I believe China is already the biggest car market and I think they are also the largest electric car market as well, though a couple European countries are probably not far behind on a per capita basis.
I think there are three reasons why the C8 hasn`t gone hybrid or electric.
1. Cost. This is may be the biggest reason. From the beginning, and moreso today, the Vette has always been a car with world-beating performance at a fraction of the cost. When you look at the hybrid hypercars on the market, they are really expensive. Even the NSX, which is one of the more reasonable ones, is over $150K. Fully electric sports cars are much more expensive. Chevy would isolate their costomer base if the entry price of a base model doubled.
2. Tradition. Going rear/mid engine will disenfrachise many die hard traditional Vette fans as it is. GM may have felt changing the layout AND the powertrain all at once may have been a bridge too far and they`d loose their target market.
3. Target market. In the US electric cars are only around 2% of all cars sold despite all the press they recieve and charging infrastucture in the hearland is no where near what it is in major cities on the coasts. Only Tesla has a semi-workable network of charging stations and it still has gaps. Today you simply couldn`t point an electric Vette down and empty road and chase the horizon because you`d run out of juice and get stranded pretty easily.
All that said, who knows what the lifecycle of the C8 will look like. By going rear/mid engine all sorts of new possibilies present themselves. I could see the Stingray, Grand Sport, and Z06 going with various monster V-8`s and then the the ZR1 getting an electric motor parked over the front axle like many hybrid super cars do today. Imagine a 1000-ish ICE engine (like the one rumored to be twisting the frame and shattering the back window) driving the rear wheels paired with a 200~300hp electric motor over the front axle. If you can`t wrap your head around that, Google Porsche`s 919 LMP1 Le Mans race car...it ran the exact same power train. Acceleration out of the corners was mind blowing.
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