General Motor's EV1 Electric Cars Scrapped 829
jangobongo writes "Yesterday, the last of General Motors EV1 electric cars were transported to their final resting place, the GM Desert Proving Grounds in Arizona, for "final disposition," which for most of them means crushing and recycling. The experimental GM cars were originally leased (starting in 1996) to owners in California and Arizona for three years while GM developed electric battery technology, but the expected breakthrough in battery technology failed to materialize. GM spent more than $1 billion developing and marketing the EV1, but concluded that the electric cars would not be profitable. The EV1 program was ended in 2003. Some of the cars were donated to engineering departments of colleges and universities, while others went to museums, including the Smithsonian Institution. Despite protests and petitions, GM would not sell the last available cars to the public due to the lack of replacement parts for repairs, and because of potential liability claims. It's sad to see this chapter on electric cars close."
What you don't see can't hurt you? (Score:5, Interesting)
See here [xtronics.com] for energy densities of various materials.
Could there be a reason that gasoline is the energy storage mechanism of choice for vehicles?
Why not concentrate on GM's current hybrid timeline [gm.com], or on vehicles that are actually useful and that normal people might buy, like GM's 2007 GMT-900 platform (Tahoe/Suburban/Yukon/Yukon XL/Escalade) which will have a strong hybrid option, with a standard 5.7L Vortec V8, but with Displacement on Demand, disabling 2 or 4 cylinders as conditions permit, and featuring two 30kW electric motors housed in the standard Hydramatic transmission case that doesn't require major resigns and retooling entire truck production lines for use, but still yielding up to a 40% mileage improvement, instead of making ugly little cars on which it is apparently mandatory to have the rear wheelwells covered like hearses?
Re:What you don't see can't hurt you? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What you don't see can't hurt you? (Score:5, Insightful)
And most of our electricity, of course, doesn't come from fossil fuels.
...
Hey, I'd love to have electric vehicles powered from all-renewable sources. But frankly, nuclear would be the way to go, and no one, except, oh, I don't know, China, seems to want to talk about building new plants that would actually have a hope of satisfying our inevitable, insatiable, and increasing demands for energy.
Re:What you don't see can't hurt you? (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember, every time you see "hydrogen", it's a code word for "nuclear".
Sure, we may end up switching to hydrogen fuel cells in lots of places. But that's mostly because it's far more efficent than any other storage mechanism for power, even after the losses in electrolysis efficency to convert water to hydrogen and the losses in fuel cell efficency to convert it back to water again.
The thing is, if they said, "We need to research how to create the nuclear economy, for when the oil runs out," they'd get no money. But if they say, "We need to research the hydrogen economy, for when the oil runs out," and then figure that we'll eventually come to terms with there being no good alternatives to nuclear.
Re:What you don't see can't hurt you? (Score:4, Insightful)
Truth is, there's many energy sources in this world that are infinite. Solar, Wind, Hydro and Tidal are not going to run out any time soon. True, we can't dam ever river up, and yes, some places aren't conducive to wind or solar energy, and only coastal communities work okay with tidal energy, but truth is, there are alternative electricity sources other than Nuclear, and to suggest otherwise is a straw man.
Re:What you don't see can't hurt you? (Score:3, Insightful)
Extreme environmentalists cry fo
Re:What you don't see can't hurt you? (Score:5, Informative)
I like the Integral Fast Breeder design, which could be the closest we get to safe, unlimited, and abundant energy for a long time. But it needs to be demonstrated in well-publicized tests and aggressively marketed to a public that is ignorant of physics. Then it needs to be mass-produced to make it cheap.
But before any of this happens, it has to get funding. The IFBR got the last of it's funding pulled in 1996, even though there was an example operating in Idaho.
The wheel of politics (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, you have groups of environmentalists who don't want these things because Birds get caught in the turbines/propellers, or because hydroelectric plants require damming rivers, thus altering habitats. Tidal will mess with sea habitats, and while solar might be acceptable, but it's too inneficient for large scale generation.
And the dominant politicians in California are beholdant to the environmentalist groups, and since the disparate factions can't seem to make up their minds, the politicians just blame everything on the greedy oil industry, or on fear of the "China syndrome".
