Michigan economist Patrick Anderson says a 1,250-horsepower Corvette and the latest Wards automotive awards demonstrate why electrification doesn’t necessarily mean abandoning gasoline engines.
DETROIT — When WardsAuto announced this week that all 10 winners of its prestigious 2026 Best Engines & Propulsion Systems awards were electrified, the news appeared to mark another milestone in the automotive industry’s transition away from gasoline-powered vehicles.
But one of those winning engines was a twin-turbocharged V8 producing more than 1,000 horsepower — before adding any electric assistance.
That engine powers the Chevrolet Corvette ZR1X, a gasoline-electric hybrid producing a combined 1,250 horsepower.
For Michigan economist Patrick Anderson, CEO of East Lansing-based Anderson Economic Group, the Corvette illustrates a distinction that can be lost in headlines about the industry’s electric future.
Electrification does not necessarily mean replacing gasoline engines with batteries. Increasingly, automakers are combining the two technologies to deliver greater performance, improved efficiency or both.
In commentary examining the awards, Anderson pointed out that the Corvette’s gasoline-powered LT7 V8 produces 1,064 horsepower and 828 pound-feet of torque. An electric motor driving the front axle adds another 186 horsepower.
The result is one of the world’s most powerful production sports cars — and one that still depends on gasoline.
Six of 10 Winning Powertrains Still Burn Gasoline
According to the October 13 WardsAuto announcement, the winning powertrains included four battery-electric vehicles, four conventional hybrids and two plug-in hybrids.
That means six of the 10 winners still use internal-combustion engines.
It was the first time in the competition’s 32-year history that no gasoline-only engine appeared among the winners.
The results nevertheless demonstrate the continuing importance of combustion technology.
Alongside the Corvette, hybrid winners included the Hyundai Palisade, Nissan Rogue and Porsche 911 Carrera GTS. Plug-in hybrid winners included the BMW M5 Touring and Toyota RAV4.
The four fully electric winners came from Mercedes-Benz, Rivian, Subaru and Volvo.
WardsAuto judges emphasized that electrification is improving both vehicle performance and efficiency.
The awards therefore reflect advances across multiple technologies rather than a rejection of battery-electric vehicles.
Mary Barra’s 2035 All-Electric Vision
The results come five years after Detroit’s largest automakers announced ambitious plans to accelerate the transition toward electric vehicles.
In January 2021, General Motors CEO Mary Barra outlined a corporate strategy that included an aspiration to eliminate tailpipe emissions from new light-duty vehicles by 2035.
GM’s original announcement described the objective as part of a broader commitment to achieve carbon neutrality by 2040.
The distinction between an aspiration and a binding production commitment is important. GM did not guarantee that every vehicle it manufactured would be electric by 2035.
Nevertheless, the announcement established an ambitious direction for the company’s future products and investments.
Ford made a similarly aggressive commitment in February 2021, announcing that its European passenger-vehicle lineup would become entirely electric by 2030.
That commitment applied to Europe rather than Ford’s worldwide operations.
Stellantis followed in March 2022 with its Dare Forward 2030 strategy.
The company targeted battery-electric vehicles representing 100% of European passenger-car sales and 50% of U.S. passenger-car and light-duty-truck sales by 2030.
Those announcements helped shape billions of dollars in planned investments in electric vehicles, batteries, manufacturing facilities and automotive technology.
Consumer Demand Is Changing the Equation
Five years later, the American automotive market looks different from what many manufacturers anticipated.
According to the National Automobile Dealers Association’s September 2026 market report, conventional hybrid sales increased 22.4% during the first nine months of 2026 compared with the same period in 2025.
Hybrids accounted for 15.6% of new light-vehicle sales.
Battery-electric vehicles represented 6.2% of sales during the same period, down 2.3 percentage points from a year earlier.
BEV sales declined 29.2% year over year through September.
The expiration of federal electric-vehicle purchase tax credits in September 2025 contributed to the decline, complicating comparisons with last year’s unusually strong sales.
However, the most recent quarterly numbers also suggest that battery-electric demand has not disappeared.
Cox Automotive reported that U.S. electric-vehicle sales increased 6.1% between the second and third quarters of 2026, reaching 262,649 vehicles.
Battery-electric market share rose from 5.8% to 6.4% over that period.
The figures suggest consumers increasingly favor having several powertrain choices rather than moving uniformly toward a single technology.
Detroit’s Automakers Adjust Their Strategies
GM, Ford and Stellantis are responding by reconsidering the pace and composition of their electric-vehicle investments.
GM continues developing battery-electric vehicles while maintaining substantial gasoline-engine production and preparing additional hybrid offerings.
Ford has revised several expensive electric-vehicle programs while continuing work on more affordable electric models and hybrid technology.
Stellantis has also shifted toward a broader mix of gasoline, hybrid and electric vehicles after reassessing its earlier battery-electric sales expectations.
These decisions have implications far beyond vehicle showrooms.
Michigan automakers and suppliers invested heavily in facilities, equipment and workforce training based on expectations of rapid electric-vehicle growth.
As manufacturers change their plans, some investments are being delayed, reduced or redirected toward other technologies.
The resulting production changes are affecting Michigan assembly plants, battery facilities, suppliers and employment.
Those economic consequences will be examined in a separate MITechNews report.
What the Wards Awards Really Tell Us
Anderson’s analysis raises a larger question about the future of Michigan’s automotive industry.
The transition toward electrification is continuing, but it is not proceeding exclusively through vehicles powered entirely by batteries.
Some manufacturers are using electric motors to improve fuel economy. Others are combining gasoline engines and electric propulsion to produce extraordinary performance.
The Corvette ZR1X represents the latter approach.
Its 1,064-horsepower gasoline V8 remains the dominant source of propulsion, while electric technology adds acceleration and all-wheel-drive capability.
The vehicle is hardly representative of what most Americans can afford. WardsAuto lists its price at approximately $242,000.
But the underlying engineering principle extends well beyond high-performance sports cars.
For Detroit’s automakers, the challenge is no longer simply developing electric vehicles. It is determining which combinations of gasoline engines, electric motors and batteries consumers will purchase at prices manufacturers can profitably produce.
The 2026 Wards awards suggest that automotive innovation is increasingly occurring where those technologies intersect.
And for Michigan’s automotive industry, that means the gasoline engine still has a significant role to play.
