Road & Track reports the car, which is expected to be called the E-Ray, has been spotted testing since the announcement by the General back in April, possibly before. The new ’Vette will still be powered by the mid-engine V8 we all know and love, but with electric motors powering the front wheels for an additional dose of torque.

The fire, which cochespias caught when it was already fully engulfing the car, burned the prototype down to ashes. Only the wheels and a pipe or two hinted that this pile of debris was once a car. Of course, this is why pencils have erasers and why automakers go through rigorous testing, so this kind of fire happens with engineers on standby on the empty plains outside of the Sierra Nevada mountains and not, say, to a customer on the 405 freeway.

The General released this statement about the incident, according to R&T :

A Corvette development vehicle undergoing extreme testing by one of our suppliers last week had a thermal incident. All who were involved are safe as this is our top priority. We are investigating the situation with the supplier... The car was a specialized testing mule with a setup that’s not indicative of what an actual customer would receive, so it is different than what many people are speculating the car might be.