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CORVETTE TODAY #180 - Meet Cody Bulkley, The Performance Integration Engineer for the Corvette E-Ray
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May 8, 2025
On this episode of CORVETTE TODAY, you'll meet one of the fresh, new shining faces of the Corvette team. Cody Bulkley (pronounced Buckley) is the Performance Integration Engineer for the new Corvette E-Ray. Now, you're probably saying to yourself, "What is a Performance Integration Engineer?" Cody explains that when he sits down with your CORVETTE TODAY host, Steve Garrett. Plus, Cody is the guy who did that awesome "Cyclone Spin" in New York City's Rockefeller Center on January 17th, 2023 when the Corvette E-Ray debuted. Cody's excitement and enthusiasm for the new E-Ray is blatantly obvious in this episode of CORVETTE TODAY...it makes me want one! See the video of the Cyclone Spin on this new episode of CORVETTE TODAY!
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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 Fun Fest 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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[Music] thanks for listening and watching Corvette today the show that talks about
0:31
everything Corvette and the only current podcast dedicated to Corvette I'm your
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host Steve Garrett I appreciate you tuning in Corvette today is brought to you by wheelcraft want to dress up your
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canadiancorpetforum.com welcoming Corvette enthusiasts from around the world my guest on Corva today is one of
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the fresh new young faces at General Motors he's Chevrolet's performance integration engineer for the e-ray and
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he specializes in the E all-wheel drive chassis control integration plus he's
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the guy that did the famous Cyclone turn in the e-ray when it debuted at Rockefeller Center's ice rink on January
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17th of this year his name is Cody Buckley Cody welcome to Corvette today
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hey Steve thanks for having us it was great to meet you at bash and I'm excited to be here today well thanks for
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taking time to be on the show Cody first of all let's talk about your upbringing buddy where did you grow up tell me
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about your family and did you come from a car family sure thing so I grew up up in Central Oregon specifically Redmond
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Oregon which is in the heart of the state in a beautiful high desert if you can Envision the most ethnic beautiful
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back roads stunning Mountain shots Great Rally roads epic scenery that's where we
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grew up you know an awesome place to have a Corvette to spend your past time my family they were a big car family we
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always grew up reading car magazines going to car shows my dad used to talk to me about cars and how all the
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components function in the vehicle growing up as the youngest of three boys we always were trying to find ways to
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have fun at the house well one cool thing is my family had an apple orchard at our property and my dad had this John
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Deere tractor that he would use to weed eat and go around and spread sod around well we saw it a different way we saw
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that as a lap time device so we would just take that and we would go rally it through all the trees in the Orchard and
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lap time each other and really that just got the spirit of racing and enthusiasm for cars and having fun which is some of
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the character that you'll see in the e-ray is just how fun it is well I had a lot of fun like that growing up with my
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brothers rallying through the Orchard and we may have spilled a little bit of weed kill there every once in a while my
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dad wasn't too thrilled about the grass but we had a great time doing it you know we didn't have too many sports cars
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going up he got one when I was in high school and that ship sailed for me and that's when I became a Corvette believer
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at heart that's cool now you mentioned your dad I know he was a strong influence on you talk about your father
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and the role he played in your life and in your career yeah sure thing I could speak hours about what he's done for me
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in a positive way but in short he's a great and bad influence on me he's been a great influence as far as supporting
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me for racing supporting my career supporting me through college giving me great advice but he's a bad influence
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because he keeps getting me to buy more tires go racing but we have an awesome Dynamic and we love to spend time at the
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racetrack and talking about Corvettes you know I really couldn't be where I'm at without the support of my parents
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going through college and helping me get there and keep me motivated over the years and supporting me while you know
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they all live in Oregon and I'm in Michigan so being able to still stay in touch and allow me to go across the
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country and live my life and career with General Motors has been a pretty special experience absolutely now during your
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school years when did you discover you were a car guy and was Corvette the go-to car for you like most people that
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would listen to this podcast I grew up burning tires off of Power Wheels playing with Hot Wheels reading
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magazines drawing cars pretty much just dreaming of the new poster child car
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that we all love for me that was always the Corvette my dad had magazines around from Car and Driver Road and track that
