ERay Deposit Series #7: Shipping & Delivery

Administrative note: I moved this March 5th post from the previous page because it's a great way to quickly bring everyone up to speed on what's been happening.

March 5, 2024 Update:

ERay assembly complete... √
Window sticker created.... √
GM invoiced dealership... √
$ transfers in progress... √

Trucked to dealer soon... !

March 8, 2024 Update:

I went to the Chevrolet dealership today where I buy my Corvettes, and it was a truly epic day!

One of the people I waited in line with at MacMulkin to get a low number on their official deposit list was there taking delivery of his new ERay — the first ERay delivery ever at MacMulkin so, of course, I got some photos and video of it. I spent about an hour outside with his car before he got there. In fact, I met some other Corvette enthusiasts and some of MacMulkin's great employees, and I was outside for about 4 hours before I even went inside to do my paperwork for my own ERay purchase.

I was extremely happy to learn that my ERay is on a Jack Cooper Transport truck headed to New Hampshire. At this point, I don't think there's really any doubt. I'll have my new Corvette ERay next week!

In general Corvette news, from what I've seen, there were quite a few Stingray and Z06 allocations from GM this week, but I haven't seen any for ERay Corvettes. That's surprising, but maybe there are some ERay allocations coming later in the month.

March 10, 2024 Update:

Did I mention that I love the look of the standard (no extra charge) Pearl Nickel forged aluminum wheels and carbon ceramic brakes on the ERay? Look at this six-piston Brembo caliper on the 15.7" (398 mm) carbon ceramic front rotor!

That's one of my new friends' Corvettes at his ERay delivery two days ago.

The fact that the wheel is in a position that allows reading all the print — on both wheel and brake caliper — was just a fortunate coincidence. That's the way it was parked in MacMulkin's delivery zone... exactly the same place I waited overnight in cold weather 13 months ago to place a deposit on my Corvette ERay. I also like the light reflection off the wheels in this photo, and that was the shady side of the car!

March 11, 2024 Update:

A couple of us are using the myChevrolet app to track the car carrier that has our Corvettes. I thought you might like to see what that looks like.

March 13, 2024 Update:

My 2024 Corvette ERay was dropped off at MacMulkin Chevrolet, where I'm taking delivery. It traveled all the way to the Canadian border on top of the truck cab, and it was the last C8 Corvette unloaded, so there was a long way to back up!

March 15, 2024 Update:

I took delivery yesterday! Too busy driving, photographing, and admiring my new Corvette to post an update until now! If it weren't raining today, I'd probably still be too busy to post. lol

It might have been hard to hear, but the beautiful girl with me commented that Hypersonic Gray Metallic has green undertones in the sun, and she likes that. The temporary plate I mentioned was just something MacMulkin evidently needed to put on to legally do the state inspection. They put my temporary plate on before I left. It's a vanity plate with the URL of this website!

March 19, 2024 Update:

I've got a couple hundred miles on my ERay, and it's fantastic! I'll be reorganizing this website a bit to make room in the top menu for ERay photos, test results, and reviews about different aspects of the car. I'm also working on a couple of new YouTube videos that will be longer than the ones above. I know people want to hear what Stealth Mode and the electric motor accelerating quickly sounds like. The former, I can do soon, and the later will have to wait until I at least get 500 miles on the car. Right now, I'm keeping it below 4000 RPM and doing everything else to break it in properly. I just posted a Stealth Mode preview reel here: Barry (@awdcorvette) • Instagram photos and videos

Maybe someone reading this can help me. If so, I'd be grateful! If you've followed this story from the beginning, which was chronicled in "ERay Deposit Series #1: Waiting Overnight", then you know I waited in a line outside the Corvette dealership to secure one of the early allocations. I was involved from very early on in helping keep the list of people who arrived to place an ERay deposit, so I met a lot of people in passing throughout the day, and I became friends with the other six people at the head of the line, but rarely did I learn anybody else's name or what state they were from. Just in the first seven, we had people from Massachusetts, Indiana, New York, and California. Out of the 120 people who showed up that night/day/night, I never became aware of anyone else (besides myself) from New Hampshire — the state we were in at the time!

