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CORVETTE TODAY #160-Harlan Charles, Josh Holder & Tadge Juechter Answer YOUR Questions!
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Jul 11, 2025
We have reached the Summit - the top of the mountain for CORVETTE TODAY! Corvette Brand Manager, Harlan Charles, Chief Engineer, Josh Holder and Executive Chief Engineer, Tadge Juechter are on this hour-long show for CORVETTE TODAY answering YOUR questions! Your CORVETTE TODAY host, Steve Garrett, was fortunate and lucky enough to get the "Holy Trinity" for Corvette to sit down with him during the Michelin NCM Bash and talk Corvette. Add 3 are informative, insightful and funny as they answer your questions from MidEngineCorvetteForum and CorvetteForum. DON'T MISS THIS SHOW...listen to it or watch on YouTube. We have actual footage of all 3 talking to Steve Garrett on YouTube! This is epic...the three main men of Corvette are on this week's CORVETTE TODAY show!
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[Music] Welcome to Corvette Today, the podcast
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that talks about everything Corvette with your host Steve Garrett, MC and DJ at one of the largest Corvette weekends
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in the country, Corvette Funfest, president of the Corvette Club of Kansas City, Missouri, and radio disc jockey at
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the number one radio station in Kansas City for over 40 years. Here's Steve Garrett.
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Thanks for listening and watching Corvette Today, the show that talks about everything Corvette and the only
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Corvette. Soul Performance Products, the official exhaust of Corvette today. Also, mid-engine Corvette forum.com, the
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forum that focuses on the new mid-enine C8 Corvette. Meet a lot of Corvette enthusiasts like yourself at
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mid-enginecorvetforum.com. And a shout out to Corvette Forum and Canadianc Forum.com. Welcoming Corvette
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enthusiasts from around the world. So on today's show, we have the trio here of the Corvette team. We have Josh Holder,
2:47
the chief engineer, Taj Jar, the executive chief engineer, and Harlon Charles, the brand manager, answering
2:54
your questions on Corvette today. Guys, first, you've all been on the show on your own before. Thank you so much for
3:01
coming back on Corvette today. It's great to be here. Thanks for having us. Thanks. Always, always a lot of fun.
3:06
So, what we did is this. I talked to Josh and I said, "How about Josh, you answer everybody's questions from
3:13
mid-engine Cororvette Forum.com and Corvette Forum, and Josh said that would be great." So, I submitted questions on
3:19
both forums. They answered back and we've got your questions here. But, it was nice because Josh offered to have
3:25
Harlon and Taj here with us today. So, all three of the horsemen get to answer your questions.
3:31
Three musketeers. That's right. The three musketeers are here. I should explain something cuz um people will remember and people get a little
3:37
confused sometimes. You got Josh as the chief engineer and me as the executive chief engineer. That sounds redundant
3:43
maybe. Um it used to be a long time ago in the Dave Hill days. You had a chief engineer and assistant chief engineer.
3:49
So, I was assistant chief engineer to Dave Hill's chief engineer. Okay. It didn't bother me, but a lot of
3:54
the other assistant chief engineers felt like they were treated like an administrative assistant.
4:00
Oh, that's not good. Even though it was an executive job at General Motors. And so a decision was
4:05
made a long time ago. We're going to move everybody up a notch. Not in salary or pay, but we're what we're going to do
4:10
is we're going to change the titles to chief and executive chief, right? So nobody's an assistant.
4:16
That's good. That's really good. Well, guys, let's get into the questions here. We've got all sorts of stuff. We're going to start off with John Elegant
4:22
from Mid-Engine Corvette Forum. John wants to know for someone that's considering purchasing an RAY, talk
4:28
about the ZER performance packages in terms of suspension, firmness, and cushiness along with the characteristics
4:35
versus the nonzeray. Who wants to start off? Haron. Well, I'll start off. Um, so, uh,
4:43
initially cuz the the, uh, E-Ray was designed with the allseason tire, all new tire, but we thought there'd also be
4:49
customers they want the higher performance tire, the same one that's on the Z06, the PS4s. And so, we created
4:56
the ZR performance package. And at one time, we thought, oh, maybe we need different chassis tuning and everything.
5:02
But the engineers and development were able to do that with the same chassis tuning. So, it's really um just as
5:09
comfortable. you just have the higher performance tire. The other part part of the ZR package you do get though if you
5:15
you it's a tenant if somebody does use it on the track you get the higher wickers to install on the spoiler for
5:21
track use. So it it's really mostly a tire option though for the ZER
5:26
really. So it's there's not anything characteristic wise or accessory-wise.
5:32
It's more the tire package then. Right. Correct. Okay. Yeah. how you plan to use it. If you expect to do a lot of
5:38
driving, cross country driving for example, and you're never going to track the car, you might say, "Well, I'd rather be more comfortable in the rain,
5:44
and I'll give up a little bit of ultimate performance to get that." So, you'd stick with the allseason if you intend to track your car. Or you spend
5:51
all your time in perfect conditions, you know, hammering on back roads. You say, "I want a summer tire. I want max performance." But I think the question
5:58
honestly the more relevant question might be where does it the -ray chassis
6:04
stack up against other Corvette models right and so you see the car it's got this wide body 345 rear tires it speaks
6:11
volumes of performance and even though it comes with all seasons it wouldn't be
6:17
a parallel to a standard Stingray it like starts at Z-51 and moves up from
6:22
there in terms of what you'd feel about vehicle responsiveness ride frequencies you know, the ride comfort associated.
6:28
So, the Z06 would be the most aggressive chassis tuning. This would be in the
6:34
middle and actually probably a little closer to the Stingray, but still a little more aggressive than the Stingray, but still all around comfort
6:40
all day long, whichever tire selection you make. And and magnetic ride is standard on the Ray. Oh, that's good. That's really good.
