It turns out the Chevrolet Camaro might not die after the 2022 model year after all.
Last week, we heard reports that GM planned to put the Camaro out to pasture by 2023. Falling sales and poor reception of the 2019 refresh soured GM execs to the beleaguered muscle car, which is now in third place behind the Dodge Challenger and Ford Mustang.
It had always been assumed the Camaro would transition to the new Alpha 2 platform that underpins the Cadillac CT4 and CT5 sedans, but rather than continue to put resources into the Camaro, GM decided to terminate the car entirely.
Or did they? A new report from GM Authority says that we might have been a bit hasty in accepting tales of the Camaro’s demise.
According to anonymous sources within GM speaking to the publication, the current 6th-gen Camaro will definitely end by 2023. The question is what comes after that? GM execs are pushing for a revolution within the company that sees it’s vehicle platform lineup be reduced to just four highly versatile chassis by 2025. The Alpha platform is considered a “legacy” platform, and so GM doesn’t want to keep building cars on it.
But the problem is that the platform that could host a new Camaro, the VSS-R (Vehicle Strategy Set – Rear drive) platform, isn’t scheduled to arrive until 2025. That would leave the Camaro with a two-year gap.
So GM could either wait until 2025, or they could do something completely different. Sources say that GM may have elected to do something different and turn the Camaro into an electric car on the BEV3 platform.
The BEV3 platform is said to be GM’s next-gen electric platform that is so versatile it can host almost any vehicle configuration on it. It also uses elements of the new VSS-R platform, so it can certainly be used for a sports car like the Camaro.
However, GM Authority said that we’re still not sure if this new electric sports car will be called the Camaro or if it will get an entirely different name. Mustang fans balked at the idea of an electric Ford given the Mustang nameplate, so GM might have similar concerns if they called their electric car the 7th-gen Camaro.
Last year, we saw the Camaro go electric in the eCOPO Concept at the SEMA Show. It was fairly well received as an electric drag racer, so maybe Chevy fans are less likely to be upset about an electric Camaro than Ford fans.