This is not a troll. This is fact, and it's the case out on the eastern seaboard as well from what I understand. It's a damn shame that in the name of environmentally sound energy generation, we are sticking primarily with coal and oil.
Re:The wheel of politics (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What you don't see can't hurt you? (Score:4, Informative)
Sorry, but hydro is not "infinitely renewable" as it is really just an expression of solar energy. Riverbeds move, climate changes, and reservoirs fill with sediment. Second, we have already dammed something like 50% of all the available waterways for power to produce something like 7% of all the needed energy on the planet. What are we going to do to get to 100%? Additionally, damming rivers is devastating to the downstream environment. 200 years ago the Colorado River drained into the sea of Baja, now it just dries up somewhere in Arizona...
And finally, hydro power is not clean! Several [terradaily.com] studies [newscientist.com] have shown that the average hydro plant produces more environmental destruction and greenhouse gasses than a similar (in power production) coal plant. So your "clean" energy source is worse for the environment than a filth-belching coal plant. Congratulations.
Me, I'd rather have a nuke plant...
Re:What you don't see can't hurt you? (Score:3, Insightful)
Except that when burning fossil fuels it is releasing carbon that has been buried in the ground for millenia whereas rotting plants are releasing carbon that was already up here.
So your "clean" energy source is worse for the environment than a filth-belching coal plant. Congratulations.
Except w
Ummm (Score:3, Insightful)
further
http://www.bchydro.bc.ca/environment/
says
More than 90 per cent of BC Hydro's electricity is generated by water powering turbines at 30 hydroelectric facilities on 27 watersheds around British Columbia?
but- that's mitigated by the fact
http://www.bctc.com/about/faqs.shtml [bctc.com] that the bctc states
(clipped to get to what I consider relevant) What is the relationship between BC Hydro and BCTC?
BC Hydro will
Re:What you don't see can't hurt you? (Score:4, Funny)
We use the power generated to drive HUMONGOUS fans to blow air and keep the wind going. Problem solved!
Re:What you don't see can't hurt you? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What you don't see can't hurt you? (Score:3, Insightful)
As opposed to the change in the weather that isn't caused by fossil fuels?
Cheap fusion (Score:3, Interesting)
It just happens to be 93 million miles away [twcac.org].
Photovoltaics aren't sufficiently efficient yet to remove significant amounts of demand from the electrical grid, but PV isn't the only type of solar energy [energy.gov]. Personally, I'd like to see a scaled-down version of Solar Two. I mean, think about a couple 3-meter heliostats (the same size as the older analog satellite TV dishes) sitting on top of your garage (or on top of a shed in the ba
Re:What you don't see can't hurt you? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:What you don't see can't hurt you? (Score:3, Informative)
Aluminum + Water + mercury = Aluminum Oxide + Hydrogen + mercury [www.ucc.ie] (take a look at the other reactions on there as well. There are some that don't use dangerous stuff like mercury as a catalyst, though you can do it slower without the mercury.)
The best part? Aluminum Oxide can be recycled straight into the middle of the smelting process [trimet.de] (aluminum is extracted from bauxite ore as aluminum hydroxid
Stupidity can be painful, too. (Score:4, Insightful)
This strikes me as wildly optimistic, given that after almost a century and a half, Gallup polls show [independent-media.tv] only a little more than a third of the US has "come to terms" with the Theory of Evolution [wikipedia.org]. A good business plan will assume they will continue this way. "No one in this world, so far as I know, has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people."
Re:What you don't see can't hurt you? (Score:3, Interesting)
As a practical exercise, why don't you go ahead and calculate just how much land that would require, and you might see why this is silly.
Re:What you don't see can't hurt you? (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/txt/ptb0102.html
That's about 6.00485039 × 10^19 Joules. Let's be generous and assume a very high 5 kw-Hr/m^2 solar intensity over our land mass, and a very generous collection/Hydrogen conversion efficiency of 20%, in effect yielding 1 kw-Hr/m^2 in hydrogen. 1 kilowatt hour = 3 600 000 Joules, and we need to produce 6.00485039 × 10^19 Joules, so that works out to be 1.668014 × 10^13 kilowatt hours that we need to produce in a year. A production rate of 1 kw-hr/day = 365.25 kw-hr/year, so we need 4.56990137 × 10^10 m^2 to generate the same number of kw-hrs in the same year, or 17,644.4878 square miles. Delaware is 2,489 square miles. Now, Arizona is the sixth largest state, so it looks like this facility could still rest entirely in its borders. But I think you can see why this is not an even remotely cost-effective solution.
