These Quotes from Corvette Boss Tony Roma Pushing Back on an Electric Corvette are Amazing

It was almost a week ago that we got some encouraging news from the Corvette Team about the direction of its full EV program with the Corvette. Executive Corvette Chief Engineer Tony Roma had told Motor 1 that it’s going to be a while before you see an all-electric Corvette as the technology isn’t there and neither is the market.

Corvette fans rejoiced with the news, as the conventional wisdom was that GM was going to force a fully electric Corvette into the market at the expense of those who only want V8s and internal combustion engines. We were supposed to see a fully electric Corvette sometime as soon as 2025-2026, and now even Automotive Forecasting Solutions has pushed back their timeline for an EV Corvette to around 2029-2030.

Now Tony has even more pointed comments about electrified Corvettes and EVs in general, and you’ll want to go up and hug the guy after what he told AutoCar during his visit to the Goodwood Festival of Speed in the United Kingdom last week.

Tony tells the U.K.-based magazine that while electric cars are the future, plans to actually develop a Corvette EV have yet to be officially drawn up. Again, this contrary to what we have been told previously. Despite all of Tony’s previous work on Cadillac’s EV program, he says, “We talk about what it would take to make a capable enough car, but right now it’s still science fiction.”

He added, “I don’t think plug-in is worth it – the mass, the cost, the complexity.”

“So, with E-Ray, we kind of went the other way. If you look at some of the criticism, and I won’t poke anybody in particular, but some of our competitors have been criticized for the games you have to play to get the car in the right mode, and which charging mode and this and that and the other.”

“But when you drive an E-Ray, you just fire it up and drive it. It’s just a hybrid. It charges the battery for you. It does everything. If you want to override and make it charge the battery faster, there’s a button for that. But other than that, that’s pretty much it, and keep it simple, keep it usable.”

He added that if manufacturers were given “some kind of credit from the regulators” in order to hit a certain electric-only range, “then I would consider [PHEV] for this version of the car”.

When the time does come for a fully electric Corvette, it also has to be engaging instead of just being fast as the instant torque that EVs produce means they are all fast 0-60 MPH, which will eventually render that metric as obsolete. The “engaging” part is what Corvette enthusiasts need as EVs have been described by some as being “soulless” or without any character like the sound of a burbling exhaust. Automotive manufacturers will need some way to differentiate themselves from every other EV, and Tony says “that’s our challenge – to come up with that something different, that something engaging.”

“When you’re buying a car like a Corvette, why are you buying it? You’re buying it because you want something special. You want to be engaged in the art of driving.”

“And so when we can figure out how to do that, and as we put more electrification in the car, we will, but we’re not going to do an electric version of this car just to do it. That would defeat the entire purpose.”

“Everybody should just take a deep breath and relax, and we’ll get there when it’s time.”

Photo Credit: Tony Roma

Both the European Union and the United Kingdom have said that by 2035, all new cars sold must be EVs that emit zero emissions, and if Corvette wants to be sold in those markets, in needs to be fully electric. But Tony says, “We will not make a car just to meet that regulation.”

“I’m not gonna make an EV and put a Corvette badge” if it is not worthy of the brand’s “70-plus years of history”, said Roma “Nobody wants that. Sorry, I will stand firm on that. The badge means something to people.”

Next, Tony discusses what needs to happen to make an EV Corvette feasible.

“The things that we would need to be true – the power-to-weight ratio of the electrification components, the cost, the range. All of the things that you would need to make a car that we think would be worthy. I’m not sure you could do it, or if you could, it would be just brutally expensive.”

“Our cars will be all-electric when an all-electric car is better than what we have right now. And until then, we’ll continue to do what we’re doing right now.”

“What we need to figure out to get to that point is how do you get that visceral connection, that personality that you want to engage with, in an electric car.”

“Frankly, and I’ve driven a lot of really good electric cars, most of them don’t have that emotional connection and the computer does so much of the work. But when I want to go on a Saturday morning and go for a drive, I want to fire up [an engine] and listen to all those noises.”

See what I mean by amazing quotes! After serving almost his first full year as Executive Corvette Chief Engineer, it’s really nice to know that Tony gets us, understands what customers want, and won’t compromise just to meet some silly regulations in other markets.

Thanks, Tony!

Source:
AutoCar.co.uk

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