This kind of performance used to be reserved for million-dollar cars. This calibre of capability was reserved for the hallowed halls of hypercar royalty. It was less than 10 years ago that the holy trinity—the Porsche 918 Spyder, McLaren P1, and the Ferrari TheFerrari—shook the world with their fresh takes on hybridization to redefine the very concept of fast for a new era, for a fortunate few. And then, the 2024 Chevrolet Corvette E-Ray happened.
What General Motors has achieved with this newest generation of Corvette, also known as the C8, is astonishing. By making the transition to a mid-engine layout, they unlocked so much capability that the base Corvette—America’s sports car, the blue-collar dream, the choice chariot of the midlife crisis—suddenly became one of the quickest production cars ever built. It raised eyebrows beyond the New Balance crowd, and became one of the best-selling sports cars in the world. The Corvette created a disturbance in the force.
Yet the Corvette has done so well for itself, it’s almost become kind of mundane. It used to be that a mid-engined car capable of snapping off a three-second zero-to-100 km/h run was an exotic creature to be celebrated. In the same way that Tesla ruined fast, the Corvette ruined supercars because it was too good at what it did. It did stopped being special. You see the silhouette of a supercar in the distance, wonder if it’s a McLaren, and then you’re disappointed it’s just a Corvette. I kind of expected to be underwhelmed by this thing.
In retrospect, it was a bit silly to doubt the Corvette E-Ray. Cadillac’s Blackwing cars are the best driving sedans you can buy, full stop. The last Camaro SS we drove was so good, it won our Performance Car of the Year award that year uncontested. I haven’t driven a C8 at all, so I was very curious about it, but I think I let others’ mixed opinions taint mine. I’m now starting to wonder if those mixed opinions are coming from a misguided place, perhaps one of mismanaged expectations. This new breed of Corvette has been called too sterile, and I’m not sure if that means “too sterile for a Corvette” or “too sterile for a supercar.”
They’ve made so much performance so accessible that it could be looked at either way. The Corvette E-Ray pushes the envelope even further. If the base Corvette—as if there’s anything basic about it—was a proof-of-concept of the long-awaited mid-engined platform, this E-Ray fully fleshes out its reason for being.
The Corvette E-Ray is a hybrid, but not a fuel-saving hybrid. A lot of people have the wrong idea about this car; that it’s an electrified compliance car. The hybrid system here exists exclusively to improve the C8’s already fabulous performance, in the same vein as the aforementioned hypercar holy trinity. The space between the front wheels is occupied by a 160-horsepower electric motor, which is fed by a lithium ion battery pack tucked into the very distinct central spine that runs through the cabin of the car. Suddenly, both conspicuously large voids on the base car now make sense.
The electrified front axle is completely divorced from the rear wheels, themselves driven by the familiar “LT2” 6.2-litre normally aspirated V8 producing the same 495 horsepower and 470 pound-feet of torque as the base car. GM’s decision to delete the optional manual gearbox and opt for a Tremec eight-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission instead now makes even more sense. There would be no way to effectively harmonize a computer-operated electric motor and a man-managed engine.
I say “even more” sense because you need only a brief drive in any C8 to appreciate why they opted away from a DIY gearbox in favour of this mechanical act of magic. This dual-clutch is one of the best transmissions around, at any price. It is so smart, so fast, and so seamless that it’s beyond belief. Only an occasionally clunky third-to-second downshift in slow traffic humanized this otherwise alien display of proficiency. To all the armchair experts writing this car off for its lack of a third pedal: shut up, you’re making asses of yourselves. I say that with love—I used to be one of you, and all my personal cars are manual.
Speaking of alien, the Corvette E-Ray is otherworldly quick. They’ve done a great job mating the front and rear axles so that it feels quite natural, other than being unnaturally fast. For example, if you press the Z button on the steering wheel to quickly set the E-Ray’s phasers to kill, turn off traction control, stand on the brakes, and floor the gas pedal, the mighty V8 bellows and smites the back tires with godly fury—which is all well and good for America’s sports car. But at the same time, the front wheels will instantly snap to life with the eerie electric alacrity and almost cancel the ruination of the rear rubber, pulling it through its would-be-burnout like it had conquered spacetime and found a fast-forward button.
