Chevrolet Corvette E-Ray – the electrified muscle car takes a different approach to hybrid power and has a clever feature

The Corvette has been Chevrolet’s iconic sports car since its introduction in 1953, and while its sales have largely been limited to Stateside, it definitely has an international following. Models have only been officially available in the UK since 1999, and only very recently in right-hand-drive versions.

From this year, you can now buy three different Corvettes in Europe, including the rather fabulous E-Ray. The Corvette E-Ray is the first electrified Corvette, though perhaps not what you might be expecting.

To start with, this is a mild hybrid rather than a fully electric model, and the battery contingent here is rather small. It features a 1.9kWh battery, which powers the front axle. The main purpose of this is to boost performance and provide an all-wheel drive experience, rather than just the rear-wheel power that the mid-engine 6.2-litre V8 delivers.

Surprisingly though, you can drive the E-Ray on battery power alone, which is unusual for a mild hybrid vehicle, but don’t expect to be travelling far, or at any speed. The car offers a Stealth mode, which allows you to leave your driveway in silence, travelling up to 45mph at gentle acceleration for a couple of miles before engaging the engine.

There’s also a Shuttle mode, which is limited to 15 mph and designed for repositioning the car on the driveway, or in a garage, without firing up the engine. The difference with Shuttle is that it will never turn on the engine.

Firing up that V8 is a window-rattling experience, so having a way to leave the neighbourhood in silence is particularly handy for the anti-social early starts. It’s also nice knowing that you can avoid adding to that city pollution – at least until you hit the open road.

Price and availability

The Corvette E-Ray 3LZ starts from £158,720 here in the UK, in the US the 3LZ is priced from $121,545, though two lower trim levels are also available in the US from $110,595. The model I tested was priced at £180,498.44. This was finished in the new Roswell Green Metallic paint with jet black Nappa leather interior, competition sport bucket seats, a carbon fibre roof panel, carbon fibre alloys and multiple carbon fibre details, including the splitter, rockers, spoilers and mirrors.

While the roof is removable on the coupe, there’s also a convertible version of the E-Ray, which starts from £164,630. This features a powered, fully retractable hardtop.

Features and spec

Under the hood (well, actually behind the driver) is a 6.2-litre naturally aspirated V8 engine, which delivers 495 horsepower. However, that electric motor on the front axle adds another 160 horsepower, giving a total output of 655 horsepower and a 0- 62 mph time of 2.9 seconds.

The car sits on 20-inch alloys at the front and 21-inch alloys at the back, and at over 4.7m long and 2.02m wide, it’s rather large for the UK roads. Luckily there’s plenty of external cameras to help you manoeuvre it through tight spaces, including a handy view of the front splitter, so you don’t dink it on a curb or wall.

There’s also a clever feature called front axle lift, that can raise the front of the car to clear speed bumps, curbs or steep driveways. It can be controlled manually or set by GPS locations saved in the system.

The driving seat on the E-Ray feels more like a fighter pilot layout, thanks to the ‘driver-centric cockpit design’. This includes a 12.7-inch centre display, angled towards the driver, a 14-inch driver display behind the wheel and an additional 6.6-inch touchscreen display to the right of the wheel, for additional information such as trip counters, g-force readouts, electric battery charge and the launch control.

There’s also a head-up display to provide essential driving data and a digital rear-view mirror, which takes its feed from a rear-mounted camera above the rear glass. This is especially handy in this car, as you’d have extremely limited view without it.

There are two phone charging locations in the car, including a tray under the main climate control buttons which features a clip to hold your phone in place, and a second holder behind the armrest. I do like that both will keep your phone in place, even while you throw the car around a corner.

The sound system on the E-Ray is courtesy of Bose Performance Series surround system with 14 speakers. It's plenty powerful enough but not as defined as some high-end systems like Mercedes' Burmester or the Bowers & Wilkins systems in Aston Martin and BMW.

While there’s a cruise control function on the E-Ray, as well as emergency braking, lane assist and collision alerts, there’s no adaptive cruise control here. For a car in 2026, this feels a little strange – especially one that costs this much.