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always had really the fourth and fifth generation cars were the iconic ones when I was growing up right on the tail
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of when the C5 got released and I remember at a very early age around third grade for me I remember drawing
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Corvettes in school and knowing like I want to work on Corvette someday like that's the car I was certain of it it's
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very obvious too that the brainwash came from my parents who loved Corvettes you know at that time my dad didn't have one
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but he loved Corvettes and it was always that was the car there was no question it was Corvette or nothing at that point
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that's cool that's really cool now what did you study in college Cody and talk about your college experience when I
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went to college I started with a lot of computer background and depth from high school so I was always into the
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technology side of it so Cody has myself has either a tech side or an automotive
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side and I really like both I love technology cell phones and stuff like that and I love cars and driving them
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getting behind the wheel I wanted to merge the two together so what I did by
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doing that was I found a School Oregon Institute of Technology which is on the south side of the state that really is a
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hands-on experience they offered several degrees that were very exciting the
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first one I got was the computer engineering technology and then embedded systems engineering technology so those
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are Hands-On in that computer engineering field and then I was able to tailor that experience into the
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automotive world so for me when I would go to do projects and work through tasks each day in class I would always relate
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them to car parts for example we had to write a controller one time I wrote an engine controller in class so I was
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always narrowing what I was learning to be towards the automotive field because I knew I wanted to work on Corvette and
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if you think about it riding the wave when I was in college I knew that the computer influence in cars was going to
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Skyrocket and if you look at where we are today with how many controllers are in cars I could have went to mechanical
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engineering path but I knew that there was something special when you look at the computer integration and the
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embedded control systems in cars that that was going to be the new hot ticket and honestly I think that's a pretty
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special path to getting into the automotive industry so that's what I studied there going through experiences
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it was fantastic I went to a pretty small school a really close group with the professors and really was focusing
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on working hard getting these degrees so that I can eventually go to General Motors that was always the goal for me
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in tailoring my studies towards the automotive industry throughout my experiences that's so cool that you knew
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exactly what you wanted to do at such an early age and like you said your goal was always to work at General Motors and
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more specifically on the Corvette right yeah that's very accurate and that goes back all the way high school middle
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school Etc if you'd always ask like a young kid what do you want to do when you grew up I actually did answer that I
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wanted to work on the Corvette it's kind of ironic that that's where I'm at today because I stuck with that passion so
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anyone that's listening so if you've got a passion that you want to follow or a dream you can do it it's true and that's
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what I did is I stuck with it and I started day one of college saying I want to work at General Motors on Corvette
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what path can I take to get there and that's what I did with the computer engineering embedded systems engineering
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and tailoring all my classwork and all the projects to be towards automotive industry that was all a plot for me to
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be able to get an interview with General Motors and yeah I always want to work on Corvette so no surprise that I ended up
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there that's so cool at least you knew what you wanted to do going right into school and you focused on that you got
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in you got out and now you're at General Motors that's right that's cool well buddy let's take our first break when we
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come back we're going to talk about your college experience and your job at General Motors that's coming up next on
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833-639-4231 I'm your host Steve Garrett with me today is Cody Buckley Cody is the Chevrolet performance integration
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engineer for the e-ray in this second segment we're going to talk about Cody's College and how we got into General
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Motors first Cody you participated in Formula SAE which is really really cool
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talk about that and what that meant to you Formula SAE is a program that
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Collegiate students can do where you compete against colleges all over the world building a 3 4 scale race car are