Later online, someone said that someone else from NH was there, and I'd like to find him. My recollection is that he was further back in the line, but I don't know how far back. They've still only been building an average of 4 ERay Corvettes per day (over the last month). I expect that number to be increasing very soon, and it does look it went up slightly last week, but who knows? Apparently, only 2 were assembled yesterday! We also don't know when the '24 model year will end. It could be that very few 2024 ERays will ever get produced. Will the 2025 ERays be different? There are rumors, but nobody outside of GM knows, and they aren't talking.

As it stands now, I expect that I'll be the only ERay owner in NH for the foreseeable future. I know the two guys in MA who have also taken delivery of theirs, but we are the only three in New England to have done so. I'm quite sure that no other NH dealership has gotten an allocation, and for sure none of them have received an ERay for delivery. I've verified that.

Having the only ERay in northern New England (NH, ME, and VT) is kind of cool, but I would like to locate the other NH resident who was interested enough in getting an early production ERay to show up and wait outside in the cold. If you're reading this, or if anyone else knows who that is, please have him email me at awdcorvette@gmail.com or ask him to come to this website. My email address is on the bottom of every page. Thanks!

April 12, 2024 Update:

Sorry, guys, I wish I had better news. Corvette ERay production continues to be very slow, and there haven't been any further allocations — including yesterday, which was allocation day. Stingray and Z06 allocations, yes, but none for ERay.

May 11, 2024 Update:

Crossing from April into May saw the 300th ERay built, and there is good news in that some dealerships got ERay allocations this week! The number seems to be small, and they're scattered around (MacMulkin did get some), but it's better than nothing and hopefully an indication that GM is getting a handle on ERay production. If I learn any definitive facts about numbers (or anything else related to Corvette ERay allocations), I'll come back and update this post.

In fact, even though I've had my ERay for two months, I'll continue updating this post through the end of the 2024 model year. Hopefully, there are still some people following the news here! Apparently, Chevrolet announced that the end of 2024 production will be July 12, 2024. Corvette model year 2025 is due to start on July 15th! Sorry, I know some of you were hoping for a longer model year... maybe they'll extend it? If 2024 orders that haven't been accepted yet get pushed to 2025, there will be a price increase, of course.

There's other news! Hypersonic Gray Metallic, the color of my ERay, is going away and won't be available for 2025 Corvettes. Very few of the 327 ERays that have been built are Hypersonic Gray Metallic (only 10 so far), so the fact that that's a one-year color for ERay Corvettes will make my car even rarer. Of course, being one of the handful built on February 29th makes it one of the rarest, but I doubt many people really care about that from a collectable standpoint.

More good news I can share is that the other person from New Hampshire who waited outside MacMulkin Chevrolet in the January cold to place an ERay deposit has been located. He did not see my appeal above to email me, but when I pulled into a car show recently, I guess word got around that an ERay was there, so he came up and introduced himself. We don't live far away from each other, and we grew up in neighboring towns! It's a small world, indeed.

May 25, 2024 Update:

Although the number isn't public, several more ERay allocations were given to Chevrolet dealerships around the country this week!

Also, just days after my last post, we learned that my hope for you guys waiting on ERay lists came true! They are not ending the 2024 model year in July, and it has apparently been extended into August. I say "apparently" because this wasn't an official announcement, but rather something that was discovered within internal GM Corvette ordering software. The last dates when certain colors can be ordered — including the three colors that are being phased out and will not be available on 2025 Corvettes (Amplify Orange, Accelerate Yellow, and Hypersonic Gray) — are specified in the software, and Hypersonic Gray Metallic happens to be the last one on August 8th. That suggests the 2024 model year will extend into August, so more than likely the start of 2025 Corvette model year production will be in September. September 3rd, the day after Labor Day, would be a good guess.

Also, guys and girls, if you don't follow my YouTube channel, I guess I should bring you up to speed with something I announced there a few days ago. I wasn't even planning to do that, but I was making a video showing a whole bunch of Corvettes at the largest dealership, and it just seemed like a good time to get the bad news off my chest. I was driving my Corvette ERay on a beautiful sunny day (dry roads), and I was rear-ended by an 18-wheel tractor trailer box truck! I'm ok, and "Leap" isn't damaged so badly that I can't drive her, but it's still a difficult thing to deal with.