Re:What you don't see can't hurt you? (Score:3, Informative)
"Studies have shown that, depending on the type of PV technology, the clean energy payback of a PV system ranges from one to four years. With life expectancies of 30 years, 87% to 97% of the energy produced by PV systems will be free of pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. For more information, see the NREL report, "Energy Payback: Clean Energy from PV""
Re:What you don't see can't hurt you? (Score:3, Interesting)
There is tons of oil all over the world. It's just a matter of the cost required to extract it. Right now we're mostly sucking it from big underground pools, where it's cheap to get. But many large rock deposits have oil mixed in, and it is possible to extract the oil - just too expensive. When the cheap oil runs out, we'll still have oil, it will just be at a price that is much higher than we pay today. It may or may not be more expensive than solar or wind power.
In reality
Re:What you don't see can't hurt you? (Score:4, Insightful)
And the best part is it's a much easier place for the US to invade. *ducking*
Sarcasm kids, just sarcasm.
Re:What you don't see can't hurt you? (Score:3, Insightful)
just because "it only shifts the oil use from the car to the power plant" is not a good arguement against electric cars. because in the future that power plant could be replaced by wind, solar, geothermal power, etc and suddenly overnight millions of cars are running on 100% clean energy.
so you are right, technically electric cars doen't fix the problem, but they potenti
That old wive's tale AGAIN? (Score:5, Informative)
- Multicrystalline: 3.7 years
- Thin film: 3.0 years
- Multicrystalline, anticipated: 2.1 years
- Thin film, anticipated: 1.1 years
Warranty on today's PV panels is typically 25 years, and panels can be expected to go on producing well beyond the warranty period.Re:What you don't see can't hurt you? (Score:4, Interesting)
As to fusion it's really only 30-50 billion$ away from production use. We are just not putting that much money into research. In 2000 there was a plan to create a 1500MW fusion power plant by 2020 but it was scraped to cost's. We could easily make a fusion power plant the only real problem is lack of funding. It would take about 5 billion a year for 20 years, which is really a tiny fraction of our GDP, but hey 20 years is way to long for most people to think about.
PS: There is still some hope on this one look into ITER which is one of those you want one in Japan and you want one if France... I say fine let's build two and stop #^$&ing around.
Got to get over the hump (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Got to get over the hump (Score:3, Informative)
Now the part about not driving around like crazy makes a lot more sense.
yes and no (Score:3, Insightful)
In the sense that there will always be residual oil somewhere on the earth, you are right. However your statement is misleading in terms of using oil as a fuel; someday, the cost of getting the oil will exceed the value (in terms of heating a house, fueling a car, oiling a machine, what have you).
>>Oil in the ground is not like a gas tank where you pump it out and Boom! it's gone one day. It just gets more and more expensive to pump it.
Yes, but not only will it ge
Re:What you don't see can't hurt you? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What you don't see can't hurt you? (Score:4, Insightful)
If car GM put out a ne Corvett with a big 300+HP engine and a 50+HP hybrid electric assist, I think it would show that hybrid tech isn't just some putty little economy item. It'll be later that people notice that the Corvett now gets 25-30MPG rather than 15-20.
Re:What you don't see can't hurt you? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What you don't see can't hurt you? (Score:3, Interesting)
Honda also makes/made Civic and Accord hybrid, and Toyota's Prius isn't THAT ugly. There is also Toyota's Highlander hybrid which as far as I know looks like a regular Highlander (and may outperform it but that bit was hearsay)
There are hybrid sports cars on the way, too [edmunds.com]. Looks like Mercedes has hybrid plans. (google it, there are several articles)
Re:What you don't see can't hurt you? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What you don't see can't hurt you? (Score:3, Insightful)
While I agree with what you're saying as a whole, it should be noted that a lot of the dislike people (myself included) have towards SUVs is for reasons other than fuel economy. For example:
1) If you get hit by one, you are much more likely to get
What you choose to ignore can hurt you... (Score:5, Informative)
There's no question that gasoline is the most convenient vehicle fuel available right now, but it's stupid not to look for alternatives -- including more fuel-efficient gasoline-powered vehicles, hybrids, and electric cars (of various kinds).