The Corvette E-Ray teleports from zero to 100km/h in two and a half seconds. The combined might of its human-and-inhuman propulsion systems deliver 655 hp and 595 lb-ft of torque, filling your ears with a curious cocktail at full song. It’s one part pushrod V8—classic, full-throated, and powerful—but the next ingredient changes to a surprisingly high pitched shout—in relative terms, for a pushrod V8—punctuated with an exotic trill as it bolts through its forward gears. For garnish, the electric motor adds a sprinkle of mechanical whine—almost like a supercharger, but more distant and a touch lower, not unlike an antimatter warp drive.
At sufficient speed, the Corvette feels as though it’s interfacing directly with your cerebellum. It’s overwhelming at first to have its signals fired through your brain stem, bypassing the “you” part and going straight to basic motor functions, desperately trying to keep up with the bewildering pace. But it’s incredible when those motor functions manifest in the car’s behaviour. The pilot’s helm is so exacting in its precision and directness as to defy belief; there’s no way this is the same Corvette you were driving two minutes ago. It can’t be.
The steering weighs up and speeds up so much that you really feel the seat bolsters struggling to hold the meagre meatbag that is your body in place. The Corvette E-Ray feels very right, tapped in directly and so eager, alert, unflappable that you can place it with utmost confidence. It just barely avoids being too sharp of a connection to your mind; not over-eager but tenacious like almost nothing else.
There were more than a few occasions where I entered a sinewy series of corners way too fast—which is way too easy to do—and had to call upon the absolutely massive (and standard) carbon-ceramic binders to reign things back and lock this car on its rails. I was on cold, uneven, and very technical tarmac, writing cheques I couldn’t cash—and the Corvette made me feel like a millionaire. It does good a job at delicately reminding me what neither of us could afford for the odd split-second here and there, when it came to it. It’s so satisfying, so competent and capable, and its blend of electric response and fossil-fuel fury is so delicious it belies belief.
For all that starfighter prowess, the E-Ray is can turn it all down and just be a regular car in an instant. All the same things that make it a titan of speed also make it a wonderful daily driver. Its genius magnetic dampers back off to give a lovely, well-insulated ride—and on that note, the E-Ray is surprisingly quiet. Even the bastion of neoclassical engineering that is the LT2 V8 reduced to a soft thrum. The transmission is largely imperceptible, the steering gets fingertip-light, the sound system is great, and the seats are actually quite comfortable.
The E-Ray impressively well-appointed, too. Everything on this fully loaded model is quilted leather, microsuede, or metallic trim. Even the climate control stack and steering wheel inserts are a plastic that looks and feels like metal—it’s top-shelf stuff that needs to be deployed across GM’s entire portfolio yesterday. The squared-off steering wheel is carbon fibre top and bottom, with only the sides being trimmed in grippy leather, like a gorgeous control yoke. The carbon extends to the shift paddles behind the wheel, and even to the heated and ventilated seats. Everything feels nice and nothing’s been left plain. Even the door cards and removable roof panel are quilted. They really sweat the details here, and of course, there’s room for golf bags (and lots of other stuff) because Corvette.
The 2024 Chevrolet Corvette E-Ray is a monument, a towering achievement on this planet and the next, offering legitimate hypercar performance for sports car money, with normal car usability—it’s all-wheel-drive and sold on all-season tires, after all. Some may look down on these for democratizing top-tier performance, but that’s always been the goal of America’s sports car. Now, the E-Ray evolves the Corvette onto a higher plane of existence. It takes the brilliance that was already so apparent in the base car, magnifies it in a way that can legitimately give the fastest cars in the world a hard time, and then go to Costco afterwards. Using GM’s corporate might to deliver a distinctly American Porsche 918 Spyder is a noble pursuit, a what-if that I wish more people asked.
