General Motors considered start/stop technology for its 2014 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray, but decided against it thinking it would "hurt the car's image."
Despite this decision, the automaker isn't ruling out adding start/stop technology for its next Corvette.
"It is more mass and more cost," Tadge Juechter, Corvette chief engineer, according to Edmunds. "It is very disconcerting to have your lively, great-sounding engine stall every time you come to a stop. The real customer value, the real environmental value is zero. So you are hauling around all that stuff to get a better label value (for mpg on the window sticker). It wasn't worth it."
The new Corvette is equipped with a 6.2-liter V8 and a new seven-speed manual transmission according to GM.
The highway fuel economy for the new Corvette increased 12 percent compared to the previous model. It's been rated at 17 mpg in the city, and 29 mpg on the highway, according to the EPA.
Not only did Juechter say it start/stop technology might be available for the next Corvette, he said it could become standard in the near future.
"But is that something we lead in (with the redesigned car)," he said, according to Edmunds. "Or is that something we do when we are forced to do? It is possible."
A bigger battery would be required if the company decided to go ahead with that plan however. Start/stop technology would bump up the vehicle's fuel economy approximately 2 mpg in the city.
The one thing Juechter promised to Edmunds is that a hybrid Corvette Stingray won't be released anytime in the near future. The vehicle would have to be completely redesigned to "accommodate an electric motor" and bigger battery.
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