Motorola Built a Secret Electric Corvette Long Before Anyone Else Did

Photo credit: Corvette Forum
A red 1987 Chevrolet Corvette convertible sits in a warehouse in northern Illinois for years, looking like any other C4 from the outside. Then someone opens the hood. Silver boxes marked high voltage fill the space where a V8 once lived. A Motorola Automotive logo sits right on top of one. Stacks of internal documents, wiring diagrams, and hand-drawn schematics come with it. This is no kit car. It is a fully engineered electric prototype built in secret by a small team at Motorola in 1993.

Sanjar Ghaem, then the Director of Technology for Motorola’s Automotive Division, has been thinking about electric cars since the 1970s gasoline shortages. To get a better feel for things, he and a friend even hacked up a cheap Renault into what he subsequently jokingly dubbed a glorified golf cart. However, it was at Motorola in the early 1990s that he linked up with his colleague Ken Gerbetz, and the two of them recognized an opportunity to do something a little more serious. They wanted to show the executive team that electric drivetrains belonged in the company’s future product lines.

The problem was that the money was tight and the official backing was minimal at first, so they had to sneak it in after hours. They began by working on the EX-11 race car. They were intended to enter it into the Arizona Solar and Electric 500. They built a blazing fast open wheel EV using a chopped up Lola Indy chassis, quick change batteries, and a significantly modified GE engine. It established a speed record and outperformed Toyota and GM’s Impact concept. And with that kind of success, the door opened, and management stepped in with a follow-up initiative. Ghaem was given a budget of $25,000 for the next step.

Ghaem selected a Corvette. To be honest, he had owned a 1963 model for years and thought a convertible would make a strong statement. Ken Gerbetz then found a non-running 1987 C4 convertible in Arizona that had previously had its engine removed. Don Karner and Tom Brawner worked on the mechanicals before shipping the car to the Chicago-based team to have the electric components installed. Ken’s brother, Bob Gerbetz, was working on the motors and controls. Chris Pratt handled the microprocessor and software, while Ed Li worked on the power electronics. A couple additional people assisted with the fabrication and testing. Finally, they developed three sets of the powertrain: one for the EX-12 closed-wheel car, another for battery study in a Chevy S-10, and the third for the Corvette.

Photo credit: Reddit
The conversion was quite impressive because the standard appearance was retained, and all you had to do was slide off the back fascia to access the batteries. Additional battery packs were found beneath the bonnet and potentially in the floor. You wouldn’t have guessed it was electric just by looking at it. The Doug Nash 4+3 manual transmission remained in place, still attached to a DC motor, but it was now rotating at 10,000 rpm. For the majority of the tests, they used Exide lead-acid batteries, which delivered approximately 157 continuous horsepower with peaks of up to 272.

Photo credit: Reddit
They had some top-of-the-line, aircraft-grade nickel cadmium batteries on order, which promised to push the system well above 400 horsepower. An inside page labeled “EV Power” calculated that at 320v and 1,000 amps, they should be able to squeeze 428 horsepower out of the device. On the good side, the final car weighed just around 3,800 pounds, which was approximately 700 pounds more than a regular C4 (but still something to be proud of). To be honest, the quick torque made it feel almost identical to the original 250 horsepower V8 version.

Photo credit: Classic Car City
The driving instructions were fairly easy. Simply turn the key and ease off the throttle until the car is in gear. Use first for low-speed crawling and second for most normal motoring. At greater speeds, the automatic overdrive kicks in. The kill switch was hidden near your right leg. They had also replaced the old heater system, so your climate controls were still somewhat functional. You know, the charging connector was skillfully hidden within the gas door. The one safety regulation that stood out was this: don’t plug in with the hood up, or perform any work at all, while you have visitors around.

Photo credit: Classic Car City
The car handled really well to say the least. With lead acid batteries, they were able to get around 50 kilometers out of a charge. That piqued the team’s interest, and they began to plan a larger hybrid Mustang project. Then not so much, because the project simply kind of finished. New individuals arrived, and the previous head of the automobile division, who had been completely committed to the project, departed. Then Ghaem shows the finished Corvette to the incoming COO, essentially saying that electric cars are 15 to 20 years away. Yeah, it’s a long time to wait for those things. The company opted to hold off, and the investment dried up. The staff was moved, and the project was essentially dropped.

Photo credit: Classic Car City
The Corvette spent some time in Motorola’s campus museum before being sold to a private buyer who mysteriously left it outside during a winter in Illinois. Needless to say, that did not do the batteries any good. In 2022, they were discovered at a salvage yard in Gurnee, together with a large amount of documents. Then it was sold and wound up in the UK, where an engineer named Idries Hamadi is currently striving to get it going again under the name Electra Corvette. The good news is that the original motor and controller continue to function properly. With new batteries installed, they should be able to get it functioning smoothly again, and the architecture allows for a variety of modifications.