Actually, they all will. The Corvette engineers didn't give us a choice because it's standard equipment. I wasn't happy about that at first because I'm not a wealthy person, and Carbon Ceramic Brakes (CCB) are expensive. Buying an ERay will be a financial stretch, but obviously one I've decided will be right for me in the long run, and I'm willing to make sacrifices elsewhere. For instance, this is my garage where I keep my Corvette and where I had my previous Stingray during winter storage on a battery tender.
Even though my garage isn't temperature-controlled, with a nice, tiled floor and a four-post lift, like many Corvette owners have, I'm thankful for all my blessings, and I realize that some Corvette owners park their cars in the driveway or even on the street. Having any garage at all is a luxury, and it's not necessary for owning "America's Sports Car." It's nice to have, though!
After doing a little research, I now understand why the CCB — an $8495 option on the Z06 that I initially wouldn't have chosen on my own — is standard equipment on the ERay. This post will show why ERay Corvettes will probably never come with iron rotors, like are on most cars and which are much less expensive.
One enemy of sports car performance is excess weight, and to provide the additional 160 hp and 125 lb-ft of torque that the ERay has over the C8 Stingray, the Corvette engineers added electric drive capability to the front wheels of the ERay... meaning there's a 1.9 kWh battery and associated control/cooling hardware in the center tunnel, an electric motor in the front, and additional radiators... otherwise known as weight! But it's not excess weight because all of those components provide essential functions to make the ERay the quickest production Corvette in history!
These photos show the center tunnel with a window in it to display the batteries and control hardware contained within.
The Corvette engineers have said that even though the ERay would be, by design, a bit heavier than the Stingray, they did everything they could to minimize that by using an expensive light-weight magnesium electric motor housing with high-strength aluminum bolts... and to counteract it by, among other things, outfitting all ERay Corvettes with Carbon Ceramic Brakes, having rotors that weigh about half as much as iron rotors would. And that's "unsprung mass" where it counts the most — where it will significantly improve handling.
This close-up of the electric motor on GM's "cutaway" car shows how compact it is (about the size of a large coffee can). You can see some of the new ERay cooling lines, and they also raised the shock towers and added a cross brace for extra stability. Interestingly, even though every ERay comes standard with their state-of-the-art Magnetic Selective Ride Control, there are no electric wires connected to the top of these shocks, so I'm guessing they omitted that to save money on this demo ERay which will never be driven.
The ERay also does something that no other Corvette has ever done in the past because no other Corvette has ever had front wheels that helped power the car, and that's something called torque vectoring. In simple terms, the ERay continually senses traction conditions, and when driving aggressively through a corner, the onboard computer will selectively apply braking to the inside front wheel, thereby allowing a quicker exit from the apex and more power to the ground than would otherwise be possible without losing control.
All this high-tech stuff is great, but what if you're a normal street driver who doesn't need to exit high-speed turns as quickly as possible, as most people are? One huge benefit to CCB is they last a long time. In fact, over 100,000 miles before they need to be changed can be expected and, of course, I plan to test that!
Carbon ceramic rotors also don't rust. Iron rotors will be rusting away whenever they get wet whether you drive the car or not, and that means a $1000 brake job every few years, but not so with CCB, and they look so cool.
This is a rear wheel photo of an ERay (you can also see the electronic parking brake), and secondly, the front wheel of a Z06. The Corvette Z06 photo I took at the dealership, and the wheel sizes and brakes are the same as what my ERay will have because this Z06 has the $8495 CCB option on it.
All in all, I'm now very happy that my ERay will come with Carbon Ceramic Brakes. I (and other people) will enjoy looking at them because you just don't see them very often on other cars, and I'll get to have excellent stopping power while feeling rich for a time, even though I clearly am not. I've worked hard all my life, though, enough so that I can drive a Chevrolet Corvette, and for that I'm very thankful!
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