6:47
And when we started out with the ZER package, it was early in development. We
6:52
just gotten our what we call integration vehicles, prototype vehicles. We're starting chassis development. We knew
6:58
we're going to keep a common sort of core chassis tuning, roll stiffness, spring rates, but often times when we do
7:04
a tire, it comes with other calibration work that happens, mostly software calibration. Well, when as we got
7:11
further along the road on the -ray, the team realized that the the all-wheel drive dynamics are so capable that we
7:18
can actually keep a common calibration. And a lot of customers have asked, "Hey, I want to swap tires. What do I need to
7:24
do?" Well, it doesn't really work that way. You're going to make a compromise where you're going to have to reflash the car with different software. So, we
7:31
made a conscious decision. Let's do this intentionally. We can keep a core common calibration and if a customer does want
7:38
to swap back and forth with tires for the first time in RA, you can do it with doing nothing else. That's really great. So, when they start
7:44
ordering, they know that what they are intending to use the car for. They can either order the ZER package or not the
7:49
ZER package based upon what they're going to use the car for. Right. That's perfect. And then they can flip the other way without having to do any
7:56
of the other software changes. Which it's funny because it puts us in the opposite position of we usually are when
8:01
people come us and they always want to do a tire swap and we're like, "Oh my gosh, no. The whole chassis is calibrated around those tires. We
8:08
discourage people." Now we're the other way. We're we're encouraging people. You can go either way. That's perfect.
8:13
That's perfect. Let's go to the next question, guys. We have Bearer asking, "Does the -ray have AEB, which is
8:20
automatic emergency braking, and if so, can AEB be turned off and do kind of the
8:26
following distance indicator is in use?" And he also says, "If AE can be turned off, does the icon light up or does it
8:34
stay lit on the dash or on the HUD? Would it need to be turned off each time the car started?"
8:40
So, the I'll start and they can chime in. the automatic emergency braking system can be completely disabled. So,
8:47
you can turn the alert and the braking feature off. When you turn it off, I think a part of the question was, are
8:53
you going to see uh the icon the off icon in the in the instrument cluster? And the answer to that is yes, you will
8:59
you will see that lit. That's a way to notify someone that may think it's on that it's not on,
9:05
right? That condition will stay what we call latched with a key cycle. So, if you
9:10
don't want it to ever intervene, you just want to turn it off and you don't want to have to mess with it ever again, you can do it one time and it'll stay
9:16
that way. Oh, nice. If you turn off uh another option is to turn off uh only the braking and and
9:23
keep the alert. If you do that, the systems that go along with the front
9:28
camera, one one gauge that we didn't really talk about yet, we have a following distance gauge that will show
9:35
you in time how close you are to the car ahead of you. Okay. when you have the alert on that,
9:41
not only does the alert show up your following distance, but that time gauge will start to work. Uh so if you turn
9:47
that off, you're not going to get that information and you still uses the camera signal for that. That's great. That's great. And
9:53
generally speaking around AB, we're we are usually um look a scance at what the
10:00
media calls nanny systems that you know take over because we're not trusting your competence as a driver. And we want
10:06
to make sure that they don't interfere with driving fun. Sure. That's the whole purpose of this car. And we've been able
10:12
to calibrate it such that it stays out of your way until you really need it. In
10:18
fact, it's really hard. We go out and do our valves and and try to see if we
10:23
trust it to work as you close in on a vehicle from behind. And it's really really hard to wait for the system to
10:30
work. It waits till the last second, which it can because Corvettes have such great brakes. It can stop an imminent
10:36
crash in a very short distance. And so it stays completely out of your way until you really need it.
10:41
That's cool. And and we actually announced today at at the uh at the bash that all 2024 Corvettes will have this
10:49
feature standard. That's great. As a matter of fact, we're recording at the NCM Michelin Bash and
10:54
you guys just got off your seminar. Talk about what's standard and coming up new for 2024 real quick.
11:01
Yeah. So, there's basically a lack of a better term, a suite of of safety features. Like we talked about the
11:08
following distance indicator, the automatic braking. There's a pedestrian braking. There's the uh intellam which
11:15
does your high low beams automatically. There's a lane keep assist lane departure warning.
11:22
And one more. Did I get them all? I think you got them all. I think I got them all. Anyway,
11:29
anyway, I think that's but basically it's a lot of features that to be honest um a lot of cars have had, you know, in
11:35
their lineup and people have been asking for that in Corvette and we've brought that up and just like um all these
11:41
features just like Tad said, they we wanted to make sure that they're calibratable by the customer to use them
11:46
as much as you like or not and that it doesn't take away from the joy of driving. That's great. And of course, automatic emergency
11:53
braking, you can adjust the following distance. I find, I think a lot of us do, that once you get the distance set,
11:58
it really doesn't interfere. Like Ted said, it's not interfering with the driving experience. So, I don't really
12:04
think there's a reason to turn it off. For example, if you go into track mode, it automatically disables it. You don't have to worry about that kind of
12:09
interference. And lane keep assist. We spent a lot of time in lane keep assist. We were a little bit paranoid that it
12:15
would interfere in a way that a customer thinks their steering isn't what they want it to be, and it really hasn't
12:21
worked out that way. So, I found myself personally driving. Of course, we're still testing them and and getting
12:26
exposure to them, but I'm keeping them on. Yeah. And they're not really interfering with Yeah. Me, too. That was a surprise for
12:32
me. You know what? I was like, I would probably just leave this on. It doesn't bother me. I was like thinking, oh, I was going to get the car first thing.
12:37
Say, what do I, you know, people get in? What do we turn off and it's really not like that. It only comes in when if you really need it.
12:43
So, set it and forget it. Exactly. That's great. And if you want it a certain way, it'll stay that way.
12:49
Nice. That's great. All right. Question number three is from mid-enine Corvette forum. a person named Little Zomat. He
12:55
said, "In the owner in the owner's manual for the C8 Z06, there's a warning about tires used on the track. Now, does
13:02
this apply to both Pilot Sport 4S and the Pilot Sport Cup 2R tires? And can
13:07
you give us some background and insight about the warning?" So, I think the warning that might be confusing people that he's referring to,
13:14
there's a special warning about uh inflation pressures to run at high speed. Okay,
13:19
that was really meant for sustained high speed. think um Autobon, which most people here don't get to experience with
13:25
their Corvette, or Silver State Rally. There's a few areas where people can do really high sustained high speeds. So,
13:31
there's a higher inflation pressure recommended for driving situations like that. It's really meant to prevent the
13:37
tire from overheating with prolonged high-speed driving. What most people would use from daily driving would be
13:45
what's recommended in the track setup. Inflation pressures. There's cold pressures and it depends on front or
13:51
rear and which tire you're using, but it's clear in the manual how to set those pressures for track driving.
