The fact is that American automakers are money-grubbing jerks who would rather kill innovation than create better vehicles.
WHO KILLED THE ELECTRIC CAR? chronicles the life and mysterious death of the GM EV1, examining its cultural and economic ripple effects and how they reverberated through the halls of government and big business.
But the fanfare surrounding the EV1’s launch disappeared and the cars followed. Was it lack of consumer demand as carmakers claimed, or were other persuasive forces at work?
Fast forward to 6 years later… The fleet is gone. EV charging stations dot the California landscape like tombstones, collecting dust and spider webs. How could this happen? Did anyone bother to examine the evidence? Yes, in fact, someone did. And it was murder.
We all are too complacent about the energy situation, even with the current whining over gasoline prices. Your average American still wants a V-8 powerplant to drive to the grocery store.
I’m not sure I agree. Admittedly, there are many forces working against electric vehicles that do not have the consumer’s or citizen’s best interest at heart. But honestly, I never thought the EV-1 was that great. It might have become great with better funding, but the car itself wasn’t that impressive. It was underpowered and small.
If I were a top executive at an automaker I would tell my engineers to make a car that has 300 hp, 50mpg city, 300 mi range. You build a car that has those specs and they will fly off the showroom floors.
I think “murder” might be a pretty strong word. I would think that GM made a business decision that there wasn’t a future in this type of vehicle. Personally, I don’t think a pure electric car is the right idea either. Unless the charging current can be harnessed from a renewable resource, such as sun, wind, tidal, or water, then we are only moving the pollution from one point to another.
As an experiment, I’m sure GM learned a lot from this.
I haven’t seen the movie but I’ve always wondered about those electric cars. They seemed like a great idea but then just disappeared.
Who (what) killed the electric car?
Hybrids.
The same reason the EV disapeared is why you can not buy a Prius in this country that you can plug in and charge like you can in Japan. An agreement must have been made between the automakers and big oil. This is also why you will never see a hydrogen car, despite what the Feds and GM are telling us.
The EV died because battery technology is not competitive with the energy density or cost of liquid fuels. Hydrogen has so many technical problems you will probably never see a successful fuel cell car. Dvorak needs more techncally based readers, fewer conspiracy seekers!
And don’t forget those p***ks who were poking fun at electric cars calling them “gay cars” and all.
I’ve seen some big brutes riding those gas guzzling vehicles and let me tell you something, a good amount of them are gay.
It takes me three minutes to fill up my tank with gasoline, which will get me about 300 miles.
How long does it take to recharge the battery in an electric car? And how many miles before the next charge?
#2…
The “owners” of all the EV-1s was GM. The people that were driving them around were leasing them and agreed from the start to turn them in when the lease was complete. There was no buy-out clause as there is in most auto leases.
It was a test from the start. If GM kept the cars on the road GM would have had to support them and had long term liability.
For another example of this Google the Beechcraft Starship. They didn’t want to support the plane anymore an bought ALMOST all of them back.
“There was no buy-out clause as there is in most auto leases.”
What are you talking about. Just about every lease has the option to buy. The leasing company would love to sell the car at the end of the term, do you really think they want it. The EV lease did not have a buy out, but just about every other lease does!
A few things.
First, the terms of the lease did in fact require that the cars be returned to GM after the lease was up. If they were successful, GM might have then put them into production and sold the off lease models to whoever wanted to buy them.
But, dispite the glowing tributes from many of those who drove them, they were not successful.
Consider that the folks who leased them were:
1. well to do….the lease was pricey.
2. environmental fundamentalists
3. owners of other conventional vehicles
4. included Ed Begley, Jr. and other entertainment industry scum. :).
The lease program was a test to see if the vehicles could actually operate under real world conditions. That part was relatively successful, given their well understood limitations. But the question remained, could GM actually produce them for a price that would sell, compared to conventional cars?
The answer was no.
At the time the EV-1 was developed, California was in the process of implimenting legislation that would have required automakers to make X% of their vehicles sold “zero emission”. This ruled out hybreds or any other form of internal combustion engine. So, GM, trying for once to get some research done ahead of time, built and tested the EV-1.