Electric options

The electric options on the E-Ray may at first seem a little disappointing but they are a significant step for the Corvette. Perhaps it’s the name that builds expectations a little too high, leaving people to expect at least some significant electric-only driving.

The fact that you can drive any distance on a mild hybrid is impressive. The downside is that the range is so unbelievably small. Travelling just over a mile took me down to 80% charge, which would suggest around 5 miles would be a maximum, and looking online, it looks like 3-4 miles is more realistic.

To be fair, three to four miles is enough to get you a fair distance from home before starting up that engine and waking the dead. It’s just a shame that the process to move between electric and ICE modes isn’t easier.

On the E-Ray, you can only enter Stealth mode (or Shuttle mode) when the car is turned off. Before you press the start button, you need to press the brake pedal and use the drive mode selector. In theory, you can go back into Stealth mode by turning off the car when at a standstill and reselecting, but it’s not easy.

Another clever part of the hybrid system is how it charges the battery. By pressing the button on the steering wheel, it provides increased resistance on the engine, which is used to charge, and can be back to 100% in a matter of minutes. This is vastly different to most hybrid systems that only charge via braking or deceleration, which can often take hours to gain just a few extra kW of charge.

Of course, the real benefit of the electric battery on the E-Ray is the extra power it gives the car. When you put your foot down in the E-Ray, it’s incredibly quick, and the all-wheel drive means it’s also very stable when accelerating.

On the road

One thing that the E-Ray cannot be accused of is subtlety. The bright green paintwork certainly adds to the spectacle, but even without it, this car stands out. You don’t see many Corvettes in the UK, so when people see one, you certainly get a lot of attention.

It’s probably not a car you’d want to park in your local supermarket car park, not least because it would barely fit in the parking space. This is a car designed for private valets and gated driveways.

In terms of actual driving, the Corvette E-Ray performs extremely well. It’s extremely quick and handles impressively. Steering is responsive, and it breezes through the eight-speed autobox, either automatically or manually using the paddles.

There’s no doubt you’re in a sports car with the E-Ray. You sit low to the road in those bucket seats, and the suspension is firm. Luckily, the braking is also very capable thanks to those large carbon-ceramic brakes, so stopping is well controlled.

A grand tourer, though, this isn’t. I did a couple of longer trips in the E-Ray and started to get uncomfortable in the race seats after a couple of hours. If you plan to do longer journeys, I’d recommend a more comfy seat option.

That 6.2-litre V8 will drink fuel given the chance, and the 70-litre tank full of premium gasoline isn’t cheap to top up. The spec sheet gives a rather eye-opening 7.9 miles per gallon for both the coupe and the convertible, which is about 118 miles from a full tank. However, I found it to be much more economical than that, partly thanks to a neat feature in the Touring drive mode.

In Touring mode, the engine’s Active Fuel Management system works with the front electric motor and at times uses just four of the engine's eight cylinders for efficiency – only swapping back to eight when it demands more power. Using this mode on the motorway, I was able to get the fuel efficiency up to around 23mpg, and around 340 miles from the tank.

Should I buy the Corvette E-Ray?

If you’re looking for a showpiece car, the Corvette E-Ray is a very appealing proposition. It looks great, it sounds great, and it drives like a proper sports car. If you go for the green, you’re guaranteed to stand out, wherever you take it.

The electric part of this car is not what I expected and is actually clever in its delivery. The addition of stealth and shuttle modes is genius, though it would be massively improved by allowing a switch from engine to electric power without turning the car off, and by adding a more powerful battery to get that range up to 30 or 40 miles.

The technology in the E-Ray feels really mixed. In places it’s very modern, such as the multi-camera displays and the wireless charging trays, but then it lacks basic driver assistance functions like adaptive cruise control.

While those with a sensible head might look to the Porsche 911, Aston Martin DB12, or Mercedes-AMG GT, the Corvette line-up feels a little wilder, and that’s no bad thing.