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so like think of a Formula One car and then take a fourth of the dimensions off and that's what this car is and it has a
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very strict rule set that each college has to follow in order to be able to compete against each other so it's a
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Cutthroat environment where you're trying to develop the best race car as students while you're learning against
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all the big schools in the world and for me this was the ultimate ticket as a
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Resume Builder to catch the attention of General Motors in this example and for anyone that's going to college wanting
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to work in the automotive industry you know Formula SAE is where you start so for us we were a very very small school
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limited resources and what that did was it was honestly a blessing for us because it allowed creative thinking on
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how to design manufacture and build a race car we knew that you could develop a pretty basic car that did all the
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functions and you can check all the boxes you can go to competition and do average but that wasn't us we wanted to
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go so far into left field that we had a radical car that no one had seen before or and we wanted to introduce
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Technologies and advancements that would catch the attention of employers so that us as college students could get jobs so
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for our program we developed an active aerodynamic system the importance of what that is is that we developed this
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in-house we developed the mechanical aerodynamic elements we developed the controls software and we even went down
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to the PCB level for the hardware so that every single aspect of it was truly designed by students that was one of the
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first that's ever come out because we didn't Outsource anything the aerodynamics the entire development of
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the system the testing of it all of that came back to us and that truly was pure
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as far as what we learned as far as the employer's sake they could tell that we weren't influenced by any outsourced
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Consulting and that was a big deal you know we had a turbo on the car we had carbon fiber suspension components big
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aerodynamic elements really fast race cars so you can think about what it means to build a race car and then bring
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it up to that level performance that's one of the most fun things I've ever done so I got to improve my subjective
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performance so what we do at General Motors and my job now is we have to drive the cars write down the motion and
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the experiences we have and then we have to relate that back to engineering and metrics and how to solve or improve the
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performance well what formula I said he did for me was not only did it allow us to prove that we can build a race car
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follow the rules and follow engineering principles but it allowed us to improve our subjective evaluation skills which
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is critical for my day job today so for example with the aerodynamic system we
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would make a tweak to the way the control system worked when it was owning the flaps when it was closing the flaps what it was doing mid corner and we
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could drive the car improve my driving skills which is fun because I wasn't paying for the tires and then you could
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relate that back to the way the control system work and how we wanted to tweak it little did I know how critical that
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was for my day job I think for anyone that's going through college formula SE is one of the most memorable experiences
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because you break a lot of stuff a lot of questionable engineering practices but really it's what makes you as an
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engineer brings that character in it was a great experience man that sounds like so much fun Cody what are your degrees
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from Oregon Tech then so I went to two schools for college one for undergrad one for grad school Oregon Institute of
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Technology or Oregon Tech is where I went for undergrad what I got there was a computer engineering technology degree
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a bachelor's in that a bachelor's in embedded systems engineering technology and then in Associates and software
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engineering technology and really I only needed one of those to get a job but I knew I wanted to get the most background
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in depth though that when someone looked at a resume they looked at hey I was the captain for your own Formula SAE I did
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this this and this and I had three degrees from the school that it was enough to catch the attention from a
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recruiter and then while at GM fast forward a couple years was my grad school experience where I went to the
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University of Michigan Dearborn and got a graduate of engineering degree in automotive systems engineering wow
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that's really fascinating now talk about getting into GM right after school because when you started a GM you
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started working on Corvettes in the chassis Control Systems right so getting into GM was a hilarious story when I was
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in undergrad my dad was taking me to an imza Corvette race at Laguna Seca you know we would travel around to watch the
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race cars one of the passionate father-son things we would do well we drove his C6 z51 down there and had a
