2024 Chevrolet Corvette E-Ray almost here

General Motors Specialty vehicles (GMSV) has confirmed the 2024 Chevrolet Corvette E-Ray will arrive Down Under in the third quarter of this year (July-September), following first local deliveries of Corvette Z06 customer cars over the past few months.

Australian pricing for the inaugural electrified Corvette is yet to be announced, but a quick look at the North American catalogue suggests the hybrid E-Ray supercar will slot in just below the savage Z06 track weapon (from $336,000 plus on-road costs) with a starting price around the $320K mark depending on what trim level is offered here.

Chances are it will be the fully-loaded 3LZ Coupe as per the Z06, but unlike the latter the E-Ray won’t be watered down for the Aussie market, meaning it will be the most powerful Corvette and GMSV model ever sold with 481kW on tap.

All-wheel drive and a mountain of hybrid torque (although a combined torque figure is so far unavailable) should also make the E-Ray the quickest Corvette to 100km/h, given it’s claimed to hit 97km/h a tenth sooner than the Z06 in just 2.5 seconds.

We don’t yet know when local pricing and spec details will be announced for the E-Ray – nor how many orders have been placed in Australia – but GMSV has confirmed a 12-month wait time for new E-Ray orders, as per the Z06.

Delivery wait times for new Corvette Stingray orders have fallen dramatically to just six months in the wake of freer supply from the US factory, after peaking at more than four years in early 2022.

“Demand continues to be strong for our popular C8 Corvette models,” a GMSV spokesperson told carsales.

“Supply for Australia and New Zealand has continued to grow for our Corvette Stingray models.

“We estimate an average six-month wait time on Stingray – for a customer to place an order through a dealer for GMSV to fulfill.

“For the new E-Ray as well as the Z06, we estimate an average 12-month wait time for a customer to place an order through a dealer for GMSV to fulfill.

“There is a large amount of options on Corvette [Stingray], allowing customers to truly customise a vehicle to their tastes, so once a customer has placed the order with a dealer, we build the vehicle to the customer specification and ship it to Australia or New Zealand.

“The order to delivery time is approximately 6 months.”

Both the mid-engined Stingray coupe and convertible are powered by a naturally-aspirated 369kW/637Nm 6.2-litre LT2 pushrod V8 combined with an eight-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission.

But the Z06 coupe ups the ante to 500kW/623Nm (475kW/550Nm in Australia) via an all-new 5.5-litre LT6 DOHC V8 that features a flat-plane crankshaft design, sounds unlike any previous Corvette, revs to no less than 8600rpm and is claimed to be the world’s most powerful naturally-aspirated V8 ever fitted to a production car.

The E-Ray employs the same engine, but this time augmented by a 120kW/165Nm electric motor that drives the front wheels and is powered by a small 1.9kWh lithium-ion battery, delivering a total of 481kW and offering an EV mode at speeds of up to 72km/h.

GMSV this week also told carsales it investigated C8 Corvette transaction prices after some dealers were found to have demanded statutory and delivery fees of up to $43,000 when the first examples arrived in 2021, inflating the base Stingray price to at least $188,000.

However, it found that the majority of its retailers were “doing the right thing” with Corvette prices, which now open at $175,000 plus ORCs for the base Stingray 2LT Coupe.

“As independent franchises, dealers are free to set their own delivery fee, but GMSV expects and encourages all dealers to ensure our valued customers have the best possible experience,” said GMSV.

“We were concerned with the feedback and undertook a study on dealer delivery fees and found the majority of dealers are doing the right thing by their customers. We have spoken to the dealers where they were out of step with GMSV and customer’s expectations.”

There’s been no word yet on if or when the rabid new twin-turbo Corvette ZR1 flagship will be offered in Australia, but we expect the V8 monster to arrive here in limited numbers by early next year.

GMSV is yet to officially announce the ZR1 for Australia, but so far every other core variant of GM’s eighth-generation supercar has been produced in both left- and right-hand drive for global consumption – and confirmed for local release.

So the official announcement should only be a matter of time after the ZR1’s global debut next month (July 25).

Expect the combustion-powered C8 Corvette hero to flirt around the $400,000 mark since it’s tipped to pack about 640kW/1100Nm from its twin-turbo 5.5-litre crossplane-crank V8 – the same force-fed bent eight that will eventually be electrified for the apocalyptic Corvette Zora range-topper.

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