If you want to hear more about the "accident" and see a lot of beautiful Corvettes, a link to my YouTube channel is at the bottom of every page on this website. At some point, I plan to write and/or video more about the repair process as things progress towards making Leap as good as new. Hopefully, my painful experience can benefit others in some way... be careful out there, everyone (not that there's anything I could have done to prevent what happened).

Have a good Memorial Day weekend.

June 15, 2024 Update:

Corvette allocations were given out this week for all three C8 models, but there were no "official" ERay allocations included. However, there have been reports that a few dealerships got a "bonus" ERay allocation here and there. These are probably the last C8 Corvette allocations for the 2024 model year. I hope the people who've been waiting and were close, but didn't get in, will be happy with a 2025, including being happy with one of the non-discontinued or new colors and realizing there will be a price increase (possibly $2000?), etc. It's a great car and worth the wait!

Just over 500 Corvette ERays have been built to date. The window sticker for VIN #00501 was recently made available, and I've seen at least one report online from a buyer who was told by GM that his ERay with a VIN higher than that, but still less than 510, had been built.

Production reporting has been all over the place, with a couple of days in the "teens" (less than 20) but also many days it was reported that zero ERays had been assembled. Then a report of 66 in one day! That would be theoretically possible, as they build about 180 C8 Corvettes a day, and some days they've built that many Z06s (that have the same wide-body style as the ERay), but it seems likely that the "66 day" was just the numbers catching up in the reporting, and some of the "zero days" really had more than zero built.

There's no way to predict how many more ERays will get built between now and the end of the model year — which will probably be in August — but it does appear that only allocations that have already been filled will get built as 2024s. There could be exceptions! Corvette orders need to be at Status Code 3000, at least, in the GM system to be sure it's been accepted at the factory and will get built.

I just want to give a shout-out to all the people online who've contributed to information that I've reported here. We all do it as a service to others. To me, that's what the Corvette Community is all about... helping each other out with our Corvettes and with accurate information. I've been a beneficiary of kindness from several people, and it's always been my goal to "pay it forward" to others. The world needs more kindness, and I always want to be a contributor.

I'll update this page again if anything notable happens, but in the meantime, please enjoy the rest of my website and my YouTube channel (linked at the bottom of every page)!

July 27, 2024 Update:

Allocations for 2025 ERay Corvettes have started. As usual for new model years, the new colors aren't available (for the most part) right away, so these options are on constraint for this order cycle:

GXL - Hysteria Purple

GBK - Competition Yellow

G26 - Sebring Orange Tintcoat

HUX - Habanero Microfiber Interior

HUW - Habanero Perforated Interior

I drove my 2024 ERay on a professional racetrack for a children's charity event. This is a link to my new video. Please consider helping me out by subscribing to my channel. I need 1000 subscribers to earn money from YouTube. Thanks!

August 7, 2024 Update:

There's about one month of 2024 Corvette production left. A $4000 deposit today would get someone on MacMulkin's ERay list in the 600's. Yes, over 600 people are still waiting! If you've been following this Deposit Series, you know they're the largest Corvette dealership in the world, by volume, and as of today they've gotten 33 ERays built for their customers. A dealership in NJ is second with 21, and a MD dealer is third with 12. No other dealership in the country is in the double digits.

Last week, Bowling Green Assembly had a couple of days when they produced over 20 ERays in a day. That's the first time that's happened, ever. As of today, 756 ERay window stickers have been issued, and I've looked at every single one of them individually. I'll continue to do so through the rest of this model year and write again, posting here the final tally for 2024 Corvette ERay production. At this point — besides MacMulkin — only 6 dealerships in all of New England (six states) have gotten an ERay!

September 7, 2024 Update:

Yesterday was supposed to be the last day of 2024 production. The new window stickers aren't available yet, but I decided to write an update now anyway since this will NOT be my last post here on the subject. It's very likely that it will take a few days—possibly much longer—for the Model Year to really be completed. It should be interesting!