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great time we went and watched the race and we signed up for the Corvette Corral which is people on this podcast would be
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familiar with and there was a dinner with the Corvette team and we're like oh that's cool you know we should do that yeah well in classic Buckley form we
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were 30 minutes late not even close and part of that we were able to come up to
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the front and they're like oh you guys you know you missed it you know you're not even close and they said well the only spots left are up front by cage and
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Josh holder like oh sweet so I sat right next to Josh and his wife
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and we spent the whole evening telling awesome stories about our personal experiences at the time for me in
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Formula SE and burning all my dad's tires up in his Corvette that he probably didn't realize and having fun in his car and then here in Joshua's
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side on the program team and you know making that connection you know you can't make this up my best advice is to show up late and go to dinner and sit
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right next to the Chief and the executive Chief pretty awesome experience so that's how I made that
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personable contact to Josh but I still had to graduate and I had to go through the formal process that everyone does
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but he told me how to do that him and Taj got me in touch with the careers.gm.com which is still active
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today and this is another funny story because I had no idea the levels at General Motors so I saw a bunch of jobs
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that had Computer Engineering or embedded systems you know relating to my background well I just Spam applied to
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all of them and I had no idea that they were like what we call level seven level eight jobs which is 10 years of
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experience or more and here I am a brand new College graded plan for these jobs that you need a ton of experience so clearly under qualified but the
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recruiter called me back explaining that to me and I joked them and I said hey I got you to call me right and they loved that and then the ship sailed and they
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hired me so I was pretty stoked about that while starting at General Motors I started in a rotation program that they
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offer which is brilliant for new College grads to gain cross-functional exposure through the entire General Motors
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portfolio so we've got you know engineering development engineering design manufacturing validation vehicle
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testing there's so much that you could tailor your portfolio of what you want to do and for me I knew exactly what I
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wanted to do I want to be a chassis controls engineer on Corvette and I was lucky enough you know obviously Josh and
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those guys have a lot of help in getting me to the right people and getting me to understand the right path how to get
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there into my second rotation I worked in the virtual chassis controls lab what
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this lab does is it takes a controller for example for me it was the new electronic brake boost unit in the C8 so
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that e-boost is what we call it if you think about the C7 and down they used a hydraulic traditional style vacuum
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assisted brake booster that went away on the eighth generation and we went to this fully electric boost system and we
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needed to be able to test that thoroughly to make sure that it was safe for a vehicle and verified performance I
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was able to get assigned to that program in 2017 time frame and this is very early days where you couldn't even talk
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about what you worked on the Corvette was so put in a corner away from everyone to see it that is and the brake
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boost system effectively what we're doing is we're stimulating that real controller with inputs thinking that
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it's in a vehicle so effectively the e-boost thought it was in a real vehicle and were able to run it through a bunch of tests that can verify performance and
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feature functionality getting a couple years of exposure there and learning and getting to know the program team that
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allowed me to get the analytical background of chassis controls so I was able to learn the fundamentals of stability control traction control and
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ABS brakes and then I was able to get a job in my current role which is the
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chassis controls integration which still works on those same systems but now in the vehicle so instead of working on
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them virtually now I work on them physically and do the testing on the array that sounds good and those are
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great stories buddy talk a little bit more kind of in layman's terms about what a chassis Control Systems
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integrator does and how it relates makes Corvette so much fun to drive but a Johnson Controls integration engineer
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does is they act as the voice of the customer regarding the chassis Control Systems so interlock brakes traction
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control stability control we drive those vehicles and we test out the features the functions and the performance and
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then we have to validate that everything's working like we want it to and the performance is good so when we