13:56
Great. Let's go to the next question. Question four is from corvette forum.com. John B asks, "On the -ray,
14:02
does the front drive hardware create a corner entry push in low grip situations? Does it freewheel on corner
14:10
entry or with active handling and traction control off? Do the front brakes interfere with power over steer?"
14:16
So, there's a lot there. Yeah. I don't know if I even knew exactly what I just asked you guys.
14:22
It's a really It's a It's a really good question. It is. And there's a bunch of aspects to it, but starting at the top, you know,
14:27
about under steer, that that would be the first thing you would think of. We set up this mid-enine architecture. The
14:32
whole idea was around weight bias, getting the center of gravity more rearward in the car, more weight over the rear tires, you sitting essentially
14:40
at the the center of gravity. So, okay, now I'm going to stick a motor, which most of people have picked up an electric motor, and they're like, "Well,
14:45
it's heavy." Yeah, picked up a battery. It was that's heavy, you know, is this going to upset the the balance of the car? And we had
14:52
the same fears, of course, we didn't want to lose the essence of and what's great about a mid-enine car, the whole
14:58
way it handles and turns in. So, we were ultra paranoid about the mass. And we we
15:03
did we put a higher bounty on saving mass than any other Corvette we've ever
15:08
done. Even though a lot of sort of battery electric hybrids, they're all heavy, so it doesn't matter. We we
15:13
didn't we treated it like any other Corvette except mass was even a more premium. And you so you see things like we have a
15:20
lithium ion 12volt battery. We have ceramic brake standard magnesium case
15:26
which is essentially unheard of uh with aluminum fasteners on the motor. So everything was about minimizing the
15:32
impact on the architecture reprised so well and honestly the weight distribution change is very small. It's
15:39
like 1% I think. Wow. One or 2% maybe. So, it didn't change the weight distribution. And as we were developing
15:46
both the Z06 and this car, we set up the tire stagger front to rear. When the Z06
15:52
came out, you saw it came out with 275 width front tires, which for a rearwheel drive mid-enine car is essentially
15:59
unheard of. It's a huge tire. But we were thinking downstream, that's the size we need to optimize when we put
16:05
a little more weight on the front axle and ask the front axle to do a little more attractively when we put the hybrid
16:11
out. We're thinking of all these puzzle pieces along the way to put together so that when it eventually comes out, we
16:17
don't go, "Geez, I wish we'd I wish we'd put bigger tires on the front." Um, so the net result is after all that
16:23
thinking, that the hybrid electric system doesn't add much uh mass in total and it doesn't shift the weight
16:29
distribution much. So that same crisp turnin that everybody enjoys is just as good in the -ray.
16:35
That's wonderful. Yeah, I know. with my 70th anniversary car. I was amazed coming from C7 to C8, the tightness that
16:42
you can get in turns is incredible. It's amazing. And I think part of the question might
16:48
have been concern about as we're regenerating power from the front axle
16:54
during a braking situation. So, think corner entry. That's where the front drive unit is transmitting power and
16:59
reverse torque through the tire that it might overwhelm the turnin. And so we do
17:06
control the torque transmitted through the drive unit. And in some low grip situations, but the question was more
17:12
pointed to, we will basically put the front axle in neutral. So we're not transmitting torque, we're not regening,
17:18
but we have a pretty nifty feature on the E-Ray called surface, we call it surface estimation, but basically we can
17:25
detect through micro slip of all four corners how much grip is available on
17:31
any given surface. Wow. So we know that in advance. This is a proactive system. It's not reactive
17:36
after the fact. So based on that surface estimation, we'll command as much
17:42
available regen as we can. And if we see a dis disruption in the chassis balance,
17:48
we'll adjust torque either positive or negatively in the front axle to allow that turning to happen.
17:53
That's amazing. Wow. This is a huge subject. You could tell the question was complicated. It could get far worse than that. We could do an
17:59
hour on chassis dynamics with all-wheel drive and e- axle and every every place you use it and every place you have to
18:06
avoid having it do something bad to you, get out of the way. It's an incredibly
18:11
complicated area. That's crazy. That's amazing. Our last question for segment one comes from Mid-Engine Corvette
18:17
Forum. It's JB and he asks, "If someone has a new transmission installed at 6,000 miles on their C8 under warranty
18:25
for the DCT, does the DCTC filter need to be changed again at 1300 miles to
18:31
keep the warranty intact? Give us some update on the DCT filter and how it should be changed."
18:36
You want to take that one? I'll take that one. So, the service interval for the
18:42
transmission stays with the transmission. Okay. In the unlikely unfortunate event,
18:47
you would have to change the transmission. That service interval would start over and stay with the
18:53
transmission. So, at 7500 miles or thereabouts, when the service interval
18:58
calls, you would change the filter in the transmission. Then, at 22,500
19:04
miles, you would change the filter and the oil in the transmission. And then again, in a following 22, so you can see
19:10
the intervals are actually getting a little bit longer. Sure. Um we tried to make it as clear as
19:15
possible in the in the service interval service schedule but that is the recommended service for the transmission
19:22
and any component in the car that service interval is meant for the component in the car. So we keep the service intervals
19:29
separate transmission engine. Correct. We tried to align the first one thoughtfully at 7,500 miles so that
19:37
we're not inconveniencing a customer that's getting this service that comes with the purchase of the car. They can
19:42
get their oil changed, their engine oil filter changed, and their trans filter changed all at the same time. That makes sense. Great.
19:48
I was just going to say, so if you had 6,000, so it would be 6 plus 7500. So 135 would be his filter.