At this point, there's a window sticker available for VIN #01197, but only 1100 stickers have been published, so that means there are approximately 100 ERays that have been produced but for those cars, windows stickers are not yet available. One example is a report I read of an ERay that was built in mid-July, and they are now telling the owner that they may be able to deliver it to him by the end of September. As often happens in these situations, the dealership has no further information about the reason for the multi-month delay, and there's nothing to do but continue waiting for the car to be transported from the factory. Likely, it's in some sort of Quality Control hold while a repair is being performed to make the car "showroom new." It's also possible they're waiting to obtain a part needed to complete the car.

One Corvette ERay buyer was told that his VIN in the mid-1200's was to be built yesterday. Whether it was built or not remains to be seen, as that would possibly require higher ERay production volume than has ever happened before, but General Motors will build all of the 2024 Corvettes they've committed to, even if they need to extend the model year a few days... whatever it takes.

On the other side of the coin, one buyer was given a single-digit VIN (#0000X) and told that his ERay would be built on Monday, September 9th. From everything I've been able to find out, that's supposed to be the beginning of the Corvette 2025 Model Year, but there's little doubt that it's going to take a while for all the remaining 2024 ERay windows stickers to become available, and I do continue to look at each and every one of them individually. I want to have all the information I can get before writing about how the 2024 Model Year ended, and as you can see, it's not over yet. Hopefully, all of those new ERay owners will get their Corvettes soon.

I'm keeping a tally of information that I hope people will find as interesting as I do. Stayed tuned, and we'll see how all this shakes out together!

October 9, 2024 Update:

I'm posting this morning because, if he were still alive, I would be celebrating my father's birthday. He taught me a lot about cars, and I wrote an article for him one year ago today, here: https://www.awdcorvette.com/sidebar/1497158_my-father-prince-and-john-lennon

There are still over sixty 2024 ERays that have been built, but for which no window sticker has been published yet. Not sure what's going on, but maybe they're in a Build-Shy (waiting for parts) or Quality Control hold. The total 2024 ERay production appears to be 1249 at this point. At least, that's the highest window sticker produced so far. That's not a lot for an entire model year! In contrast, it looks like about 30,000 Stingrays and 10,000 Z06s were built. Production was slow because of lack of parts, not lack of demand.

Since I have one of the only ERays in northern New England (New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont), I've been watching closely to see which dealerships have sold an ERay. As of this writing, MacMulkin (the largest Corvette dealership in the world by volume and located in New Hampshire) has gotten 51 of them. You may recall that I waited overnight outside the dealership in the middle of winter with people from all over the country for the opportunity to place one of the first deposits on an ERay. It was quite an adventure and the first installment in this "Deposit Series" of posts is all about that. I was #3 in line and about 120 people showed up by the end of that day. After all the mail-in deposits were accounted for, there were over 700 people waiting for an ERay at this one dealership.

Looking at every window sticker as they've been published, I've kept a tally of other New England dealerships that have received an ERay, and this is what I've found. Three dealerships in New Hampshire other than MacMulkin got one each. One dealership in Vermont and one in Maine each got one. Two Rhode Island dealerships got one. Three in Connecticut and five in Massachusetts. That's it. No other New England dealership besides MacMulkin got more than one ERay and, of course, the vast majority of Chevrolet dealers didn't get any.

The most expensive ERay that I saw had an MSRP of $169,075. It's a 3LZ Convertible and had the most expensive carbon fiber wheels ($15,500), along with many of the other available options. Well, let me just show you. This Corvette went to a dealership in Florida.

There were two ERays tied for least expensive. One went to Florida and one to a dealership in California. They, of course, were 1LZ Coupes with zero options, and the base price for that was $104,900. The Destination Charge that everyone has to pay was $1695, so the MSRP for each of those two Corvettes was $106,595. Coincidentally, they were both Black with Jet Black interiors.

I saw only 4 window stickers with a "Customer Selectable VIN" which is a $5,000 option. One got a single-digit VIN and the other three were two-digits.

I'll continue to watch for more window stickers and hopefully be able to present a final wrap-up for the 2024 model year at some point soon, but in the meantime, 2025 Corvette ERays are already being delivered. Please see the next page for a video of VIN 00003 being picked up by the happy customer!