In the meantime, several things happened. First, with the advances made in conventional vehicle emissions, and the introduction of hybreds, California backed down on its legislation. Second, vehicle buyers began spending like mad on larger and larger SUVs (this was the 1990s and very early 2000s). Third, GM’s financial troubles began to be noticed.
It became clear that there would not be much market for a very expensive, small, underpowered, limited range vehicle, that could not be refueled quickly, unless it was mandated by law. Meanwhile, other technologies came in to fill the gap.
If you want an ugly vehicle that uses batteries for propultion, buy a Prius. If you want something better, wait. They are starting to appear. Now, if they would build a car with windwings again, I might actually consider buying one.
–Dave
(don’t bother trying to correct my spelling…better folks than you have died trying!)
Is life without the personal automobile so unthinkable that all we can come up with is an alternative power source? Has anyone really thought out the implications of EVERYONE having a battery driven car?
Batteries require energy generated by fossil fuels. They need energy to be charged and recharged. They need energy to be manufactured. What about the disposal problem. Batteries are made of humongous quantities of toxic metals and other nasty materials. What are we going to do with a gazillion of them each year when everyone is driving electric cars.
And that’s not to mention the traffic jams that we will still have with us.
Sorry, folks. But I think we need to look much more deeply into this.
Or did they make a crappy car on purpose?
Those Arab Sheiks love a hummer!
couple of points:
The EV-1 was a smashing success. The people who had them loved them to death.
I mind one person who’d replaced the GM-supplied batteries with Panasonic and had a huge range increase. There was a large aftermarket potential for improvement.
The developers of the EV-1 did a great job. The corporation hated it, as they do every non-standard car. They are car nuts, after all, and if it doesn’t run on an IC engine, it ain’t a car.
The idea that it cost too much to produce, therefore it died, is farmed out by the corporation. Here’s a thing: sometimes you have to lose money to make it. Toyota spent billions – BILLIONS – developing the hybrid drivetrains. They sell all those cars at a loss. BUT – they’ve declared that they are building the market for the future, and are willing to take losses now to make big profits later.
GM didn’t. GM now is on the edge of bancruptcy with cars no one wants to buy, why Toyota can’t make enough hybrids to satisfy demand. GM sacrificed the future to make the stock market and the executives happy. Toyota will now own the hybrid and soon the electric markets, and GM will die.
The “bottom line” mentality has killed GM, annihilated it, while the lack of it at Toyota will make it the #1 carmaker in the world. What would have happened had GM kept improving, funded battery research, and made the EV-2 and EV-3? They would have survived, with some great breakthrough patents on power storage.
And oh, yeah, the “what if everyone had electric cars” question. People charge their cars while they’re sleeping, when there is more than enough capacity at the power plants that currently is not used.
And Californians: re-reg the power industry. Your “free market” is crippling you. We in Chicago have yummy cheap electricity. We regulate the bastards. We’ve also a nuke plant that works quite well.
7,
Hydrogen has few problems..
the only one they HAVE, is HOw to make it so you have to pay MORE for it, rather then hitting ANY Weilding supply and loading up.
the hardest developement has been the storage of power.. We still can not STORE power efficently, or even long term.
The MAIn problem with Fully electric vehicles comes in 2 forms.
1. it COSTS money to charge them. Even if you plug it in, it STILL costs you GOOd money to run the vehicle.
2. Using power in ANY motor takes ALOT of power, and using it for other things…wipers, heating, lights…SUCKS the power away fro where you want it.
New tech is advancing. New LIGHTS, such as LED, and Xeon, are lowering lighting requirements.
Heating STILL draws alot of power on a cold day, and dont forget, COLD batteries dont work to well.
Wind shield wipers STILL draw to much power..
So, on a COLd and wet day, you MAY not get a good running vehicle.
the REAL draw back is being able to convert what is being DONE, to heavy machines, such as 18 wheelers, and making THAT cost efficent.
#17. “And oh, yeah, the ‘what if everyone had electric cars’ question. People charge their cars while they’re sleeping, when there is more than enough capacity at the power plants that currently is not used.”