NPR (Score:5, Interesting)
My neighbor drives a very nice Honda Insight (Hybrid). Seems like a lot less hassle than an electric-only vehicle, until hydrogen (or the next big thing) comes along.
Re:GM should have made everyone happy (Score:3, Informative)
Re:NPR (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, it was that 3% of the fleet be Zero Emissions, which effectively required automakers to turn to electric cars, as that was the only technology available at the time that could meet the zero-emissions requirement.
The only manufacturer who actually sold cars to the general public, that I know of, was Toyota. Their RAV4EV [geocities.com] cost upwards of 40k, list price, and very few were available, as they were all conversions done unde
Hybrids replaced electric cars (Score:4, Insightful)
Electric only cars are in some ways a waste, because of lossed in electricity transmition and pollution at the plant, they might end up causing more pollution per mile than a gas car. Just its pollution somewhere else.
Re:Hybrids replaced electric cars (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course on the highways here in the NYC area, and in most metro areas, stop and go is the rule.
Re:Hybrids replaced electric cars (Score:3, Insightful)
Power plants are 50-70% efficient in converting dinosaur bits into energy. Much is lost over the wire, being stored in batteries, and being transmitted back out. It's probably a wash for efficiency.
Cars, however, have MANY fewer restrictions on what they can belch out per watt of work generated. Cars pollute everywhere they go. Changing pollution
Re:Hybrids replaced electric cars (Score:3, Interesting)
If you want great gas mileage, diesels are unbeaten. Driving normally, [British motoring journalist] Jeremy Clarkson got 75mpg out of a Volkswagen Lupo diesel.
The hybrid-engine cars of today are a silly fad.
Re:Hybrids replaced electric cars (Score:3, Insightful)
See, already, it's lost relevance to driving conditions in the US. The Lupo is a subcompact car. For several reasons, both cultural and practical, such cars are not feasible in the United States. We drive bigger cars, and bigger means heavier and heavier means lesser gas mileage.
The hybrid-engine cars of today are a silly fad.
And the motor-coach will never exceed a speed of 10 miles per hour!
While it is sad to see them go (Score:3, Insightful)
in other news today... (Score:3, Informative)
Passing blame to the laywers. (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder if this is a red herring or not. Sure, lawyers have turned the U.S. into a lawsuit-happy country where people are visited in the hospital right after surgery with promises of grand malpractice suits (I work in a hospital, so that's the only example that comes to my mind right away). But, it is possible that GM made some damn good electric cars. Maybe they don't want people using them so they can force-feed a few more SUVs to the nation. Either way, I'm of the opinion that we should drastically increase our fossil fuel usage. The sooner we use it up, the sooner we will stop using it.
Lawyers DO kill industries (Score:3, Informative)
Until congress passed a limitation on the liability of aircraft manufacturers under Clinton in the 1990s the production of private, single engine aircraft had fallen to zero. Why? Because some boneheaded pilot could
Muted Protests? (Score:5, Funny)
I drove one. (Score:5, Informative)
I took one for a spin at a GM proving grounds, and floored it from every stop sign. After about 10 minutes, a fully changed car was almost dead. A kick to drive, but I'd never buy one.
There's a reason GM didn't sell them, and chose to only lease them. GM knew they were just a big experiment, and had no intention of supporting pre-first generation EV parts for the Federally mandiated period of time (5 years?).
-MrLogic
Re:I drove one. (Score:3, Informative)
They rocked. Really. The low end torque was fabulous and they *walked* anything else off the lights. Even better, nearly silently.
Range was a problem, but not as bad as you say: I drove it the full range (40 miles round trip on 101 between SF and Palo Alto), and since that was my main commute, it was sufficient range. Just.
Sad to see them go...
I wish (Score:4, Funny)
Eradication Fascination (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder if they just made them inoperable (to avoid liability concerns) and sold them as collectable on ebay if they wouldn't make the program profitable after all.
One question about electric/hybrid cars (Score:3, Interesting)
If that is true, (please tell me it's not true) how in the heck are you ever supposed to sell them in a used market?! They would essentially all become scrap, sort of like a two year old iPod. How is that environmentally sound?!
