For an industry that was notoriously bad at handling the first six months of the pandemic, U.S. automakers have had a number of big wins this year. There’s the new Bronco and Tesla’s continued stock market run, and despite manufacturing setbacks, Chevrolet’s eighth-generation Corvette has proven itself worthy of the hype.
In fact, the new mid-engine Corvette has been so successful that General Motors is moving the engineers behind that sports car over to the automaker’s electric-vehicle team. According to Automotive News, the staffing move is “a bid to inject its upcoming EVs with some of the sports car’s high-performance panache.”
As it stands, GM’s electric vehicles aren’t, shall we say, the most exciting. Sure, the Bolt is currently the fastest-selling electric vehicle in the U.S., and the discontinued Volt had a good run, but if the Detroit automaker wants to appeal to the masses, and not just Prius owners looking for an upgrade, they’ll have to start offering something more enticing. The company, like seemingly every other automaker, has touted big electrification plans — like the upcoming GMC Hummer EV and Cadillac’s rebranding — but using the Corvette team shows just how serious GM is about its all-electric future.
“Effective Sept. 1, the Corvette’s engineering team is moving from GM’s global product programs umbrella to its autonomous and electric vehicles program, led by [Ken] Morris, according to an internal memo from Doug Parks, executive vice president of global product development and purchasing and supply chain,” explained Automotive News.
That doesn’t mean the Corvette is over or that we’ll necessarily see an electric Corvette soon, though Joe Biden certainly thinks we will. It does mean that, sometime in the hopefully near future, GM will start putting out cars that have a shot of stealing some of Tesla’s thunder.
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