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find issues we follow up on those and we verify that everything gets fixed that the systems are safe and the fun to
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drive part of it really comes in with the e-ray as having so much Tractive capacity under the car so you start with
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the mid engine that's got unbelievable amount of traction because the moving the mass to the rear and then you add
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this electrified all-wheel drive system now we get to have so much fun with the car because even driving on a spirited
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back road you feel the car having so much grip and so much torque and the immediacy that the way the car drives
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you don't even need to break the law to have fun in the car pulling into traffic is now fun and it never gives this
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experience like you felt before so what we do is we work through those systems and make sure that the performance is
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where we want it to be and on the e-rate that meant integrating in this brand new all-wheel drive system so what we did on
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a day-to-day basis is we just verified that that system is functioning with all the rest of the car I get to work with
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some of the most brilliant engineers at General Motors doing so that's so cool let's talk a little bit more about how
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you got started with e-ray Cody how did you get that job and all the development thereof when I got the current roll I'm
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in the e-ray was just in its very infancy time frame we didn't really have a chastity controls person that was
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taking it on from a holistic standpoint when the team was working through the development they're finalizing the
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stingray of the z51 and they were working on this brand new beautiful l T6 flat plane crank engine a lot of the
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resources were set aside to make sure that that program was a success so early on when I got my job in Circa 2019 the
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current role I'm in I was assigned to monitor the chassis controls integration of the Elwell drive on the e-ray and
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really for me what stood out with that was I had my hand raised as high as it could be to work on this program because
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this car didn't have the history like the other variants had so for example a Z06 that's a track car and it's been
24:00
that way for a very long time nobody knows what the e-ray is so that means I was going to be able to share some
24:06
creativity work on a brand new system that was very stimulating as far as comprehending how the system was going
24:11
to integrate and I was super excited so as you can imagine I was raising my hand very high to get the opportunity to work
24:17
on this car and then from there we were working on an early phase of development we call it the mule phase and that's
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actually for a fun fact that was the first time we did a cyclone in the vehicle but that was really awesome
24:28
right getting to drive an all-wheel drive Corvette for the first time and driving it in the snow and not getting
24:34
stuck getting in and out of a driveway these were Monumental things that we were able to be a part of and very
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passionate and excited that I got to take on this role that's awesome that is fantastic and we're going to talk a
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little bit more about that in segment number three let's take our final break Cody when we come back we're going to talk more e-ray and we're going to talk
24:52
about the Rockefeller Center coming up next on Corvette today [Music]
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Collision Repair Hendrick Chevrolet has you covered visit chevyusa.com or call 913-384-1550
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you're listening to the Corvette Today podcast with Steve Garrett thanks once again for listening and
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watching Corvette today the show that talks about everything Corvette Corvette today is brought to you by wheelcraft
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Summer's here and so is car show season you want your Corvette looking its best dress it up with bright Chrome or black
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833-639-4231 I'm your host Steve Garrett with me is Cody Buckley Chevrolet's performance integration engineer in this
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third and final segment we're going to talk more about the e-ray and its debut at Rockefeller Center Cody this e
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all-wheel drive system is new for the e-ray talk about how the all-wheel drive system makes a difference for the
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customer and what someone driving the e-way is going to feel the one thing you're going to feel while driving the
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e-ray is that torque immediacy you're gonna get blown back into the seat from how fast the car improved Hills to 60
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miles an hour propels out of the corner or propels out of a Snow Road as you're trying to get out of a bad condition so
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the e-ray really brings this new Drive experience when you take the base mid-engine cars that are rear wheel
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drive we've got that awesome mid-engine vehicle Dynamics but this car is different this car feels different to
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the customer and it provides a different Drive experience to the car so for example driving the eo-wheel drive
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system brings you the ability to drive on roads that you never would think of before if you look at in the past most
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Corvette drivers would be terrified of driving in the snow on gravel in the wet
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even and this car just begs to do that so it brings this character that really promotes the car to be driven and it's
