Electrified Corvette Prototype Burns During 'Thermal Event' While Testing in Spain
General Motors announced back in April it’s working on a hybrid Corvette. It looks like some more work needs to be done, however, as the Corvette prototype burned down to nothing during testing in Spain earlier this week.
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The footage was posted by the instagram account cochespias, or autospies, a few days ago. The caption reads: A moment of silence for the Corvette, which couldn’t handle the Sierra Nevada. That appears to the the mountain range serving as the background of this video of the burning vehicle.
Road & Track reports the car, which is expected to be called the E-Ray, has been spotted testing since the announcement by the General back in April, possibly before. The new ’Vette will still be powered by the mid-engine V8 we all know and love, but with electric motors powering the front wheels for an additional dose of torque.
The fire, which cochespias caught when it was already fully engulfing the car, burned the prototype down to ashes. Only the wheels and a pipe or two hinted that this pile of debris was once being a car. Of course, this is why pencils have erasers and why automakers go through rigorous testing, so this kind of fire happens with engineers on standby on the empty plains outside of the Sierra Nevada mountains and not, say, to a customer on the 405 freeway.
GM told R&T that the fire began in the engine bay before spreading to the electric motors up front. The General released this statement about the incident:
A Corvette development vehicle undergoing extreme testing by one of our suppliers last week had a thermal incident. All who were involved are safe as this is our top priority. We are investigating the situation with the supplier… The car was a specialized testing mule with a setup that’s not indicative of what an actual customer would receive, so it is different than what many people are speculating the car might be.
Last time we saw the electrified Corvette it was having some fun doing burnouts and drifts during cold weather testing. GM has also teased a fully electric Corvette coming in the near future.
