Karl on Cars - GM's EV1 -- Who Killed Common Sense?

GM's EV1 -- Who Killed Common Sense?

I just finished an interview with ABC News' Bill Blakemore. I was a guest on his show covering the new movie Who Killed the Electric Car? The other guests were the film's director, Chris Paine, and a former EV1 sales assistant, Chelsea Sexton. The film has some basic points it tries to make, all of them quite predictable in a world where most Americans feel they pay too much for gas and faith in the stability of the Middle East is at an all-time low. In terms of timing I give Mr. Paine credit -- the political and cultural atmosphere is ripe for a film like this to make money. Now let's hit the basic points in the film, along with my responses to them:

1. Rumor: There were 5,000 people who wanted an EV1, but GM wouldn't let them buy it.

Fact: There were 5,000 people who expressed interest in an EV1, but when GM called them back and explained that the car cost $299-plus a month to lease, went between 60 and 80 miles on a full charge, and took between 45 minutes and 15 hours to re-charge, very few would commit to leasing one (not too surprising, is it?). The film likes to quote a figure of 29 miles as the average American's daily driving needs, but that is a national figure and the EV1 was only sold in California and Arizona, primarily in Los Angeles. Anyone wanna guess what the average L.A. resident's daily driving need is? I'm betting it's higher than that national average.

As a comparison I actually ran the numbers on a 1997 EV1 against a 1997 Volkswagen Jetta Turbodiesel based on electricity and fuel charges at the time. Between lease charges and fuel/electricity charges, the EV1 cost at least $500 more a year to operate than the Jetta, and the Jetta could hold over twice as many people (five versus two), 50 percent more cargo (15 cubic feet versus 10) and would go almost 600 miles on a tank of fuel versus 60 miles on a charge. And when the Jetta did need filled it took 10 minutes -- not 45 minutes for a partial re-charge and 15 hours for a full re-charge. Ask me again why the electric car died.

2. Rumor: The California Air Resources Board (CARB) originally required automakers to produce electric vehicles, but political pressure from the automakers and oil companies forced them to abandon this law.

Fact: Actually, CARB simply wanted the automakers to produce zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) and, in 1990, the only way to accomplish that was with electric vehicles. But in the past 15 years computer processing and fuel injection technology has allowed internal combustion engines to burn so cleanly that they are the equivelant of ZEVs (such as the Toyota Prius). Actually, some might argue gasoline-powered ZEV's are better than electric vehicles because they don't have to be charged by an electric power station, most of which have coal stacks that spew far more pollution than ZEV exhaust pipes. As an example, the average 1965 automobile emitted 2,000 pounds of hydrocarbons over 100,000 miles. Modern ZEVs (that still run on gasoline!) emit two pounds of hydrocarbons over 100,000 miles. Read more about ZEVs here. If you need further proof that the modern internal combustion engine has come a long way, consider the air quality in Los Angeles in 2006 versus 1976 -- despite having far more cars operating in the city today. And this air quality improvement came even with the death of the electric car!

3. Rumor: Many EV1 drivers and fans wanted to purchase their EV1 when the lease ended and GM killed the program, but GM crushed the cars instead to keep people from discovering how great they were.

Fact: All U.S. automakers are required to provide parts and service on a vehicle for a given number of years after it is produced. To support the 1,000 EV1s GM had made would have cost the company a lot of money because of its advanced technology and totally unique nature (it shared almost no parts with other GM products). This is not the case with, for instance, Toyota's electric RAV4, which shares the majority of its parts with regular RAV4s. I'm sure GM also worried about the potential for lawsuits if owners bought the cars and started modifying them (something that surely would have happened -- look at what's already happening with the Prius). "But Karl, these EV1 fans were willing to sign waivers against future liabilities if they could buy the cars." Waivers are great in theory, but any lawyer knows there is always a path around them -- especially if the payoff is big enough (which will always be the case when GM is the defendant).

4. Rumor: GM purposely made the EV1 perform poorly so that it could never succeed.

Fact: Before I define how "good" or "bad" the EV1 was let me first say that GM was given plenty of funding from the government to develop this car. They can cry about spending over a billion dollars, but much of that cost was covered by your and my tax money. That said, if GM was trying to make the EV1 fail, they did a poor job of it. The company tried to offer a vehicle that had every modern creature comfort (air conditioning, power windows, high quality audio system) and they offered free roadside assistance. They also developed a second-generation EV1 that used nickel-metal hydride batteries to get far better range on a charge (though these batteries were even more expensive, and hard to keep cool). They could have sabotaged the EV1 much more effectively by offering no creature comforts and no roadside assistance and spotty dealer training, yet most EV1 customers were thrilled with GM's support of the car. However, the company knew the vehicle would never offer the combination of utility and functionality demanded by 99 percent of U.S. consumers, and they knew it was a money loser for that other one percent. GM's biggest mistake was letting the R&D (largely funded by the government) from the EV1 program go to waste by not immediately transitioning it into hybrid drivetrain development. The film touches on this mis-step by GM, and it's the one point I completely agree with.

