GM has confirmed that its upcoming electric Corvette won’t be a C8 packed with electric motors— it’s going to be something else entirely.
The first “electrified” and all-wheel-drive Corvette in the brand’s 70 year history is set to bow in 2023, and that car is pretty much an electrified Corvette. It’s still a mid-engined C8 Corvette with a big gas engine behind the driver’s seat that gets a battery snuck into its chassis somewhere, feeding electrons to an electric motor powering the front wheels.
If you’re a student of automotive history, it’s exactly what you’d expect from Chevrolet— you can read more about it here— but the next ‘Vette? That first, pure electric Corvette will be something else, entirely. Something built on the GM’s Ultium skateboard. Which, if you haven’t seen it, looks like this …
GM Ultium Electric Skateboard
… and that, dear reader, is a very, very different proposition from the extruded aluminum, laser-welded and composite bonded spaceframe chassis that currently underpins the V8-powered C8 Corvette. And, if you haven’t seen what that looks like, it look like this …
Corvette C8 Chassis
So, does that mean the new electric Corvette will be more Bolt than brute? Maybe— but maybe not. Keep in mind that different versions of the Ultium skateboard are being used under the GMC Hummer, Cadillac LYRIQ, Chevy Silverado EV, and an upcoming $30K Chevy Equinox crossover. It’s a flexible platform, in other words, with a world of possibilities baked into it.
Will that make it good enough to fly America’s high-performance flag against the likes of the Porsche Taycan and the coming onslaught of electric AMG sports sedans? We’ll see soon enough. In the meantime, though, all we can really do is hope that the new electric ‘Vette will be at least half as racy as the sketch, at top, by transportation design Alireza Saeedi on Bēhance.
SOURCE | IMAGES: AUTOMOTIVE NEWS, BēHANCE.