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exciting to do it and you don't need to break the law you've got this torquing media see that right when you tip into
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the pedal it just throws your head back it feels like you're driving this big block V8 underneath you that really just
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wants to go so when you look at examples for driving in in low grip conditions the all-wheel drive system is able to
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learn the tire capacity at Each corner and adjust the all-wheel drive balance what that means is let's say you're
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driving home from work and it's in the fault and oh boy it's snowing how am I going to get home well in the past you'd
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be really worried maybe trying to park the car under a covering and wait out the snowstorm in the e-ray it promotes
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you to go out in the snow and it promotes you to go have fun and that confidence that you get behind the wheel of that near 50 50 all-wheel drive
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balance that way that torque split can Propel you through those conditions it gives you that confidence behind the
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wheel that no Corvette has been able to do in the past on low grip surfaces so when you're going up a mountain back
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road you know you're still in a Corvette so you got to be mindful of ground clearance but it's going to give you a whole new perspective of driving in the
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snow and no other Corvette's been able to match in the past and it's fun that's the thing is you're going to go through
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that you're going to say oh I'm throwing rocks up on the side of the car that's not good man that was fun I want to do that again and really that's that
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playful all-wheel drive balance comes in because it's able to learn and adjust the way that torque delivers in the car
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it's always doing the right thing for the surface at hand so if you're driving on an asphalt pad a closed down drift
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pad and you're wanting to get the car sideways and have fun with it it's going to have a different all-wheel drive balance than it would driving up a snow
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pass or on a gravel back road and the neat thing about this is the way that integration works is it feels natural to
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the driver the main mission that we got from the program team was this car needs to have digital systems that feel analog
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what I mean by that is it needs to feel natural to the driver where they don't have to think about it we want the car
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to feel just like a normal car would even though you've got two disconnected powertrains working together via
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software communication we did an exceptional job of making the car feel as one connected natural flow while
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driving it's really special so a couple examples there are when you look at the traction control system we now have
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control for each wheel of the car and that's new for Corvette obviously with the front driven Wheels but the
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all-wheel drive system and the traction control are in two different modules and they need to work together so we spent a
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lot of time in development making those interfaces and the performance work where they're not stepping on each
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other's toes the way that the torch being delivered to the front axle in the traction control system is managing the
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torque that's the positive torque side of it so the fun pedal when you get a tip into the throttle and get sideways
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but there's also the other aspect of the car it's a P4 architecture from a hybrid standpoint and what that means is we
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have to recover energy naturally there's no plug-in so we have to do heavy brake
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regen Coast regen that type of energy recovery systems that are very creatively integrated so that the
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anti-lock brake system can still recover full energy so for example when you're driving on snow the regen energy on the
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front axle is enough that torque is enough to lock the wheels in certain conditions so the ABS control system has
32:24
to be able to balance brake pressure and Regen to work on the front axle so that you still have that stable brake stop
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and turnability that you're used to while driving on low grip surfaces and then when you're on a race track and
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you're on a high grip surface well guess what we can Barrel in all that regen and still manage the braking through a
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corner so that you're capturing as much energy as possible so we had to think through all of those brand new
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interfaces that never existed really we had to have so many whiteboards on this car because nothing existed we had to go
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back to the Whiteboard so many times get these interfaces sorted out and verify that the performance is doing what we
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want and that was one of the critical Parts about the e-ray in this integration domain is just making sure
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that all of these control systems work together in harmony so that it's an awesome experience for the driver and
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they get the confidence that we want that's amazing you know what makes me want to buy an e-rate and it's a true
33:18
Four Season all year car then isn't it it really is and you know if you look at what we've done with the car in all the
33:24
media that we've shown so far we truly have taken this car on low grip surfaces driven it through ice driven it through
