Our 7 Favorite Facts about the 2024 Chevy Corvette E-Ray

You read that right. With a front-mounted electric motor, the E-Ray represents a return to the front-motorized Vette—sort of. Putting it into all-electric Stealth mode also makes the E-Ray the first front-wheel-drive Corvette, but silence breaks above 45 mph or follows heavy throttle input. It was then that the vociferous 6.2-liter V-8 engine driving the rear wheels joined forces, making the Corvette the first hybrid as well as the first with all-wheel drive.

When we spoke to the engineers who helped develop the Corvette hybrid, they told us that the E-Ray has a top speed of around 180 mph. However, we’re also told that the electric motor is geared above the 150 mph mark. Still, good luck getting a more traditional hybrid like the Toyota Prius to go that fast. GM also billed the E-Ray as the fastest production Corvette ever built, reaching 60 mph in a claimed 2.5 seconds. If that turns out to be true, that would make it a tenth as fast as the Z06 we tested.

Besides being a neat party trick, the most useful thing about the Corvette E-Ray’s electric-only Stealth mode is the ability to get out of your neighborhood without notifying the neighbors. To avoid waking up the tiny block of V-8 cars, make sure you don’t have to back out of your parking space. The E-Ray’s electric motor isn’t geared to reverse, which makes Stealth mode useless when backing up.

Not only is the E-Ray Corvette the first all-wheel-drive hybrid; it was also the first car to be sold with carbon-ceramic brakes and all-season tires as standard. An eBoost-assisted carbon-ceramic disc with a Brembo six-piston front caliper and four-piston rear caliper fits inside the roomy 20-inch front and 21-inch rear wheels, which are covered in 275/30 and 345/25 all-season rubber, respectively.

The Corvette E-Ray’s rear tires are huge. While the 275-section-wide front is relatively large on its own, the 345-section-wide rear tire is huge by comparison. A stickier set for summer riding is also available, but all-season rubber is standard. Chevy engineers tell us that all seasons will be good for lateral grip down to 1.0 g. We also know that the rear of the E-Ray is the widest all-season tire ever fitted on a production car, and we can find nothing to disprove that claim.

Now, you’re probably wondering how much the electric motor, battery pack, and various other hybrid components add to the Corvette’s curb weight. Chevy engineers tell us it weighs about 300 pounds compared to the Z06 version. On our scale, a coupe weighs 3666 pounds and a convertible is 3799 pounds. Simple math showed that the latter would surpass the 2 ton mark, making the droptop E-Ray the first model to weigh over 4,000 pounds and become the fattest Vette ever.

The Corvette E-Ray hybrid system doesn’t come with a power jack, meaning it only has a short electric range of just a few miles. That’s by design, as the tiny 1.1 kWh battery pack charged between its passengers is meant to aid performance first and foremost, rather than outright efficiency. Chevy engineers explain that batteries are designed to charge and discharge quickly. The battery is said to last as long as the car has fuel on short, narrow roads. However, that is not the case at longer race tracks such as the Virginia International Raceway (VIR), where the unique Charge+ E-Ray setup is required to maximize battery state of charge.