19:55
Correct. this this particular person, the transmission is so different than other components that require breakin
20:00
that the timer starts over again. If you replace those components, whether it's the engine, say you do brake corners, rotors, and pads, you're basically
20:07
following the the mile zero schedule from that point. It's an apartmental thing basically for
20:13
the car. Correct. That makes sense. All right, guys. Well, let's take our first break and when we come back, Harlon Charles, Taj Jar, and Josh Holder answer
20:20
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I'm your host, Steve Garrett. With me is the trinity of Corvette. We have Harlon Charles, Taj Jar, and Josh Holder here
23:20
answering your questions at the Michelin NCM Bash here at the National Corvette Museum. In segment number two, we're
23:26
going to start off this question. This is me from Corvette Forum. You know, the
23:32
names they come up with are just kind of crazy. I just go by Steve Garrett on the forum. It's easier that way. But anyway,
23:37
memei wants to know, talk about the -ray's position in the market and the C8 Corvette lineup. When should someone buy
23:44
an -ay versus a Z06? And who are the competitors for the -ay? Harlon, this is
23:49
a layup for you, my friend. Oh, yeah. So the -ray is really exciting for Corvette because I mean we've had in
23:57
the past we've had Stingray and Zo as people wanted to move up from a Stingray we basically had more track oriented
24:04
cars more you know higher performance you know things that were were very aggressive this gives us an opportunity
24:11
yes we got a car that's higher performance but it moves it maybe in a little bit more luxury high-tech GT
24:16
level if you look at a continuum of sports cars you could have something that's as close as possible to the a street legal race car
24:23
and that's where the Z06 goes. Or you can have something that's more luxury GT high-tech. That's more where the -ray
24:29
goes in. Most cars are very fast obviously. But the -ray is really a car
24:34
that does a lot of things well. If you want it for a road car to do a lot of trips, drive it more of the year with
24:41
the all-wheel drive with a little bit better fuel efficiency, things like that, Z06. And you can take it to the
24:47
track occasionally, too. But the Z06, if you want that race car experience, that's the car for you. As we were
24:52
developing the E-Ray simultaneously, I guess a lot of other people were working on cars with electrification or hybrid
24:58
sports cars. I think where we're really unique, you compare to the, you know, Ferrari, McLaren has and from McLaren
25:06
both have ones. The Acura NSX, they've done V6s,
25:11
right? And to make room with our unique architecture, we have a V8 and we have all-wheel drive. So I think that really
25:18
gives us an advantage versus the competitors out there that we've found a better solution.
25:23
Yeah, absolutely. I do think um you know we talked because some customers had asked for all-wheel
25:28
drive for a long time. Some of our competitors had all-wheel drive, mechanical all-wheel drive and so we'd been thinking about it a long time and
25:34
when we started first thinking about the mid-enine architecture, we thought we could do a mechanical all-wheel drive
25:40
and so we actually considered that. We thought about going that way versus using the electric technology which is
25:46
emerging fast. You know, it's quickly the big push for EVs around the world. Helps Yeah. develop motor efficiency and size and
25:53
package and power and battery uh efficiency and the actual weight added
25:59
to the car would have been similar either way. When you add a mechanical
26:04
all-wheel drive, you get no improvement in efficiency. It actually goes the other way, right? you got a bunch of gears and shafts and bearings and stuff
26:11
that you're spinning now. Um, so it all takes away from the power of the motor in the back. We isolate the engine in
26:18
the back. It just does what it always does. And then we have this new system that does nothing but add power to the front
26:24
axle. So it harvests energy that would go to waste normally just go into brake
26:29
heat. You know, every time you step step on the brake, if you're touching the brake in city traffic, instead of heating up the friction
26:36
surface, wearing out your brake pads, you're stuffing energy back in the battery. And to you, it just feels like
26:42
braking. We already have electronic eboost, we call it. And so, it's seamless to you. It doesn't you can't
26:47
tell the difference. And so, it lets us do a bunch of tricks in this car that give the car even more bandwidth than
26:53
we've ever had. We always pride ourselves. You can do this so many different things, fun things with the car. This just extends that bandwidth
26:59
with all the things that electrification can do. That's really cool. So, you've got the internal combustion engine, the LT2 in
27:06
the back. You've got a separate electric motor in the front. Like you said, Taj,
27:11
they're separate. How do you get the two to coordinate together to give that Corvette experience? It's science.
27:19
Wizardry. Wizardry. It's, you know, it's computer science is what it is. You got lots of
27:24
control modules on the car. And we started this car a long time ago and we knew this is going to be a huge challenge. And honestly, we didn't know
27:30
how well it was going to work out. It was kind of a blind alley. There wasn't like a another car out there that we
27:36
could look at to say, "Oh, they did it, so we should be able to do it." We were creating this. And so we had to think
27:41
about, okay, all what are all the ways, all the control systems you have to have that need to coordinate across the car
27:47
to give the driver, you know, you're all you're doing is hitting the accelerator and all I don't really care about. I
27:53
just want lots of performance and when I hit the brake, I want lots of braking. And so we had to figure out how to merge
27:59
these very different systems into one seamless experience for the customer. You think about internal combustion
28:04
engines, they change performance based on the temperature and humidity. Electric motors don't. So you've got
28:09
this one that's quite stable and it's got to work in harmony. This other one that's a little bit unstable and we have
28:15
all these control systems to manage that. Now we put them together and you have those two things merging. So you
28:21
really developed this whole thing from scratch. Oh yeah, it was from scratch. That's amazing.
28:26
And I talked a little bit about the chassis controls, but the torque architecture is modulated by a central
28:32
controller that's looking at both internal combustion engine torque and front motor torque to provide the best
28:38
driving experience. And I like Haron said, the sort of the ultimate GT car. Consider that the -ray.