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snow and really it showed off the plethora of capability that this car has and it takes the Corvette to that new
33:38
Four Season capacity whether you're on a race track whether you're on the low grip surfaces whether you're Canyon
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carving and all of that comes to the centerfold of the car which is that brand new Michelin Pilot Sport All
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Season four plus tire that is bespokely designed with Michelin for the e-ray this tire brings that all-season name to
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a whole new level we did all of our snow development and Ice development with the All Season we don't even recommend
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winter tire car unless if you're in an export Market that forces us to go that direction so we're telling people to
34:12
drive these things on all seasons and guess what that tire can pull nearly a g of lateral capacity which means it's
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great for Canyon carving going all around on the best roads across the United States and this tire really just
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takes it to a whole new level and we're Beyond excited for the customers to experience it on the eBay when you combine this brand new all-season tire
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with the El wheel drive electrified system you get a Corvette that can take
34:37
you places like none other before that's amazing I can't wait for this car now Cody the e-ray debuted on the exact same
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day which is January 17th that the first Corvette debuted in New York City 70 years ago that seemed like a stroke of
34:51
Genius to me was that your idea that was very creatively and strategically placed
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on that date I call it Trevor's awesome idea Trevor Tomkins with our Communications team he was able to
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identify that New York was obviously where the Corvette was revealed 70 years
35:07
ago on that date we couldn't miss that date by a day we had to have it exact right so we had to do something exactly
35:14
on that date downtown New York that would blow the minds of people across the world and really if you look at what
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we did the Rockefeller Center is at the heart of New York City and we wanted it to be that way we wanted to be right in
35:25
the front of everyone and show off this brand new vehicle and celebrate 70 years
35:31
of Corvette along the way let's talk about that Rockefeller Center debut because the logistics of that had to be
35:36
mind-boggling debuting the e-ray on the ice rink there at Rock Center had to be so much fun but there's a lot of
35:43
logistics that went into that right yeah the logistics is really what consumed all of the time for this when you step
35:49
back and you walk through the bash presentation that I did which was a pretty nice way of walking through this piece by piece you look at when everyone
35:56
was at home enjoying their vacation with the holidays our team was working overtime trying to make this happen so
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the first thing was you know the communications team said hey we want to use downtown New York well we got to
36:09
find somewhere to go Trevor jokingly was like what about the Rockefeller Center and we all looked at it and we're like that'd be cool what are we going to do
36:15
there and I remember joking with Trevor like I think we can drift that you know and that was the point where I said hey
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we've got this maneuver you know in our back pocket that we found which we'll talk about the Cyclone being like something thing that would be really
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neat to show off to customers like I think we can drift that downtown New York so we're both like ah you know the
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integration team was pretty skeptical like no way the Rockefeller is never going to let us do this and we hear it from Trevor like no no we're green light
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like no way like they're gonna let us put a Corvette there and then we're like oh boy how do you get a Corvette down there there's not a driveway into this
36:46
thing well it's New York City apparently you can just rent a huge crane clothes down the streets and you can just get the car down we thought along this way
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like ah no way it's never gonna happen we get past that hurdle and like oh my gosh we have a crane the city's gonna
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let us do it how is this possible and then halfway through there we're like we should probably test this to make sure
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we can do this maneuver so we went to our Northern Michigan test facility and this was really December time frame and
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we set up on an ice field we've got a beautiful snow and ice facility up there and we set up cones the exact dimensions
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of the Rockefeller Plaza and we were able to try out a bunch of things try some launches try some drifting and what
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we found out was hey the cyclone that's the top ticket but you can't really see the drama ice is boring visually because
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you don't really see what's going on from the Dynamics of the wheels and that's when we said man we need snow so
37:37
we brushed over some snow from a snow field up north and we were able to throw up snow all over the sides of the car
37:43
all four wheels spinning it was magical and beautiful and we needed that to be what people saw on live TV and the team
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was amazed wow downtown New York you can just rent a company that brings 53-foot
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trucks in of ice and converts it into snow and that's what we did so we got past that step so let's step back we've
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gotten approve the user Rockefeller we have a way to get the car down there and we can make snow oh my goodness we're
38:07
going to be able to do this and that's really when it became real it was to the point where we really needed to make
38:12
sure this was going to be a success for General Motors and for the Corvette brand and what's awesome about this whole thing is it really went to plan we
38:20
