Zac Quinn 
Vehicle development and engineering is always a challenge, and sometimes those challenges are more high profile than others. Making waves across the internet is footage of a camoflauged C8 Corvette burning to ashes on the side of the road in Spain. The vehicle that caught fire was presumed by many outlets to be the upcoming Corvette E-Ray hybrid supercar, but Chevrolet has made rounds denying this, calling the incident a “thermal event.”
C8 Corvette Prototype Fire: Details
GM doesn’t exactly know what caused the thermal event to take place within the prototype. The footage was posted by cochespias, or “autospies,” on Instagram, which states that the Corvette was located within the Sierra Nevada mountain range in southern Spain, which serves as the background for the burning vehicle.
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The C8 Corvette prototype fire had already fully engulfed the car by the time the video started being recorded, and it ended up burning the prototype to the ground. Only the wheels and a pipe or two hinted that the pile of debris was initially a Corvette. But, of course, this is precisely why automakers undergo rigorous testing, so that fires such as these are minimized in the hands of customers.
General Motors stated that the vehicle was undergoing extreme testing by a supplier, and everyone involved was uninjured. At the time of the writing, GM is investigating the situation with the supplier, but they still don’t know what caused it yet.
As for whether or not the torched prototype was an E-Ray, it ultimately doesn’t matter. But battery fires are currently front-of-mind for a market that’s wary of electric vehicles (such fires are likely what caused the Felicity Ace to sink into the Atlantic Ocean with 3,965 high-end Volkswagen AG products that included Lamborghinis and Porsches). But high-octane mid-engined supercars are known to catch fire, too. We just are used to them being Italian.