28:44
I would say where the -ray and Z06 overlap is where Corvettes are all good. canyon carving sort of twisties. The
28:52
-ray and Z06 and that are both super fun but in a very different way. The Z06
28:57
gets first of all the sound. It's visceral sort of raw little bit uh
29:03
unrefined intentionally experience where the -ray may have gone to charm school,
29:08
but they're both super fun. The Z06 is your ultimate track machine. That's what
29:14
that car is all about and that's what it's really really good at. The -ray sort of bookends that on the other side
29:20
with this all-weather driving capability. You know, we're driving them all winter in Michigan. The car is super
29:26
capable. It opens up an area to drive and enjoy a Corvette that most customers may not have thought about before, been
29:32
worried about, well, the weather's pretty nice, but I'm going to go over a mountain pass and the weather doesn't look too good. I'm going to leave my
29:38
Corvette at home. You don't have to worry about that in any way. That's really cool. I don't know if it was you, but this is really just a
29:44
perfect analogy. The Z06 is like the scalpel and the -ray is like the Swiss
29:49
Army knife. Exactly. That was you, wasn't it? Yeah. Because the Z the the first thing
29:54
with the Ray, you know, when we were set this up with with with engineering development, they wanted targets and we
29:59
and they wanted a something to follow and and we started looking at all the capability and it's just a car. We just
30:05
talked about it's a car that does a lot of things well. Yeah, it's really good. And like Dad was saying, the Z06 is more
30:11
point. It does track high performance. It's it it does one job but better than
30:16
anybody. Absolutely right. All right. Our next question, guys, comes from mid-enine Corvette form. I'm kind of going back
30:22
and forth between Corvette form and mid-engine form. This is Hog Yld and he
30:27
wants to know, we hear a lot about battery fires and PHEVs and EVs. Talk
30:32
about the batteries in the new and what the steps were that were taken to prevent fires from happening in the -ay.
30:38
And Josh, you had talked, I think you and Taj had talked about this in your seminar this afternoon.
30:44
Yeah. I would start out by saying that customers buying or considering an E-Ray should not worry about battery fires.
30:49
They should worry about Thank you. how awesome the Corvette is, how an array is going to enhance that
30:55
experience even more. There is a lot of testing that goes on a GM. I often tell people, I wish you could kind of get a
31:00
peak behind the curtains. do things to components to subsystems and to whole cars that people wouldn't even think
31:06
about doing uh with their Corvette or any car for that matter. And the battery is no exception. We intentionally damage
31:13
the battery, the internals of the battery, poke literally poke holes in the cells, run current through them and
31:20
verify that circuit protection and all the things that are supposed to happen and a well integrated uh lithium ion
31:27
highvolt battery do their job. and the -ray was no exception in that case. It
31:32
should also be said that the battery in the -ray is very different than the battery system in an EV, which is
31:38
intended for range. It's got generally a lot of energy. The battery in the Ray is small, tiny by
31:45
EV standards. And uh so that stored energy, which is really the equivalent of about 7 ounces of gasoline,
31:53
there's not a whole lot of energy in there in the first place to to think about fires. So, uh, besides all the
32:00
protection of the battery itself, finally, it's housed in the most protected spot in the entire car. This
32:06
central tunnel in the very center of the car. Uh, it's in a perfect spot and
32:12
customers and people considering the purchase of it should never ever think about the possibility of a battery fire.
32:18
That's great. And, uh, one thing we talked about at the event here, there was uh, that the NC, National Council of
32:25
Corvette Clubs, Yes. has uh welcomed the -ray to their autocross and track
32:30
events. Give us a little bit more of the full story of that, Harlon. Well, I think it was just maybe a
32:36
misunderstanding. I think that the there was some concern maybe um for full EVs
32:42
possibly and that was done before the was even out even what they even knew what it was. But now, you know, seeing
32:48
the car, seeing everything, of course, they're it's a Corvette. They're going to welcome it to all the Corvette events. So, so it's an important thing
32:54
because if you're buying one of those, you want to be included obviously with all the other cars. Yes.
32:59
And there's just a misunderstanding. So, I think that's that there'll be uh something out and that'll be um cleared
33:06
up pretty pretty quickly obviously. And then the other thing um uh Mike Kutcher
33:12
who's our lead engineer on the -ay he he he he had had put something like that we
33:17
had done half a million miles of testing already and we're still doing we've gone
33:22
to seven tracks 1500 laps without any incidents that's been working great.
33:28
Don't worry about your battery fire. Just worry if you want a scalpel or a Swiss Army. Exactly. There you go. All right. Our
33:34
next question guys comes from mid-enine corvette forum. It's Jvenvenius and he wants to know if there's any chance of
33:40
getting a transmission fluid life monitor added to the 2020 through 2022
33:45
C8 as maybe an overtheair update. Yeah. So, we technically could provide
33:51
an overtheair update for the transmission service life monitor, but we consciously chose not to.
33:57
Oh. And I'll explain why. Okay. There was worry and based on some of the questions I would say it's the
34:02
worry is justified that there would be confusion after that update because
34:07
while we could update the software in the car to make this work technically
34:13
the customer would be responsible for its reset point we we it would be vastly more
34:20
complicated to right by each car's individual mileage automatically adjust that in the not
34:26
update. Yeah. And so we've decided to minimize confusion, we're going to treat the transervice life monitor that came out
34:33
as a in the spirit of gradual continuous improvement uh but not so important or
34:39
impactful that we would want to overtheair update older cars and cause confusion.
34:44
That makes sense. That makes sense. You guys have thought of everything. That's pretty cool. That's really cool. All right. Our next question comes from
34:50
Corvette forum. It's Rothan. And Rothan wants to know if is there any situation where the battery can completely drain
34:57
out on an array. What do you need to do to prevent complete battery drainage? That's a good question.
35:03
It is a good question. So I can start. Sure. The answer is possibly. You would have
35:09
to work really really hard to do it. The battery is um is designed to operate
35:16
within very specific limits and it's constantly tailoring what it does based
35:21
on how you're driving. So, uh we did things like charge uphill. So, you think about uphill in a slippery road where
35:28
you might want to use the all-wheel drive portion of it and you might have less opportunity to put reverse torque
35:36
on the front wheels because you wouldn't want to put reverse torque heavily on a slippery road, right? Um, so we've we've done those
35:42
very challenging situations like miles of uphill and not drain the battery. You
35:48
would have to do, you know, we have conditions like if you uh wanted to drift the car, if you're drifting the
35:53
car, cyclones, yeah, if you sit there and spinning like you've seen on television, right?
36:00
Um, that is a condition where you could theoretically drain the battery. In reality, there's no real world way that
36:07
you would ever do that. You couldn't do it. Sure. So there'll be drifters out there who maybe go find a way to do it,
36:13
but it's not a regular customer condition. Exactly. It's an extreme. And since I've done it, I can tell you
36:19
what you'll experience. Uh you first of all, the totally drained
36:25
never really really happens because we want to make sure that the casting controls I was talking about earlier are
36:31
consistent. The last thing you'd want to have happen is for the car's dynamic behavior to change radically because
36:36
there's not enough battery energy to provide control of the car in a consistent way.