Re:One question about electric/hybrid cars (Score:3, Informative)
In the Toyota Prius, the battery is tightly controlled for state-of-charge (SOC) between about 50% and about 90%, and not allowed to deep discharge or overcharge. The battery
Re:One question about electric/hybrid cars (Score:3, Interesting)
1. Moving the pollution is actually a bit of a good thing. Pollution is bad anywhere, but cities have more people getting lung cancer. Most power plants are spread out and away from population centers.
2. The control issue... its a lot harder to clean up 100,000 tailpipes than one power plant. Bigger scrubbers aren't cheap but still cheaper than the pollution con
To heck with hybrid/electric ... (Score:5, Interesting)
1) Better efficiency than gasoline
2) Longer engine life
3) Diesel fuel can be produced from non-fossil sources such as soy and corn (even hogfat!)
But aren't diesel engines dirty, you might ask? Not inherently. The problem is the quality of the fuel, specifically the level of sulfur. Here in the States, in less than a year the standard will reduce that nasty impurity by huge amount.
A whole lot of goodness, no? Plus, it is a way for our struggling farmers to increase demand for their products.
For more info:
http://www.biodiesel.org/ [biodiesel.org]
What's wrong with hybrid/electric? (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Better efficiency than pure diesel
2) Longer engine life than pure diesel
3) Diesel fule can be produced from non-fossil sources
4) Extra 10 to 40 percent efficiency due to regenerative braking + running the engine at peak efficiency
Re:What's wrong with hybrid/electric? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:To heck with hybrid/electric ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Yea, biodiesel has me intrigued as well. It is also my understanding that diesel engines themselves have been undergoing considerable improvement in recent years.
Re:To heck with hybrid/electric ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:To heck with hybrid/electric ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Why can the train companies develop these huge, fuel efficient engines decades ago, but we can't seem to learn any lessons from these and apply them to cars.
Re:To heck with hybrid/electric ... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:To heck with hybrid/electric ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:To heck with hybrid/electric ... (Score:3, Informative)
Especially since one of the largest builders, EMD Locomotives [gmemd.com], is owned by General Motors.
Re:To heck with hybrid/electric ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Mostly because diesel engines don't scale very well. It took a long time (and a lot of work) to get them down to a size where they were useable in cars. It will take more time (and work (money)) to get them down to the size where they can share space with the hybrid end of the equation.
That's setting aside the problem of diesels not liking cold grea
Re:To heck with hybrid/electric ... (Score:4, Informative)
The main reason is that the torque curves for gas and electric motors are complementary. Electric motors produce maximum torque at (or near) 0 RPM. Gas motors produce maximum torque far higher. It depends on the engine, but a typical four banger that gets used in a hybrid may have max torque up around 4000RPM. Diesels produce their highest torque lower, around 1500RPM. So what happens in a hybrid is that you step on the gas and get a rush from the electric motor, then the diesel gives its max torque soon after, then...nothing, they both peter out and you have to shift early and often to compensate.
Another issue is that in a couple of cases, hybrid vehicles were developed with a CVT (continuously variable transmission). Again, the torque presents a problem. CVT's of a given size can only handle so much torque at once. If the electric motor and the diesel are both producing a lot of torque at the same time, you'd have to provide a larger, heavier CVT to accomodate.
Finally, hybrids gained a lot of popularity for environmental reasons. This made them popular in "green" places like California. Unfortunately, CA has strict emissions standards and currently very few diesel passenger car engines meet these standards. A hybrid vehicle that cannot be sold in CA would limit its success drastically. As low-sulfur fuel is phased in, this might change.
None of these are reasons that diesel-electric hybrids could not be brought to market, but together they added up to a "not yet" decision pm the part of automakers.
I rode in one and loved it (Score:3, Informative)
Also, the fun of the high torque electric engine made 0-60 pretty darn quick. Of course that took about half your battery life right there. =)
That said the car was wicked small and hardly practical for much beyond putting to a very close office and maybe the grocery store. (at least here in Phoenix where density isn't very high). I was really hoping they could get the density up so that range could get to the 200-250 mile range. That would have made it much more practical. Of course it still means long trips would have been broken up, but at least you could drive around on the freeway all day without worrying about your car running out of battery.
