to turn the car off, and we're going to start it up in the normal gasoline mode, like I think most people are going to do every day, and then see how this car drives. Now the Corvette E-Ray uses the electric motor to assist the gasoline engine. It gives this car all-wheel drive. It gives this car more performance than a standard V8 Stingray. Let's have the engineer explain a little bit about how it works. All right, everybody. So I'm here with Mark. And Mark, what is your title? I'm the Assistant Chief Engineer for the electrification system in the car. Very cool. So you are the gentleman in charge of making it all work. Yes. Or one of the folks in charge. One of the many people involved, yes. So let's talk a little bit about some of the big challenges with taking a vehicle that was conventionally front engine, V8 rear wheel drive, and then all of a sudden, complete shift to mid-engine to complete shift to electrification. Right. So this car was designed since the beginning, right? Since we started the CA generation planning for this hybrid to exist in the car. From the very beginning? From the very beginning. Wow. So the tunnel structure in the car is there for rigidity, for structural rigidity of the vehicle itself. But it also happens to house the battery. And the packaging space for the drive unit in the front was all part of the original design for the car. So a little behind the scenes, it was always supposed to be there. But yes, big challenges with a completely separate electric drive system. There's no connection between the drive system in the front and the ICE powertrain in the back. They're physically disconnected. The only time they are, the only way they are connected is with software and the networking on the car. So let's talk a little bit about the drive unit in the front, kind of what's the horsepower by itself? And what were some of the cool things you learned that you were able to utilize from that electrification? Right. So this is 160 horsepower, 125 foot-pounds. The rotor on the electric motor spins 16,000 RPM. And one of the unique challenges for this kind of electrification system in Corvette versus maybe some other types of applications was that this was completely focused on performance. That's its primary job in the car. So everything about it is designed to be performance focused. That drove us to lots of interesting design decisions like, you know, we knew we would add mass with the battery in the drive unit, but we tried to offset it as much as we could. So one of the big things is we use a magnesium housing. So the whole exterior structure is magnesium to take some weight out versus aluminum. All the fasteners are actually aluminum fasteners, all the bolts. Wow. Okay. So that helps take a bunch of mass out. But it also helps us with things that are problematic with magnesium, like galvanic corrosion, right, where it doesn't like to play with other materials. So we went to aluminum fasteners to try to save some weight as well. So let's talk about the battery a little bit. So 1.9 kilowatt hours. Yep. Are you liquid cooling the battery? Is it air cooled? We are liquid cooling the battery. Okay. Yep. So there's a water and glycol mixture that cycles through these cooling plates that are built into the battery. And that glycol is actually contained in that little brown bubble housing right above the engine on the driver's side. Let's see. Maybe I can point to it. It's this little guy right here. Yes, exactly. This is the reservoir. That's the reservoir. Wow. Okay. And then you can see that the silver pipes that go from the tubes down into the lower part of the car go to a stack plate heat exchanger. And so the one side is glycol and water for the battery circuit. And the opposite side, believe it or not, is air conditioner. So we call it the chiller. We actually use AC to help cool the battery. Is the engine cooling connected at all to the power, the electric powertrain cooling side of it? No. Is there any crossover like through a radiator or heat exchanger? No. Okay. Interesting. And one of the interesting things about Stingray is that, or about E-Ray, is that it has the larger wide body structure of the Z06, part of which we needed because of the LT6 engine has such high cooling requirements because it's a very high strung beast. And when we use the LT2 in the E-Ray, we're able to use some of that same cooling airflow, but not for LT6, rather for the electrification system. So let's talk about some of the changes you had to make to the LT2 and the transmission and, you know, both mechanical and programming to make it work with the EV side of it. Sure. So the LT2, you know, classic American muscle push rod, 495 horse, but for E-Ray we included start-stop. And that meant that we had to go to a high speed starter. And then there's a series of electronic controls and software that go along with that. So that was a change on the engine side. For the dual clutch transmission, the Tremec DCT, we added an auxiliary pump, so an electrically powered hydraulic pump that charges the valve body and solenoids inside the transmission so that we can actually shift the transmission while the engine is off. So when we get into our stealth mode operation, where you can drive away in EV and then transition on the fly into a hybrid function or E-AWD hybrid, the DCT is constantly staging the transmission in the background. So we know which