36:41
And so we will warn the driver that uh you've you know you'll see your battery
36:47
life drain down. It'll say no e all-wheel drive. Oh, that's not really true. What we're
36:52
saying is that eall-wheel drive for straight line performance is not going to be let out. We're going to leave a
36:57
little bit to keep chassis controls. And because we're doing that, we're not let the letting the horse play that ensued
37:04
prior to that, right? Uh continue because we're not going to let the motor uh provide that sort of
37:09
power. But the state of charge of the battery is constantly monitored. You you
37:14
have to do these kind of juvenile. You have to try to drain it really hard. Yeah. If you do a stealth exit, you can
37:21
get it really low. For example, if you if you're good enough with the pedal and you run it all the way until the battery is low enough and kicks on the internal
37:27
combustion engine, you'll see this. And you'll also see the battery state of charge climb right back up because now
37:34
we're doing what we call through the road charging. Once the internal combustion engine is up and running, we're trying to build that battery
37:39
charge back as fast as we possibly can. So, what if they drive the length of time that they can drive on the front
37:46
motor, they're still under 45 miles an hour. What happens if they drain that battery, but they're still under 45
37:52
miles hour? The internal combustion engine will come on even though you're under 45 miles now. Okay. Yeah. When it that state of
37:58
charge gets low enough, we'll do the start sequence. Some people have seen after our presentation today what that
38:04
start sequence looks like when when the engine's up and running, if you were to look at your power flow gauge,
38:09
you'll see that even though you're driving maybe at steady state, we're putting power back into the battery because we're trying to replenish it as
38:16
quickly as we possibly can. So you can do your next maneuver. So the internal combustion engine can kick in even if you're under 45 when
38:23
that front motor is drained out. Yeah. 45 is not the only thing that'll kick in the engine. State of charge is
38:29
one. Your rate of throttle progression is one grade. There are all kinds of conditions that'll turn that on.
38:35
You really have thought of everything. We try. That's great. The battery is extremely protective of itself, the whole system. So you have to
38:42
try to trick the systems to get it to do some to get even close to a low state of charge. So it'll turn the internal
38:49
combustion engine on if it needs to. And we actually only use a fraction a surprisingly small fraction of the
38:56
battery's total capability. We sort of operate in the middle between fully charged and fully depleted. So when the
39:02
gauges look like they're fully depleted, that's fully depleted of what you are allowed to use. In your driving
39:08
condition, there actually is more headroom above, which you can access sometimes, and more headroom below.
39:13
Gotcha. Okay, that's good. That's good to know. Only a little more than half of the total capacity we're using.
39:19
That's cool. All right, our last question in segment two comes from Corvette Forum as well. It's from
39:24
Richard 2591. He says he misses not having the rear trunk lock underneath
39:30
the license plate. Why don't we have that on the 2023s? Tad, you're laughing. Go ahead. You
39:36
start. I got this question today and my first question to Richard 2591 is
39:42
whether he'd actually ever used it or not. That was something we had on the C7. On the C7, right, it made a lot of
39:48
sense. Yes. Um if you had a dead battery and you wanted to get into the interior of the car, the hatch is a big opening.
39:55
You could open it mechanically. You could climb in, climb through to the front, open the doors with the mechanical latch. Right.
40:01
So that was a vehicle access strategy. Sure. For C8, you can't get into the
40:06
interior of the car when you open the hatch. So, we have a latch or a key cylinder that's hidden in the quarter
40:12
panel that gives you access to the occupant compartment, to the door. Yeah. Yeah. To the door. It'll open the door
40:17
for you. And so, that's the reason we have the key cylinder. The one in the back really only gives you access to
40:23
what's in the trunk. So, a lot of people ask, "Well, geez, what if I have to charge my battery?" You charge your
40:28
battery. A lot of people don't realize after decades and generations of having the battery in the back, the battery is actually in the front. Everything's
40:34
reversed on a mid-enine car. So, we put the battery in the front. So, the sequence is you have lost your battery
40:40
power. No 12volt power at all. Use the mechanical key, open the door, then there's a pull cable under the steering
40:47
column for that'll pop the frunk. Now, you have access to the battery. You can get a jump, you can charge it, whatever,
40:53
and then you're full up and you can open the hatch. So, we didn't really see a use case left for this,
40:59
right? And so it's extra mass and cost that we saw fit to get rid of. It's a it's a vestigial
41:05
and I thought it was only there at first because it was a similar manu manufacturing was using it because of
41:11
the C7 process and later they realized they didn't need it. Yeah, that that was a part of the reason there there was a few reasons for I
41:18
would call it legacy to be kept into the car. We you've heard us say a lot that uh every gram has to earn its way onto
41:24
the car, right? That earned its way on and then it earned its way off. It got kicked off the island. Uh, and I know people are
41:30
out, oh, you guys did it for cost cutting. Well, it Yeah, it saved a little bit of money. We really did it for the mass. We've It turns out the
41:37
weight of that part, it's got steel tumblers inside of it. It's on a cast housing. There's a big steel bracket
41:42
that holds the part itself, and then there's a steel cable that goes through the tub, a potential leak path into the
41:48
tub through a grommet. There's just a bunch of baggage, but the the mass of it was more valuable to us
41:54
than the actual piece cost of the components that we got rid of. And it allows things like when we when we take
41:59
that off now that mass can be spent on things like a cinching hood in 2024 mass
42:04
is very important to core it always has been and and we have a carefully kept I
42:10
would call it a formula because it's not the same for every car for every place and the real practical use case for this
42:17
was really for a technician. It's underneath it's buried under a license plate. Sure. I know somebody say well I can take a quarter out of my pocket. I
42:23
don't know who carries change anymore, but you'd have to have Popeye forearms. It's still pretty tough. Sure. To get the license plate off.
