We already know the price of the C8 Corvette is going to increase for the 2021 model year, but a new report from Motor Trend gives us some more insight as to why.
The publication spoke to an anonymous senior source at General Motors, who claimed the company is losing money on every C8 Corvette that it sells for less than $80,000. Chevrolet had developed the mid-engine Corvette with a $79,995 base sticker price in mind, but seeing as that is a massive jump in price over the C7 Corvette, executives wanted to avoid upsetting customers and priced it from $59,995.
This is likely why the C8 Corvette launched with so much optional equipment compared to the first model year of the C7 Corvette. The list of extras for the car is quite long and full of enticing and relatively pricey add-ons, including the $5,000 Z51 Performance Package, $4,850 carbon fiber ground effects kit and $1,150 high wing spoiler, among much more.
Despite this, the price of the C8 Corvette is only expected to increase slightly for 2021 – though it’s still not clear by how much.
By taking a loss on sub-$80,000 Corvettes, Chevrolet is able drum up some hype by re-writing the performance car rulebook with a sub-$60,000 mid-engine offering, while also keeping traditional Vette buyers happy. Very few buyers of the car will order a base model, anyways, and it’s easy to push the price close to $80,000 with only a handful of extras.
It may run into problems when it introduces performance variants such as the upcoming C8 Corvette Z06, however. Motor Trend’s source says that once prices pour over into the six-figure range, volume drops off significantly. The C7 Corvette Z06 is priced from $82,990, so there’s a very small pricing window for Chevy to operate in if it wishes to sell a decent amount of C8 Z06s. A loaded C8 Corvette Convertible can cost well over $100,000 already, mind you.
Meanwhile, the ZR1 has always been a low-volume model, so there’s less of a challenge to price it correctly – though rumors of it being an all-wheel-drive, near-1,000-horsepower hybrid point to it being quite expensive. The C7 Corvette ZR1 starts at over $130,000, so we wouldn’t be shocked if the mid-engine ZR1 approached $150,000.
We’ll keep our eyes open on this one, so subscribe to GM Authority for more mid-engine Corvette news, Corvette C8 news, Corvette news, Chevrolet news and 24/7 GM news coverage.
Source: Motor Trend
Comments
I wonder how they are coming up with that. Numbers have to play a factor, is that if they sell 20,000avg units a year?
Surely if they sell 30,000 units at an average price of say $75,000 they are making money. If they only sell 10,000 annually at $75k maybe profits are slim and ROI on development takes the lifecycle of the C8
Totally agree Andrew! If I had to guess, its motor trends usual antics and how they dont like anything costing under 160,000$. So what if the C8 was designed to cost almost 80,000$, as a premium sports car didn’t the C7 corvette average over 20,000$ profit per unit? at that maybe Chevrolet is taking a profit cut and only pulling in 10,000$ profit for the first couple years. I still see an entry level Z06 at only 80,000$.
Any other CEO that lost that kind of money in any other industry would be taken out back and dealt with…..
That’s just my the coworkers, let alone share holders, deposit left waiting on a car with no production date……
WTF….
Paid article from the rivals. They are scared. Especially Porsche)
I call BS!
Wow
For the people that will get the Base version you are getting one screaming Deal if this is true
First year production of anything is always bugs and needs ton of refinement………
Maybe back to the drafting department?
Another bs from the mt magazine.This article has already been disproved by a corvette forum.
Porsche is too scared and wants to play dirty.
Wrong info about the dyno results. Wrong info about the blackwing engine and now this.
Clowns)
i hope gm officially responds to this soon.
a lot of people say gm is a company run by bean counters and i don’t think they would’ve approved a niche vehicle that depends on a $80K price tag for profitability.
I doubt there many people who were not surprised at the $60K price tag. My first thought was how can sell the car at that price. I have no idea what the car cost to develop but considering it is an all new platform and layout, it had to be substantial. If debunking of the article is true, there is that. However clearly they need people to check the option box to make more money. That is no different for any vehicle but it just makes sense that it is particularly important on this car. If they are losing money on each car at sub $80K, selling more of them doesn’t help. GM might save a little money on economy of scale by selling more, but if you are down to relying on paying a buck less for a switch because you bought 100k of them instead of the 50k you planned on, that isn’t much of a return on the investment made into the car.
All that said, I think it is a nonissue, few are buying a stripper Vette. The Z-51 package is as mandatory on a Vette as Z-71 is on a Silverado and always has been. Given how many options there are available on this car, unless you are literally scraping and crawling into the car to begin with, most all will end up with at least a $75K a car. Which is still a great deal, on a mid-engine sports car. I am anxious to see its Ring time.
If true, I’m glad GM took the risk. This is their flagship car of performance and tech. So by losing money on a car that sales are not like a Silverado, Tahoe, Equinox, etc. you gain or improve your image and popularity. Since they have revealed the C8 Corvette they have gained a lot of hype around Chevrolet. Which I haven’t seen so much excitement in quiet awhile. That’s not to say we haven’t had great cars because we surely have when looking at the Camaro and Corvette.
With all that being said. Will the cost get less expensive throughout the coming years or is it set at a straight price? And also if they lose money with the Corvette they gain a lot of money on the Silverado‘s and Tahoe’s which sell at a higher volume.
More G.M. rhetoric. Every carmaker loses money on Every new model (including the more optioned cars) made until sales reach a certain point – it’s the law of mass production.
The first car sold loses literally millions of dollars, equal to the money spent to develop the car and purchase all the machinery/automation to build those cars.
There are quite a few carry-over parts from the C7 they don’t mention, the tooling for those parts is long past paid for – meaning those parts cost pennies not dollars.
Nowhere near the first time G.M. “manipulated” the public – like the “rumor” that they were going to discontinue the Corvette in the seventies. They are the Masters of marketing, this release is intended to drive up pre-orders.
Admittedly it’s brilliant marketing, and the C8 is an incredible car – but NO car company loses money on any car, it’s a question of if the return vs. investment is as favorable as planned.
Just so we are in agreement, GM is in no way masters of marketing! They are actually quite the opposite and couldn’t market water in a desert.
Nice!
Typical empty-headed Motor Trend Millennial editorial fake news click-bait.
Nobody here willing to ask how many base model vettes will actually be built, and how many of those will be sold for $59k? Dealer markup and intentional supply minimization are real.
You’re correct, would you want a chevair? Lol
Chevette/Corvair ….
Electric plug in hybrid Corvair awd motors in front and 180 corsa turbo In The back.. ??