gear we're supposed to be in based on pedal and vehicle speed, and the transmission is ready to rock. So that auxiliary pump does all that kind of behind the scenes, even while the engine is off. Now let's talk about the regen, right? Because you have to put electricity back in the battery to charge it. Are you offering different regen modes? How did you make the regen work with these carbon ceramics? Talk me through that. We regen as often as we can, right? Like the voting saying, vote early and often, the same kind of idea. We regen at every possible opportunity. So there's obvious stuff like when you touch the brakes or when you lift throttle. Under any of those conditions, we're starting to take as much regen as we can and refill the battery since that's its only source of charging. We don't pull any electrical load from the engine to charge the battery. It's 100% done through regen. The regeneration is kind of interesting because under lower speed driving conditions around town, a good portion of the brake energy that you get when you touch the brake pedal is from regen. It's not the friction brakes in the front. It's really mostly regen. So it's a blended brake system. Absolutely blended. So all of that stuff, brake system, ABS control, chassis dynamics, PTM modes, all of that stuff is heavily blended with what's going on on the front axle. But there's not like a one pedal mode, like you would have in like a Bolt where you can... Yeah, when you drive the car, what you'll find is that it drives much like a Stingray from that perspective. You don't get diesel feel like one pedal driving. We're very careful about where we take regen and I like to think a little crafty about where we take regen so that to the driver, it seems very transparent. Now, there's a lot of ways to integrate a hybrid system into a car and I know a lot of like conventional hybrids that probably a lot of you have driven out there will cycle depending on driving condition and speed and throttle position between gasoline and electric. So like a lot of hybrids will start out and EV kick the gas engine on under harder acceleration and that cruising speeds go back to an electric driving situation. How does this work? If the gas engine is on, is it always on? Is it kicking on and off? Once the gas engine is on in an ignition cycle, it stays on until you turn the car off. Oh, interesting. Yeah, we can't re-enter EV modes for a couple of different reasons. So for us, the EV functionality is really to leave your neighborhood in a quiet way or to shuffle your car in your garage in winter time when you don't want to load it with, you know, vapor and water for corrosion reasons and stuff. All right. Well, we got the car into stealth mode and in stealth mode, you can drive a couple miles on electricity alone at speeds up to about 45 miles an hour. So if you want to leave your neighborhood, for example, be extra quiet, you can do so. And you get this cool stealth gauge. And of course, if you push the accelerator pedal down too far, it will kick on the gasoline engine. But at slow speeds, look at this. In electricity alone, it allows you to accelerate fairly quickly. Oh, hit the gas too hard and it went into gasoline. And those little indicators let you know you're transitioning. Engine fires up. It has to synchronize the gasoline and the electric motor, and then off you go. And the cool thing there is it actually has the gear pre-selected, so there's no delay with the engine firing up. All right. So first impression of driving around in the E-Ray. At low speeds, at normal speeds, this car feels exactly like the standard C8 Corvette. There's very little to tell you that there is any electric assist whatsoever. So if I dial it into sport mode or track mode or my individual mode, you still get that magnificent roar of that 6.2 liter V8. You know, I think when people think hybrid, they think of Prius. They don't think of anything sexy or inspiring. But this car with that massive V8 back there gives you a real character even driving around in town. And then when you want to dial it up a little bit and drive this car in a more sporty manner, this electric motor with 160 horsepower of assistance will, according to Chevrolet, launch this car from zero to 60 in about two and a half seconds. So we're going to do a quick launch here, not launch control. That's coming later in the video. But let's see. Let's just go into the sport mode and see what it feels like when you plant the accelerator. So sport mode engaged. I'm just going to floor it now. Okay. Yeah. Very nice. Very impressive. So you get a little bit of tunnel vision, but you get excellent traction off the line because both the front and the rear wheels are clawing for grip. And it's a very different sensation when you're pushing it hard than the standard car where those rear wheels are going to try to spin out on you a little bit. Now design wise, this car is wide bodied like a Z06, but maybe not quite as aggressive. And there's a couple of ways you can tell it's an E-Ray. First of all, there is a distinctive set of racing stripes you can get in electric blue. Although this car doesn't have it. There is some badging on the side that spells out E-Ray. And that is it. Genuinely. It looks badass. It's really wide. It's super low, but no part of this car screams hybrid. E-Ray though is an electric ray, which is a cool animal and in line with