42:30
What I think caused some I'll call it internet confusion is that there
42:36
there was a potential failure in the latch that would prevent even the key
42:43
from opening the latch. Wow. We found it on one poor car. And so
42:49
there was a service procedure created and it turned into a bulletin and it never should have. The service procedure
42:55
because that particular car was full of stuff in the trunk. Um we couldn't use
43:00
what I'll describe here in a second. We had to literally drill a hole in the hatch with a hole saw and unbolt the
43:07
striker and open the panels. Very sad day for that car.
43:12
People saw that and the deletion of the key cylinder and tied the two together. They have nothing. Actually, removing
43:18
the key cylinder, if this should ever happen again, allows easier access if
43:23
the trunk is full of luggage because you put a small hole in the tub right where the key cylinder was. Now, it's not
43:29
obstructed by a piece of steel, right? You put a hook through it and you can pop it open and then you plug the hole
43:34
in the tub with a with a a patch. Yeah. The service official service procedure
43:40
on a convertible is just like a slim gym through a door. It's easy. Uh, and you pull the interior trunk release on a
43:47
coupe. You loosen the rear wheel liner and dislodge the grommet for the body
43:52
harness and get the slim gym through there and pop it open. These are super rare. This is not a normal you. This is
43:59
for a latch that has this rare failure, not a dead battery. Yeah. So, people should not mourn its loss.
44:05
They should celebrate the fact that now they don't carry around this never used dead weight.
44:10
Exactly. Right. It's common sense logic. Everybody, come on. Get on board. Get on board. Let's take our final break. When
44:16
we come back, we'll answer more questions that you have for Harlon Charles, Taj Jar, and Josh Holder here
44:22
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And now back to Corvette Today with your host and my husband, Steve Garrett. Hey,
46:54
thanks once again for listening and watching Corvette Today, the show that talks about everything Corvette, brought
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at 833-639-4231. I'm your host Steve Garrett. With me is
47:23
Harlon Charles, Taj Jucker, Josh Holder. We are answering your questions from
47:28
Midenine Corvette Forum and Corvette Forum. In this third and final segment, John Elegant. We'll start off with
47:34
another question from John. He says, "Josh, would you personally choose to drive an E-Ray or a Z06 if you're going
47:41
to the grocery store, a spirited country drive, taking your wife out for dinner, or going for a haircut?" I think we
47:47
should start with you, Josh, and everybody can answer. All right. Well, I would say it's
47:52
mission specific. Yes. Uh, yes. It depends on where I'm going, but uh
47:58
they're both awesome. My ultimate would be to have both. Why not both? What's wrong with both? Why? Who said the rule
48:04
you can only have one Corvette? I like the way you think, buddy. Yeah. So, uh, we've touched on this
48:10
already. And both are really good, but in different ways at the at the mission of Corvette.
48:15
Yes. Z06 excels at its specific mission of of track work. So, if I was going to a
48:22
track day and uh doing something that um I wanted that allout feel and
48:28
performance, I would I would choose the Z06. Uh maybe if I was going on a long
48:33
drive, didn't know uh what the weather might hold or what the situation might be, I would I would pick an E-Ray. But
48:39
they're both super capable. They're both every bit the mission of Corvette, and there
48:44
is no wrong choice. That's right. Taj, you feel the same question. We'll all answer more or less
48:50
the same way. It depends depends on what we're doing. Um, in some cases depends on who we're going to see.
48:56
I have friends who might be completely blown away by an -ay if I showed up
49:01
silently, right? You know, there there'd be um things that you could do that would really impress some people. They're very
49:07
different characters in cars, but they all they both have tremendous bandwidth. If I was going to hammer by myself in a
49:13
car, if I was just going out for the peak driving experience, it's Z06 all the way. You're going to fly. if you
49:18
have open road ahead of you, but if I'm going on a long trip perhaps with my wife, like Josh said, you're not sure of
49:24
the weather, it's going to be every day. Absolutely. All right, Harlon, you're up next.
49:29
Yeah, it's funny because it's almost like a a heart versus brain decision. Like your heart like wants to see, you
49:35
know, because the engine really sinks to you. But if you only could have if I go to the I know like Josh said that's a
49:42
great answer to have both. But if you really could only have one I would say for me actually the -ray does more thing
49:49
you know if I like to drive across the country like to drive it all year. I never want to be the one that puts the
49:54
car away for the winter. So the -ray kind of fits what I would like to do. But I do love the Z06. It's kind of you
50:01
know we were trying to find personas. I don't know if this will resonate with everybody, but I'm I'm like a
50:06
I'm like a say a Star Trek. I like watching Star Trek. So to me, it's kind of like Kirk versus Spock. Like Kirk is
50:12
very emotional. He's physical, very passionate, you know? To me, he'd be like the Z06 driver, right? Where Spock
50:19
is very logical. Still very strong, still can a hero in
50:24
his way. He would probably be scientific. That would be the right personality.
50:30
Good analogy. I like that. I didn't know you were a Star Trek fan. Oh, sure. I don't know how the haircut got in
50:36
there, but I think if I'm going to get a haircut, I'm gonna drive somebody else's car because I'm usually shedding after a
50:41
haircut. Well, I never get I never get one. Never gets one, so it doesn't matter.
50:47
Well, see, I got a haircut once and I cut it short and look what happened. I hate it when that happens. All right,
50:53
let's go to the next question, guys. This is from Corvette Forum, and this is Jean Fume. And Jean wants to know if the
50:59
-ray will be sold in Europe, will it be homologated and compatible with Euro7 exhaust norms?
51:06
That's a good question. It will be sold in Europe. Nice. It will be sold under, if we're going to
51:11
get technical about European requirements, it's Euro 6D at the moment. Okay. That's its uh whole vehicle, you know,
51:18
type approval certification. Uh, of course, as regulation changes uh
51:23
throughout the globe, we will meet those regulations wherever possible. Uh, but right now we're planning to sell the -ay
51:30
in Europe and and right-hand drive for the UK as well. Very nice. Yeah. And it's it's not a a huge lift
51:35
for us. We already homologate the Stingray over there. So, same engine. We have the exhaust treatment required for
51:42
over there. It's almost a plugandplay. You have to do calibration work, but it's a a relatively lowhanging fruit to
51:48
make sure your rake can go into the market. It's an easy step, isn't it? Yeah, that's great. Relatively. Relatively easy step. All right, let's
51:55
go to the next one. It's from Corvette forum. It's 6870 vet. He wants to know when will the 2024 model colors,
52:02
interior colors, and options come out. He'd like to start planning right away. Harlon, today. We just announced them all today.