Did you even think to do the math? Replacing gasoline with electricity would increase our annual electricity consumption by 21%.
21.3 billion gallons gasoline/year (CY 2004 data) = 2.8 E15 Btu’s
2.8 E15 Btu’s = 820 million megawatt-hours
Net US electricity generation (CY 2004) = 3,970 million megawatt-hours
820/3,970 = .207
I don’t know how it is in your part of the country, but my utility whines about needing to build new power plants just because people are switching from evaporative coolers to air conditioners in their homes.
18,
Can you do that, and NOT get 7-12MPG in ANY new car??
NOT…
you ALSO dont add into the cost…..
How to dispose of the battery’s that are used up…
the chemicals used ARE not disposable..
Might as well use Nuck, fuel…It last longer and destroys everything..
BACk to STEAM power we go…
Smartalix
Actually, yes I did sit in one and knew through a friend someone that owned one. I thought they were too small, but I’ll grant you that it was bigger than some of the coupes that are out.
In terms of power, yes it was underpowered for what I would want. I would want at least 250hp (measured in equivalent gas powered hp) and somewhere at or under 7 seconds 0-60.
Of course, what I want and what other people would put up with are not necessarily the same. But I stand by my spec: 300 hp, 50 mpg and 300 mi range would sell faster than they could make them.
#17 cat…..California’s problems isn’t underegulated power companies, but OVERegulated power companies.
Obviously, an electrical car at this early stage of development are not going to be able to do everything that a well developed technology like internal combustion engines. But how powerful, reliable, and long distance were IC engines when they were first developed. Horses were still far more powerful and easier to fuel. It took time…even decades for the techology to actually become useful, but we forget that now.
Does a vehicle like the Ev-1 work for a people who need to carry large amounts or travel extremely, no. Does it work for the office worker who uses a vehicle to commute to and from work, Yes. Will developing new technology be expensive to the first users..yes, but how much were the first DVD players. If developed would the decendants of the Ev-1 be bigger and more powerful, Yes. Would they be able to haul big things and alot of people, Yes.
Right now because of the large SUV that Ford and GM have overpollulated themselves with and relied on for so long that they scrapped idea like the EV-1, they now find themselves almost unable to compete with foreign automakers. Where would GM be now if the EV-1 had not been a canceled idea. Maybe they would not have dozens of Tahoes sitting on the lot that they have to nearly give away and closing down plants, while Honda and Toyota can not produce enough hybrids to meet our demand with no deals offered.
Innovate or be left behind….something that so many in America have seem to have forgotten.
The EV-1 had a top speed of 150mph and ungoverned could go 0-60 in about 6 seconds. It had a speed limiter that kept it below 80mph because the low rolling resistance tires would have exploded at those speeds. So much for the low HP and low speed argument.
The new Ni-Mh battery packs extended the range and lithiums would have made the car more than practical. It was time to crush them and hide the evidence.
The automotive industry makes billions off spare parts (electric cars have few) and do not want to retool their plants. The government has no interest in electric because oil companies keep politicians rich, the oil companies have no interest because its financial suicide, and the public has no interest because we’re a bunch of morons.
Sometimes it is very hard to separate the econonomic arguments from the technical aguments from the social and political arguments. Bottom line, we must find a replacement for petroleum based transporation fuels, and there is no one answer, and it is going to take take time.
Those that believe there is a big master conspiracy need to get a better undertsanding of the facts and circumstances that got us to this point. We are now paying the heavy price for a lot of decisions made in the 70s about our energy policy.
Hybrid electrics will be the future for cars, trucks and buses, but we will also have ICE powered mechaical drive systems for a long time.
Alternative fuels like ethanol, hydrogen and various blends do work and are econonomical in many applications, and are not quite ready in others.
Technolgical advances in the last 10 years have been dramatic. We now have batteries, motors, controllers, chargers and lots of other things that would have made the EV1 much better. Would it be successful today today? Maybe. Fuel cell advances have been staggering.
What is needed is more open minds, more innovation, more patienece and a lot less blamming others.