the stingray kind of marketing. Pretty neat. Now of course the E-Ray does add some weight over the standard Corvette, but what's cool is it does a really good job of hiding it. And the traction control ABS and of course the throttle mapping is such that the car is meant to feel very natural. The major difference you notice between driving this and the standard car is that you got much quicker changes in acceleration from movements in the pedal. So if you just jab at the pedal, you get a real good push regardless of what gear the gasoline engine is in. Because that electric motor is dialed in and ready to go and the engineer was telling me they basically give you peak torque right from zero RPM. Unlike a lot of EVs where they have to ramp it up and that's because these front tires are so wide and there's so much grip in this car that you're not ever really going to end up doing a front wheel drive burnout because the programming is such and the torque is such that it can handle it. Every E-Ray Corvette comes standard with performance Brembo carbon ceramic brakes and keep in mind this car is partially electric, so you also have front regenerative braking. This Corvette is the coupe, however, as Corvettes have been since the C4 generation from 1984 every Corvette coupe is actually a Targa. So the middle panel slides off like that and now you've got open top, fun in the sun motoring or if you want to take the top off a little bit easier, you can of course get the hard top convertible. And just like every Corvette coupe for generations, there is a place to put the hard top. It simply secures in the rear trunk. Keep in mind this car has two trunks and there's even a couple little latches to keep it nice and secure. There's a super secret button to pop the front trunk underneath the headlights, push in and wait for it to click. Now you can lift open the front trunk and this is big enough for our camera bag. It's big enough for a carry on. This car, if you're pitching it to your significant other, is a practical vehicle, at least practically. And to close the trunk, it now has soft close for the 2024 model year. Check that out. Now let's talk about pricing. I said this car starts at $113,000. That's true in this top end 3LZ model. The basic E-Ray starts about $102,000. That's a pretty big jump over the standard car, which starts at just under $70,000, right? We're looking at a $30,000 plus jump. Now you get the wide body kit, you get the big tires, you get carbon ceramics as standard, you get 655 horsepower, but that's a pretty big jump over a normal Stingray. Of course, pricing is going to be more in line with the Z06, but what's interesting about what they've done with the E-Ray is they drew like a little Venn diagram for us. The standard Stingray was in the middle of performance and luxury GT. The Z06 is all the way over on performance. That's the track car. This is intended to be more luxury GT, a very, very, very quick car that's also more comfortable and efficient to cruise around in. Let's talk a little bit more about the electric architecture in this car. It's a liquid cooled, 1.9 kilowatt hour battery, 1.1 kilowatt hours of that is usable, so very big buffer in this hybrid battery and Chevrolet says that's because they have so many cycles in and out of this battery that they need to make sure they've got their reliability down, so that's why you got such a big buffer. This car regens when you brake. They did an excellent job blending in the braking with the brake pedal and it also regens when you coast, so as we approach the stop sign, we're putting electricity back into the battery and then you'll see that was about 60 horsepower worth of electricity back in the battery. You can kind of measure that in kilowatts too, but they chose to do it in horsepower and then when I go to accelerate away, you can actually see it's taking power out of the battery. Full throttle. There you go. About 100 horsepower I just drew there from the front mounted electric motor. It's a well integrated system. You know, you're probably thinking, well what happens if the battery is depleted and from driving it around here, city, highway, the car does a great job of keeping the battery topped up. You got a little red marker down here and that's an interesting area in this battery gauge because that's what Chevrolet keeps in reserve for traction control and stability control because you have to use it for motor traction control and stability control, so you can't use the full battery of course, but they at least let you use a bunch of it. My big complaint with this car is it's a little bit too subtle. You know, I appreciate that they want to kind of make the hybrid system seamless from an integration standpoint and I like that, but there's very little to distinguish this car from a standard Stingray when you see it on the road. I'd love to see some crazy e-ray graphics down the side or give it side pipes or make the tail of the Stingray, you know, jagged like a lightning bolt. This thing needs to scream, I'm not just a normal Corvette, I'm not a Z06, I'm something special and that's, I think, an area that Chevrolet missed and maybe they'll have a full EV down the line, which is going to be more like that, but I wish they had marketed a little bit more as being something special. It's day two and now we are at the racetrack where Chevrolet has set up a nice little road