Sad to see it go... it was a fun car. But I doubt we've seen the end of electric car experiments.
Sounds like the Chrysler Turbine Cars (Score:3, Interesting)
In the end nearly all but 3 or 4 went to the factory to be cut up into teeny tiny bits....sad but it happens....
Let the anti-bush and anti-oil love fest begin.... (Score:3, Insightful)
The eviromentalists need to realize something: people like driving big gas guzzeling cars. Despite them being bad for the enviroment people will continue to drive gas powered cars. Realize that the public you're trying to convert is the public that stuffs itself with McDonalds. If the public won't take care of their own bodies what makes you think they give a hoot about the enviroment? The people (for the most part) won't buy them, hence the car manufactures won't make them.
Also, people keep hawking on hybrid/electric cars. What about trucks/suv? They hold the market share. Those puny hybrid/electrics won't haul a boat, or a trailer, or a load of 2x4s. Yes I know Ford has 1 hybrid SUV out. Big deal, what's its market share?
Further, the handeling/performance of electric vehicles suck. Yes, I know about the amazing electric sports car that can do 0-60 quicker than a porshe, but guess what, it also costs as much as a porshe. You want the American public to embrace electric cars? Make an electric Mustang that has the exact performance specs as it's gas powered brother, and at the same price. Until some R&D department can do this the majority of the public won't convert to electric.
I'm not saying it's right, but enviromentalists need to wake up and realize their fighting this battle all wrong. You'd think they'd take a queue from the food industry. A majority of the public is under the impression that "fat-free" foods taste like crap. Never mind they might be better for you. Never mind your HCL is through the roof, Americans want a fat-free meal that tastes EXACTLY like a full-fat meal, if it doesn't, fuck it we'll die fat and happy.
I wouldn't mind that hybrid Honda Accord (Score:3, Interesting)
Not to mention the fact that the new hybrid Accord sits at the TOP of the Accord lineup for Honda. Friggin' $30K for a hybrid V-6, but you DO get 255HP and a nice car.
I wonder, though, if this prices what could be a very nice, standard hybrid sedan out of the reach of the consumers that Honda hopes to reach -- those that want something "normal" instead of a stylized Prius. Certainly, the Civic hybrid is an excellent, cheaper alternative, but it's not nearly as roomy, and for long trips, it's gonna be cramped/inadequate, say, for a family of 4.
The Ford Escape Hybrid has also gotten lots of good press from these magazines. And the hybrid Lexus RX400 (2006? yes? no?) is supposed to be a marvel of hybrid innovation and luxury technology.
I guess we'll have to see how the hybrid phenomenon goes forward. I thought this morning, as I sat behind a Civic Hybrid on my morning commute, about how soon hybrids are going to NOT BE ENOUGH to help with an emerging energy crisis. This while I'm listening to an NPR report on the US Senate vote on drilling in ANWAR for oil. It's going to be an interesting next few years, I'm afraid. Hope my rather inefficient Subaru Forester doesn't become a MPG killing liability.
IronChefMorimoto
Best product we ever owned (Score:3, Insightful)
I Heard This Story on NPR (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh well. Their grandchildren won't have a choice in the matter.
The EV1 was over 10 years old! It's 2005 now! (Score:3, Insightful)
So before you write off battery powered cars, quit thinking like it's 1995 instead of 2005.
I'll never buy another GM car (Score:4, Insightful)
I've never had a car that was as much fun to drive as the EV1. They were outstanding vehicles, with excellent handling and performance. Everyone who ever rode in my car got out with a broad smile. The EV1 handily demolished the myth of the electric car as slow and impractical. Its 100-125 mile range was more than enough for my needs. I never had to go to a gas station except occasionally to top off the tires.
I even believed, for a time, that GM wanted the EV1 to succeed. But it became increasingly obvious that, despite the slick brochures and the marketing propaganda, their hearts were never in it. They'd been under pressure for years to put EVs on the road, so the EV1 became their cynical "Final Solution" to that annoying California EV mandate.
GM was taken aback by the strong response to this vehicle. They had expected and planned for a flop. They only made a few hundred in each model year, claiming that they could always make more if demand warranted. But even after the existing EV1s quickly sold out and long waiting lists formed, no more EV1s were forthcoming. Instead, they repeatedly told the California Air Resources Board (CARB), with straight faces, that there was simply no public demand for electric vehicles. Each time they said this, they were greeted with laughter and guffaws by the hundreds of EV1 enthusiasts who drove to Sacramento just for the hearings.
