The engineer team responsible for the new Chevrolet Corvette – scheduled to premiere on July 18, 2019 – has made a statement recently, saying those who would attempt to apply an unauthorized ECU tune to the car would find it impossible. The engine control unit is now securely locked against any hacking or reprogramming attempts, they said.
As soon as the on-board computer of the car detects meddling with the parameters of the engine, it will immediately go into a Restore Mode to flush the third-party code and restore the settings to their factory defaults. The Restore Mode will also require the owner of the car to visit a Chevrolet service station and ask for the genuine software to be reinstalled properly.
All of the above may seem unnecessarily limiting, but note that the current-gen Chevy Corvette (C7) has a similar kind of ECU protection, too. Tuning companies have found a way to deactivate it long ago. The manufacturer does claim the software is much stronger in the C8, but there is little reason to think it is impervious to hacking attempts.
The new Chevrolet Corvette C8 will ship with an active aerodynamic kit and a choice among several powertrain options, including a 1,000-hp (745-kW) hybrid. The only available transmission type is dual-clutch semi-automatic (DCT).
Photos: autoblog.com