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“You better get those New Balances in the Amazon cart, stat.” “Did you tuck your t-shirt into your finest jorts to get into the headspace of the target audience?” “Getting an early start on your mid-life crisis, I see.” These were actual messages I received from some so-called friends when I shared a photo of the 2026 Chevrolet Corvette E-Ray I reviewed a few weeks back. And, as reductive as they all are, look—I get it. There is a stereotype of Vette owners, and the jokes write themselves. Of course, had any of these people actually gotten to so much as sit in the thing for even 15 minutes, I think they would have shared a different sentiment, because the E-Ray is so far and away from what the peanut gallery thinks it is. Hell, it’s not even the car that Corvette folks think it is. It’s better than both.
Now, the especially informed among you might find it strange that I’m reviewing an E-Ray, because 2026 is the last model year you’ll be able to buy one. Starting with the 2027 roster, the hybrid, all-wheel-drive Vette will be known as the Grand Sport X, where it’ll have a bigger V8 that makes even more power. You know, in case the E-Ray’s 655 horsepower and 595 lb-ft of torque strike you as a bit pedestrian.
View Price on AmazonOf those 655 ponies, 495 are contributed by the naturally aspirated, 6.2-liter LT2 engine located aft of the cockpit, and 160 come courtesy of an electric motor mounted on the front axle. Being a hybrid supercar, you might assume, like other hybrid supercars that the E-Ray carves a similar profile to, that it offers a modest all-electric range; even the McLaren Artura can manage about 20 miles. The E-Ray won’t quite get that far without the LT2’s help—try more like four miles. There’s even a specific start sequence to use the car without burning fuel, and if you’re too eager on the throttle, the V8 will introduce itself and refuse to quiet until you turn everything off.
So straight away, it’s clear that the electric motor isn’t here to shrink anybody’s carbon footprint. What it does do is get the E-Ray to 60 mph from a standstill in 2.5 seconds, third-best in the family behind only the ZR1 and ZR1X. It also arguably gives this silver bullet some degree of all-weather versatility if you plan to rip its $14,000 carbon-fiber wheels through all conditions. Yeah, I wouldn’t either.
That second point is very much debatable, though, and I think it speaks to how the E-Ray is misunderstood. Because, in the lead-up to my experience with it—the only C8 I have driven to date, full disclosure—I heard it was the “grand-touring” one. The softer one, the daily-driver, livable one. The Corvette you buy if you want a heightened standard of performance, but also want to be relatively comfortable.
No, not really.
Is the E-Ray more pliable than a ZR1X? I mean, I could only assume. But I still wouldn’t want to swallow miles by the hundreds in this thing. The ride, even in its most docile Tour mode, is harsh. The steering is heavy. The carbon-ceramic Brembos on my tester are magical marvels of engineering in their own right, transmogrifying kinetic energy for their own ends, but the pedal they’re tied to is very stiff, and pressure is tough to modulate for the street. This is nowhere near a cushy grand tourer—not that I’m complaining.
Source: thedrive.com