course for journalists to try out the new e-ray on track and we also have a chance to do a couple of 0-60 launches, which I'm definitely excited to show you what that's like. And Jason, you did the all-wheel drive calibration on this e-ray. That's correct, yeah. So what does that mean in a real world, real world speak, so what does your day-to-day look like? Well, a lot of different development and different weather conditions. So we're looking at, you know, surface mule, we're looking at anything that influences tire capacity, right? So basically, my role is to make sure that the physics is calibrated such that we send a min-max limit to the propulsion system that basically says both in the regen direction, so negative torque and positive torque when you're on the throttle, here's my min-max and as you turn, that decreases. So you literally turn the wheel and, right? Yeah, interesting. That's pretty much how it works. Awesome. Well, let me know what we're supposed to be doing here. We can pull up here. Yep, sounds good. And I've already got you PTM raised. Yep, what's interesting is we do a lot of these media launches and they're almost never in Denver because you lose, what, 15% up here in an NA engine, but because we're in an electrified e-ray, you kind of get some of that back, which is pretty neat. So talk me through launch control, how does this work? So you press and hold the brake until it says ready, then you go to watt, so all the way and you just release the brake, it's that simple. Cool. So, launch control ready, release the brake, and you're ready to go. Wow. Yeah, that's pretty alarming. I mean, the difference between a launch control acceleration, where you're able to hold those RPMs high, and a standard acceleration, I mean, that's a huge difference. Yeah. It's amazing. So what's the purpose of this circle here? So let's get in here. All right, so this is where you're still system on, so I want you to get to max lat. Yep. And just sort of feel the total grip of the car. Okay. Because when we go system off, I'm going to ask you to push through it, to learn to drip. So when we line up, I want to show you a kind of a hidden feature, I guess. Yeah, what's a hidden feature? Maybe you've already seen it, maybe not. So you grab both paddles. Yep. Grab them both, release just the right. Yep. Release this side. Grab it. Yep. One more time. See that green gear? Yeah, what is that? Now you can hold the brake pedal down, just like you do for a normal launch. Okay. And then feather the throttle and launch wherever you like. You're in control now. About 300. That's wild. Yep. Wow. And the back end's going to come around a little easier, and that's okay. Yep. There you go. You can feel it. Look at that, yeah. It's playful. All right. Drift. You can do it. Okay. I'll give it a go. So you get up to max lat and give it a little flick and goose the gas. Now the trick is, once, if you can avoid chunks. Yep. There. The trick is, once you slide, there you go. Stay on it. Feel. You're a fast learner. You want to go to the right side again? Yeah, let's give it a go. Yeah. That is so progressive. And, like, your brain is telling you, like, counter-steer more and more and, like, feather the accelerator. But you're, like, you just got to trust it will pull you out of there. Yep. Unreal. Okay, so same thing. So you hit max and then flick it a little bit more, which will give you, like, a bunch of chunks. It is a parking lot, isn't it? And I think we might have squirted the rears. Wow. Dude, that is amazing. Yeah. That is so fun. It is. Chris Fix. Oh, we got the face reveal from The Straight Pipes. Probably my favorite YouTube channel out there. These guys are awesome. And they come all the way to Canada. That's Colorado. And you guys are Corvette owners. Yes, that's right. He's the Corvette owner. This one. I co-own it, but I... It's his. Yes, it's a fast Corvette. It's fully modified. And we were basically now Corvette people because we weren't until we bought it. So what do you think? Hybrid Corvette, pretty cool? Yeah, yeah, yeah. They nailed it. It's a cool idea for a new market. Yeah. I would say. Very cool. All right. I got to go do donuts. Yeah, go do donuts. We'll see you later. Now, when I was doing my zero to 60s, I actually couldn't hit 60 on that short little strip there. I kept hitting 55. So I gave the Solo DL to the development engineer and told him go run it on the course. He did. And his quickest time was 3.48 seconds. And of course, we're at over a mile above sea level here. The electric motor does help a little bit, but this is no rollout. That seems about right for this elevation. So not 2.5 at sea level on a prep surface, but on a non-prep surface, no rollout at elevation, 3.48 is the quickest we could do, or he could do. So overall, folks, I think Chevrolet did a great job with this new E-Ray Corvette. Look, it's a hybrid, but that doesn't mean that it's some tree-hugging Prius thing. It's a hybrid to be faster than a standard Stingray Corvette, which is already insanely fast. And if you want to learn more, guys, be sure to stay tuned to alltfl.com, where hopefully we'll have more videos on this car coming up shortly. Is it as high-performance or track-focused as a Z06? No, but it's not supposed to be. Let me know what you guys think in the comments section below. This has been Tommy, behind the camera Ian. We'll see you in the next video.