But GM still won. Dangling the far-off promise of fuel cells as bait, they quickly closed down the EV1 program and took cars away from hundreds of satisfied customers who would have gladly bought them. Have you noticed that we haven't heard much about fuel cells lately? That's because, as far as GM and the other automakers were concerned, fuel cells have already served their purpose -- getting rid of the ZEV mandate.
GM's action in pulling the EV1 off the market is utterly inexcusable. I will never again buy or lease a GM vehicle. This isn't much of a sacrifice on my part, as no other GM car has ever excited me very much.
Re:No surprise, this. (Score:4, Insightful)
So GM scrapped them. That was probably unfortunate for the company, as people no longer are buying [bloomberg.com] GM's trucks and SUVs, which they made the highest profits off of... and people aren't buying them thanks to Big Oil's Big Prices.
It's okay... I look forward to the next innovations from Honda and Toyota... and I never considered buying American automobiles anyway. The world hasn't really changed.
But why did THAT surprise you? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No surprise, this. (Score:3, Insightful)
If you actually read a little bit about the vehicle, you would realize that they were dumping their money into a lost cause too. The car was battery powered and could only go 55-95 (or 75-130, depending on the type of battery) miles per charge and took up to 8 hours to recharge. There is no possible way that they could make a profit off of a vehicle that performed that poorly. (I know I wouldn't buy a car that I would have to refill almost every night and would
Re:No surprise, this. (Score:5, Interesting)
Basically, people were paying $525 a month to lease a car that cost nearly 1.5 million each to build. Small wonder they liked them, and small wonder that GM scrapped them.
Re:No surprise, this. (Score:3, Informative)
Car and Driver also wrote about that. For the cost of the subsidy, Car could have done several times more to improve air quality by having police officers look for the worst pollution offenders, sieze and crush t
Re:No surprise, this. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:No surprise, this. (Score:3, Interesting)
This is one reason why hydrogen fuel cells would be an awesome technology - the existing infrastructure would be pretty close. However, practical high energy de
Re:Bummer (Score:3, Informative)
Photos of the carnage (pun intended) (Score:5, Informative)
I can understand some of GMs thinking, especially the part about litigation, but it seems a waste to crush so many perfectly usable automobiles.
Before and after photos of at least 60 EV1s being crushed: http://ev1-club.power.net/ [power.net]
Re:Photos of the carnage (pun intended) (Score:4, Insightful)
Not only that but they couldn't possibly get insurance on a vehicle who's brakes can not be replaced due to the part not being available.
They're right, they had to crush them, either that or give them salvage titles and unlicensable, which means uninsurable and not legal to be driven on the roads. They could still be used off-road and on private property, perhaps as a high-tech golf carts or for security guards of private property? Honestly I think if they ebay'd them they could have sold all the vehicles and not been held liable, but they took the safe road and I applaud them for that.
That's a BS argument (Score:5, Insightful)
Ford doesn't make replacement brakes for model T's, either. Yet people still collect, own, and yes even in some circumstances drive them.
Because there are collectors, there is a market, and *someone* makes replacement parts, even if it's a machinist down the block making them custom.
The EV1 would have made a fantastic collectible, even if it wasn't licensable as a primary driving vehicle. No court in this country would have listened to a collector trying to sue GM after his unlicensed EV1's brakes failed. GM could easily have sold them off to collectors at the very least.
Someone would have been willing to make custom replacement parts (even computerized ones) for collector's EV1's, because their existence would have made a market for it.
GM's argument is a red herring - they explicitly wanted the cars to disappear, and they aren't saying why.
Re:Baloney. (Score:3, Informative)
Ditto GM with the EV1. Even if the buyer were to sign a release exempting GM from liability for any problems or harm, that isn't the point. It is everyone else that GM has to worry about.
Example: say I buy an EV1. I sign a release exempting GM from liability. Time goes by, I replace a critical part in my EV1 with something I diddled to
Re:Another idea for disposal (Score:3, Informative)
It is the same legal principle that allows one to be sued for a drowning of a stranger in their swimming pool, when the stranger was trespassing to begin with.
