Corvette E-Ray Chassis Is So Robust Chassis Tuning Isn’t Needed: Engineers

The new Corvette E-Ray has an incredibly robust chassis that doesn’t require different tunes, meaning that the ZER package is all about tires. 

It’s no secret that the Corvette E-Ray is an engineering marvel, a car that harnesses the use of hybrid power in the name of adding performance only – this is no hypermiling fuel sipper, after all. However, one thing that we often overlook is the fact that the Corvette E-Ray isn’t just way more powerful than the base Stingray – leading to some impressive acceleration times – but rather, the engineers that built it also had to design a chassis that ensures that power makes it to the ground effectively, and can also compensate for its added components.

In a recent podcast from Corvette Today, Tadge Juechter, Harlan Charles, and Josh Holder touched on a host of topics, and one of them just so happens to be the Corvette E-Ray – not terribly surprising given how new that model still is. Right off the bat, Juechter discusses the obvious elephant in the room, however – the Corvette team knew that people were going to be skeptical of any electrified version of America’s sports car, and he admits that it took a ton of consumer education and cutting through the “fog” to ensure that they communicated its details in an effective manner – including the fact, it seems, combating a common misconception that the E-Ray has to be plugged in.

One of the more interesting tidbits about the Corvette E-Ray comes in the form of a question about the ZER Performance Package, which obviously comes with summer tires rather than all-seasons. However, Charles points out that the “E-Ray is so robust” that the team could use pretty much any kind of tire on the car without having to change chassis calibrations – it’s just that good out of the box. Thus, both regular and ZER-equipped cars use the same chassis calibration, making tires the biggest difference between the two. This is particularly notable because customers can switch between tires with no ill effects and without upsetting the car’s balance, as Juechter notes.

The Corvette team then touches on the E-Ray’s required ambient temperature for stealth mode, which some would like to see dropped down to the 30-40 degree mark for colder areas. Juechter notes that they “would love to” make such a change and adds that they’re looking into how that can be accomplished. However, Charles adds that this has nothing to do with the batteries, but rather, the functionality of things like the heater and defrost that don’t work quite as they should in stealth mode – at least right now.

Our last Corvette E-Ray question pertains to the car’s two coolant tanks – one up front to cool the power electronics – which generate a ton of heat – and another in the rear, which handles the ICE engine. These tanks are famously non-customer serviceable because, as Holder notes, GM “didn’t want customers putting tap water in it,” and he adds that it’s not something that needs to be regularly serviced, anyway.

Photos: Chevrolet

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