52:08
And we have the three actually actually when the -ray came out we showed the three new colors that we have and uh we
52:15
go over them. We have the riptide blue. We have the cacti green and the seawolf gray tri coat. Yes. Our new exteriors.
52:22
And we also have a new Artemis leather interior which we have shown here with
52:28
the c we shown on the cacti show car which goes with that really nicely. A lot of people like that combination.
52:34
Just beautiful. Just beautiful. That's great. And so the I think what they're getting at with this question though is
52:40
that that applies to all not just but the Stingray and Z06 as well. Those new
52:45
colors and new interiors as well. And we did announce a couple other things today. Uh we talked about the safety
52:51
features, right? And the one I think convertible people are going to be excited about is our new convertible appearance engine window option where
52:59
you can lift the tano and now see your beautiful either LT2 engine in a
53:04
Stingray or the LT6 in the Z06 engine cover options and things like
53:11
that. So we're really excited and we're recording on Friday, April 28th. So now you can go online. He might
53:16
have been asking about pricing as well. He wants to start planning, he says. Yeah, pricing is is still a little we we
53:22
did announce the -ray prices already and the other 24 prices will come out a little bit closer to ordering the
53:28
summer. And you and I did a podcast on the -ay specifically, so that was covered back then as well. So, we'll see that. That's
53:34
great. Our final question comes from Lucky W on Corvette forum. He says, "Are there any plans for an official lap time
53:41
at the Nurburg Ring for the Z06?" No. So,
53:47
so uh T and Tach can elaborate. We all can talk about Nurburgring. So, we
53:52
obviously spend a lot of time at Nurburging and we get well publicized uh photographs of us doing our mission
53:58
specific work at Nurburgring and I use the term mission specific because that mission is to develop the car at that
54:04
track that offers all kinds of things in one location that you can't really get
54:09
anywhere else. When we did the work on the Z06 and the -ray and many Corvettes
54:16
throughout the past, it's become increasingly difficult to get open track
54:21
time, weather, and all the other factors to cooperate in the most perfect way possible to get a lap time. So, if those
54:30
confluence of factors all come together, we would go and and try to get a lap
54:36
time. But it's it's never actually really been our mission to go try to do that. Um we're not done going to Nurburg
54:43
Ring. Uh so if we're back there again and then the stars align, we would likely make another attempt. Um but
54:51
that's why there isn't uh Z06 lap time. It's not cuz we don't want it. It's just not the sole reason to go to Nurburg.
54:58
Yeah, that makes sense. You have to think how different it is for us as a North American manufacturer versus the Europeans where it's in their
55:04
backyard. So they can look at the weather. They can be there in a day's notice. We have to pack up shipping containers a
55:12
month in advance to get all our stuff over there to like to do our development work. And so we focus on the industry
55:19
days where industry the OEMs can come and do their test work, right? So we know there's a window where we're
55:25
going to be able to have a week or more uh test work done. So we focus on those days and sometimes we're rained out or
55:31
snowed out or whatever. Exactly. But we we make the effort to ship all the stuff over, make all the arrangements, fly
55:36
everybody over there. So it is a huge effort. So it's not like we can spur the moment. Okay, looks like conditions are
55:42
great next week. Let's rent the track. We we just don't have that kind of lead time. So we have to get really really
55:47
lucky when we have every all the personnel, the cars, everything has to line up with the weather. And we've been
55:53
quite unlucky, I would say. You know, we never did it in C7, right? We ran into all kinds of obstacles. In fact, the
55:59
track has changed hands and the rules have changed. So, it's been uh a tough negot negotiation. So, it can't be the
56:06
top priority for us because we'd spend all our time and resources doing it. Uh so, we have to kind of hope to get lucky
56:12
someday. We'll we'll do it if we get a chance if the stars align and we're happy to share those uh when we can. Uh
56:18
but we can't make it our primary mission. But if but if people are are looking for bragging rights, you know, Car and Driver just did their lightning
56:25
lap at VIR and it's a more not quite in our backyard, but at least it's on the same continent and we did very well on
56:32
the lightning lap. Fifth best and that's a third party test and that's a third party,
56:37
not not your own hot shoe drivers and unsupervised cars that could be stock or
56:43
you could be close to stock. I'm not saying anything. I'm just saying that's not a litmus test. You don't have same
56:50
cars, same day, same driver kind of ranking of performance. And we know at least really closely what
56:56
the Z06 will do on the Nurburgring. We're we're we're not going to advertise it because we don't have that video
57:02
stringed along on one lap. We've got segment times and that's just not the authentic way we would ever publish a
57:08
Nurburging lap time. And you got if you think about when we're at Nurburgering, it's you know most of the way into our
57:14
development cycle. We're not all done, right? So, where they're learning and still tuning the car, it's not really a
57:19
fair assessment during that loop of tuning when the car isn't even completely finished to then try to get a lap time because we're we're we're still
57:26
making the car quicker. Tweaking arrow, tweaking chassis. Exactly. You're also seeing online there was one recently at the French track that
57:33
Europeans have done done, you know, race over over there driving car and you you're if people are looking I think
57:39
what a lot of people Okay, Nurburg Ring is cool, but I think a lot of people want to see how does the Z06 compare with the best in the world, right? And
57:45
there's a lot of like Tach mentioned independent people putting us and we're really doing well against high-end
57:52
competition. Absolutely right. Can the Z06 get any better? I don't know.
57:58
That'd be tough. It's pretty good. It's really good. It's pretty darn good. Yeah. Well, guys, thank you so much for taking
58:04
the time out of your day here at the Michelin NCM Bash to do this. It's been so much fun having you on getting
58:11
people's questions answered. Maybe we'll make it an annual event. Oh, here we go. All right. We'll see you
58:17
next time. The bash is an annual event for sure. So, he means the Yeah.
58:22
Yeah. All right, guys. Thanks again for everything. I appreciate you being here. Thanks for having us on. Thanks, Steve. Thank you.
58:29
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