didn't have a lot of hurdles there were some small quirks you know making the snow the machine was getting clogged up
38:25
we were running through those type of things we found that the ice was grippier than we had thought because when we got there we didn't have them
38:31
zambonia so all the aggregate was still there from the cute kids skating around all day that was a huge benefit and then
38:38
getting the vehicles down with the cranes that was a pretty risky thing right like can you imagine if that would
38:43
have failed a car falling off ground that would be horrible so thankfully everything went very safe went right to
38:49
the plan and the cars got down there we had two cars down there to practice with overnight as you know we started at 10
38:55
pm the night before and pulled an all-nighter practicing everything really went to plan we found that we actually wanted less snow than we initially
39:02
thought so that was good you know things to figure out that we wanted to get the surface exactly perfect and I tell you
39:08
what the first time that we practiced that Cyclone oh my goodness downtown New York while everyone was sleeping what a
39:14
magical experience you know this wasn't on live TV this was overnight and it was in the practice car but we knew we were
39:20
going to be able to do it and we would be able to get something so special for the customers of the Corvette and
39:25
enthusiasm of the brand that we were going to shock the world that was so cool and this Cyclone turn I watched
39:31
this over and over and over this has got to be like a first in Automotive History because the e-rate spins on its Center
39:38
axis not from the front wheels and spins around on the front wheels like a donut right yeah that's what's so cool about
39:44
the e-ray circling back to our winter test facility back in 2019 we had our
39:50
mule vehicle which is an early development era that we built up like a Frankenstein to be able to test all
39:56
these systems early on one afternoon after the testing was complete we turned tractions voted control off and we're
40:02
like well this thing's all-wheel drive it should be able to do something different than a Z06 let's see what it can do then we were in a back snow field
40:08
often the quarter where no one's watching and we just went Full Throttle turn the wheel the passenger and I were
40:13
just so confused we're like what the heck was that you know like we're trying to figure it out from an engineering perspective we're like well it didn't
40:19
really rotate on this axi it didn't rotate on that actually it rotated at the center of the driven Torx and we're
40:25
like wait a minute and we have backed the car up and we look at our tracks and we can see that the marks in the snow the car was completely in place from a
40:31
top view perspective it was spinning upon itself and that's when we knew you know through the development of the e-ray we were joking with the program
40:37
team like man this car is pretty special at winter I can't wait for you to drive it we've got this new maneuver we want to show you I don't really remember
40:43
where the Cyclone name came from but it fits you know it's not a drift it's not a donut it's a cyclone you know it sits
40:50
in place and it spins but the neat thing about this was at winter test over the years of course we did this all the time
40:56
after that every year going back you know all the way through the winter test development Cyclones were natural as far
41:01
as a test process there but we would only do a couple of them laugh about it you know go and bring the car back in
41:07
the garage what we did at the Rockefeller Center was nothing like I'd done before the amount of spins that we
41:13
did there 20 spins in a row that was to the next level we really just wanted to show something so special to the world
41:20
that I think a adrenaline kicked in because if you think about it again you might not do that with all the walls is
41:26
going on but that was something that we'd never seen before we went from a full battery full state of charge on the
41:32
front axle all the way down to our vehicle Dynamics buffer which is where we limited on purpose so that you don't
41:37
run out of all-wheel drive for vehicle Dynamics in one maneuver you know that was pretty incredible to be able to do
41:43
that and to be able to do it such an awesome way in front of so many people live for the world to see really shows
41:50
that the e-ray is different it's awesome and it's ready to conquer the world buddy I was watching that and I looked
41:56
at that thinking oh my gosh look at that that has never been done before that was simply mind-boggling it was so cool Cody
42:03
I can't wait for the e-ray which is slated to come out at the end of the year there's a lot of Firsts with this car first time with all-wheel drive it's
42:10
the first hybrid any closing thoughts about the e-rave that you want to convey yeah really for me I'm obviously biased
42:17
but I love this car it's so much fun to drive and really if you're listening to this podcast and you're on the fence
42:23
about the e-ray and it's right for you I just want you to give it a chance because when you drive this car the
42:29
experience you're going to have behind the wheel is magical I just want everyone to know that this car it's a
42:34
Corvette at its Sole and this electrified edition of the car only makes it better those zero to 60s are
42:39
repeatable over and over again and who doesn't like that that torque immediacy that you get from the front axle and the
42:45
way that this car can react on a race track the way the all-wheel drive can help you from a vehicle Dynamics
42:50
perspective and driving on those conditions everybody can relate to when they took their sports car out and they
42:55
hit a road that they were worried about either from snow or too much water this car is meant for that you know it's the
43:01
car that you can truly drive across the country that green touring experience it's super comfortable it's blistering
43:08
fast and it is the brand new Corvette to the portfolio the 2024 Corvette e-ray
43:14
buddy I can't wait for this car you've got me all excited about this thing I can't wait to see it here at the end of
43:19
the year Cody thank you so much for taking the time to be on Corvette today this has been absolutely fantastic thank
43:26
you for having us it was a blast thanks for listening to Corvette today and please be sure to tell your family friends and other Corvette enthusiasts
43:33
about the Corvette Today podcast and thanks to our sponsors wheelcraft want to dress up your Corvette with bright
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Chrome or black chrome wheels visit wheelcraft.com to learn about their Advanced PVD chrome finishing they can
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you've been listening to Corvette today with Steve Garrett if you'd like to contact Steve with any thoughts on the
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