Rinaldo Catria

The FE Corvette had 65 years to reach its zenith... with electric vehicles becoming the main focus of every major auto manufacturer today including GM, how many years does the ME Corvette actually have to be developed to its potential? “What would Zora do?” in regards to things ME related is the mantra in the Corvette think tank... “What would he say” might be more apropos IMO. I’m thinking it might be...”a day late and a dollar short”... I do think we Corvette lovers will have fun with the ME car. There is no way it will have time to make anywhere near the impact the FE car did with the car industry on the cusp of the biggest change in over 100 years. Think about it: The ME car is showing up 15 minutes before “last call”...

kozmic

We’ve got many many years ahead of us (like generations if it even happens), before there is any sort of mandated self drive, etc., so I’m gonna say, “as many years as it takes?”.

Now, if you’re talking EV vs ICE, then that might happen during our lifetime, but the jury is still out on that one, and even if Corvette goes 100% EV, that won’t mean “the end”. (But I’m still not convinced yet that even the C9 will be EV-only... regardless what GM says today.)

Red67John

I agree with you that the ME will most likely have a shorter lifespan than did the FE. While it’s next to impossible to guesstimate any kind of a time line for the automobile industry, let alone the ME Corvette, it is safe to say that changes may occur quickly over the next couple of decades. New technology, alternative fuels, socialism and the Green New Deal, and of course the actual success of the ME platform, it’s all going to come into play.

My personal guess is that the first ME Corvette platform will get an average run, maybe six or seven years. However, during that period, it will have evolutionary changes starting with the addition of electric motors up front. GM could decide to return to a FE platform at some point, but it seems highly probable that a C9 Corvette in 2026 or so could be an even greater departure from what we we know today. Maybe full electric on all four corners? Maybe something totally new? Mary, Mark and Tadge are busy betting on the ME and might not be thinking that far ahead yet.

marknagy13

There is plenty of time before cars go full electric. Christian Von Koenigsegg just did an interview with Top Gear about his new car the "Jesko", and he was explaining how hybrids have much better performance that full electric because the batteries weigh too much. He goes on to say that we are really nowhere near a full electric street car being able to outperform a hybrid on the track.
I wouldn't worry.

NY09C6

The Corvette will continue to offer a gas engine for at least another 20 years. Probably a lot longer.

Mikec7z

C8UR911

highly doubtful....unless gas get real cheap in the future (due to electrification)

sprayer

So where will the governments make up the tax lost on fuel sales? If things go electric it will become as expensive as gas itself with various taxes, just so the money keeps pouring in.

Electrical grids will need to be massively upgraded world wide to handle all the charging of cars. Not as simple as some think just to go all electric.

kozmic

Exactly... the current grid can not handle the extra capacity of the US going "all EV", but it's not just the grid, is power production. Some areas of the country already experience brown-outs during peak load times... do we really think that when everyone is charging across the "all EV" country, there won't be significant power supply problems? This is something that has not even begun to be addressed with only the niche EV market we see thus far.

jcp911s

He current life-cycle of a new automobile is about 4-5 years... so that's probably the outside. I'd guess the current evolution... base with performance (e.g. Z51) package, a turbo/supercharged/hybrid in 16 mos or so, a "track-rat" special, and a crazy-*** uber-car just before the model winds up.

BTW, while "pure" EVs are certainly a factor, hybrids are the "meat and potatoes" of future mainstream cars... the technology just makes too much sense. WIth the increased electrical demands on cars, evolving battery technology, and the energy harvesting of brake recovery, instant torque, and Low Emissions in stop and go traffic, I'm pretty convinced that most vehicle in the next 5 years will have some hybrid technology. The key is that Hybrids produce/recycle their own energy, and are not dependent on the power grid.

Comments about the power grid, and centralized generation are very relevant here... again, economics act like water... they always find the tiny cracks to flow down hill drip by drip... I suspect that more energy efficient homes, and local generation of solar, and other sources will continue to become cheaper, and relive much of this load, 1% at a time.

Busa Dave

I guess old habits are hard to break lol.... You are going to have a rude awakening in 20 years …...

JoesC5

People keep a new car for an average of 6-7 years, then they are traded in and sold to a second owner who keeps it for another 4 years, and then sold to a third owner, etc.

Where the hell did you come up with a 4-5 year life span for a new vehicle?

Approximately 17,000,000 new light vehicles are sold every year in the US and as of 2018 there are some 276,000,000 registered vehicles in the US.

Of those 276 million only 750,000 of them are battery EV's(like the Tesla and the Bolt). Make those 750,000 BEV's 276,000,000(outlaw the ICE) and see if our grid and electrical production can keep up.

Hybrids are the wave of the near future, not BEV's, since the hybrid's price is coming down compared to their fully ICE cousin. The 2019 Avalon gets 43 MPG city and 43 MPG highway where as the 2019 ICE Avalon gets 22 MPG city and 31 MPG highway and the hybrid is only $1,000 more expensive. Not too long ago, a hybrid was $3,500 more than it's fully ICE cousin.

mschuyler

You misunderstood what he said and then go off on an anti ev rant. He means the life-cycle PRODUCTION of a vehicle, not its life SPAN. The C7 had a life cycle of six years. If you look at life cycles of models over the entire auto industry, they are trending shorter. If you extrapolate this trend it is perfectly reasonable to project a life span of five to six years, at which point we'll be looking at a C9.

The life span of a car is now considered to be 200,000 miles or ten years (Google it), but to turnover the entire national fleet will take about 20 years. Most states offer a special "collector car" or "vintage car" plate at about 20-25 years.

Trackaholic

I think the Vette still has quite a long life ahead of it. As long as people are able to drive themselves, sporty cars will still be in demand. So, while the incoming EV tide may change the method of propulsion, I don't think sporty cars will go away until self-driving cars are mandated (hopefully never).

As for the EV situation, I also believe that hybrids are the way to go for the next several generations. You can do quite a bit with a relatively small battery pack with a hybrid (compared to a full electric). A plug-in hybrid is especially nice because they typically have decently strong electric motors which means you can get strong regen braking, good low-end power improvements, and even some decent range in a very efficient EV mode.

I have a Pacifica Hybrid minivan, and while it is really nice even in gas form, the hybrid features add some very nice aspects to the drive. I can get 30+ miles of electric range, can charge up at work, can charge very inexpensively over night, can do almost all braking with regen, never have get annoyed with engine start/stop shenanigans, never waste gas idling or while stuck in traffic, can go very far between oil changes, etc. Then, if I need to go on a long trip, I just add some gas and get 400 miles of range in under 10 minutes. In a vehicle the size of a van it really is the best of both worlds IMO.

I think a hybrid is tougher in a sports car because of the weight and packaging constraints, but it is certainly lighter than a full EV, and in a mid-engine vehicle there might be some extra room where the transmission tunnel might normally be to place batteries.

In any case, I could see a hybrid version of the Vette at some point, which might be an interesting way to keep the performance up and weight down, while improving fuel economy.

I think battery production will be an issue for large scale full EV deployment, and that's where the plug-in hybrid solution also helps. I think you can get about 10 plug-in hybrids out of the batteries needed for a single EV.

-T