Re:Another idea for disposal (Score:3, Insightful)
Hopefully that day will come sooner rather than later.
Civil courts create as much injustice as they stop, or perhaps even more.
Re:Another idea for disposal (Score:3, Insightful)
A small change would fix a lot of it: Prevent the pay of a lawyer being in any way related to the outcome of the case or the amount of money at stake. Pay lawyers ONLY for their time actually worked, using a time clock, like millions of ordinary workers. It would cut down on frivolous litigation, but if someone with little or no money had a good case, their lawyer and the defendants lawyers would get their wages from the loser like any o
Parts liabilitt (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, yes they did. The problem that GM has is that, if a car is on the road, they are required to provide spare parts (either by manufacturing them or providing diagrams for third-party manufacturers) for those cars for 10 years past the date of building that particular vehicle. In other words, GM would have to come up with suppliers (or themselves) for parts for these cars until at least 2009, and with the problem of the suppliers not being willing to make those parts, it puts GM into a bad situation.
GM was fortunate in that, with these cars only being leased to customers, they could pull them off the roads and thus limit their liability. I would love to own one of these vehicles myself, but I can understand GM's position.
Disclosure: I used to work for GM, and work for one of their automotive suppliers now, so I do know a little about what goes into these types of decisions.
Re:Another idea for disposal (Score:3, Interesting)
Auction them off to collectors, and make the buyers sign an "as is" contract. No proviso for spares, servicing, or liability from the manufacturer. They'll sell every one. Some will be driven, others tinkered on, and some will become museum pieces.
I wish GM would reconsider. There's no shame in failure, especially a failure as innovative as the EV1. Keeping the remaining specimens out in public will help spark interest in more advanced technology, as well as GM's brand na
Re:AAAaaah (Score:5, Insightful)
I have yet to see the numbers on how much comparative environmental damage is produced in making both cars, though.
Re:AAAaaah (Score:3, Informative)
Huh? For city driving, the score is 60 [fueleconomy.gov] to 35 [fueleconomy.gov]. 60 MPG in the city!! Out on the highway, it's closer at 51 to 42. That's still a difference of 9 MPG.
And, better yet (IMHO) are cars that trade off some of the increased efficiency for increased performance. The 2005 Accord [edmunds.com] Hybrid has both more power and better fuel economy than its prececessors.
Re:AAAaaah (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Toyota Prius Fuel Economy (Score:4, Informative)
If the battery is topped off, you're coasting, and you're not going uphill, the gas engine will just spin without being fed gasoline.
Plus, technology like regenerative braking, regenerative motion (charges battery when coasting), the fact that the gas engine's output is ALWAYS split 70% (drive wheels) / 30% feed electric motor/generator, this higher efficiency setup gives you the better mileage.
You're not using extra energy to charge the batteries. You're just using the excess gas engine energy to charge when driving at a constant speed. How much HP do you need to beat down wind-resistance?
I drive ~75mph and I routinely get 47mph on the highway - and I'm just breaking it in! In high traffic situations (stop & go) which resemble city driving, I've gotten 51mpg so far; so traffic is a GOOD thing.
EPA's posted numbers are not realworld numbers, but EPA is inaccurate for EVERY car out there. Consider that.
AND, don't forget emissions - even if Echo gets comparable mpg, it's not a AT-PZEV vehicle where the air coming out is basically cleaner than the dirty city air going in. This is vastly more important than mpg if you care about your health longterm.
some CO2 numbers (Score:3, Insightful)
The Toyota Prius HSD uses 4.4 litres per 100 kilometres travelled, which translates to 53.46 miles per gallon, and expels 106 grams of CO2 per kilometre travelled.
Toyota Echo models with manual transmission consume about 5.8L/100km, or 40.55MPG, and expel CO2 at a rate of 138g/km. Automatic models consume about 6.5L/100
Re:No I can.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:GM's Shortsightedness and Paranoia (Score:3, Insightful)
You do know that in the past (and possibly even now), a lot of source material has been destroyed because the company that owned the rights didn't think that the property they owned justified the cost of warehousing and preserving that material. They either let it rot, or they actively shredded it, to keep someone else from profiting from it.
Of course, this mindset is EX