5. Rumor: The oil industry is evil because it's making a profit.

Fact: The American economy is based on capitalism. If you're doing business in America you're supposed to make a profit.

As a side note, what are the makers of "Who Killed the Electric Car?" hoping to achieve with their movie? Do they want it to make a profit? Did they pick this specific time to release the movie because they think it will make the most money now? The electric car died years ago, so why did it take this long for the movie to arrive? Maybe all proceeds will go to developing a new electric car or developing a cheap battery that has massive storage capacity and can be charged in a very short amount of time.

I personally believe the technology exists in 2006 to produce a far more effective electric car than was possible in 1997. But I make no promises on what it would cost to produce. If these filmakers want to subsidize this research for a new electric car, or subsidize the purchase of this new electric vehicle by consumers to offset the initial costs of producing it, I'd be all for that!

For those of you who want to learn more I found two interesting Web pages (here and here) devoted to the EV1 driving experience. These folks both loved their EV1s, but they also freely admit to the car's limitations. It'd be interesting to see what an EV1 with today's battery technology might accomplish, but like the original Star Trek I think the car was simply ahead of its time. And hey, we all know how well the subsequent iterations of Star Trek did when society finally caught up and "got it."

The ABC news interview was pre-taped and should air in the next few days. When I know the exact time I'll let you all know. I'm anxious to see the final cut.

Posted by Karl Jun 19, 2006 4:12 pm

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Categories: GM EV1 | Driving | Fuel Efficiency | Hybrid Vehicles

Comments

prm2000 - Jun 26, 2006 5:46 pm (#6 Total: 24)

Rumor 1: I don't know who is telling you your information, but my parents waited on a list for 6 months to get a car. Their sales rep was Ms. Sexton, who was quoted saying: "Eventually, when we ran out of cars to lease, the EV Specialists started a waiting list, not having any idea how controversial that move would become. "If there’s enough demand, General Motors would tell us, we will build you more cars." Problem was, they would never quantify just how many orders constituted "demand"- and so our list just kept growing with the names of people willing to wait an unknown period of time for the possibility of getting a car. Many of the people who were able to lease EV1s had to wait up to a year to do so." That doesn't quite jibe with your source.

Rumor 2: Astounding ignorance. Using the dirtiest coal plants to power an electric car still results in a small net reduction in pollution, even if you discount the fact that cars would predominately charge at night when there is currently surplus wasted elctricity. In California we have very clean power, which dramatically reduces the net pollution when powering an electric car. Coal plants have the capacity to get much cleaner, but even if pollutants are not dramatically reduced in the case of dirty coal, our dependance on middle eastern oil IS being reduced.

Rumor 3: I don't buy your argument that it was different for GM than it was for Toyota and Ford. The main component of concern for all of them was the drivetrain, brakes and electrical controls. The EV1 didn't have dramatically different concerns.

Rumor 4: Who says this? That is a totally bogus rumor. GM made a great car. That was one of the problems. Certain factions in GM management expected it to fail, and were forced to kill it when it started to succeed.

Rumor 5: Ridiculous straw man. Of course oil companies are entitled to sell their product and make a profit. Likewise, you have to admit that electric cars are an enormous threat to there core business and they should be expected to act accordingly. Do you dispute that?

Why is the movie coming out now, when the cars went off lease a whole 2-3 years ago? Well, you undoubtedly know that the last batch of cars was crushed in March of 2005. That movie I believe was shown in January of 2006, picked up a distributor and is now being released. Just how fast do you think a movie should be made.

I haven't seen this movie and have no idea if it is any good. I do know that you misstate some basic facts that you should know better in your position.

busulover - Jun 27, 2006 11:28 am (#7 Total: 24)

I just have to laugh at all the comments defending GM.

EVs and Hybrids are popular topics today, but they did not come about in the last three years, just because gasoline prices are high. Anything will take years and a lot of development. GM is NOT alone in spending millions into R&D. Any leaders that have a long-term vision for the company know that R&D investments are vital.

I don't care if people believe in conspiracy or not. What GM spent on EV1 is nothing compare to what it is now spending on Hydrogen Fuel-Cell vehicles. For all those who have short-term memory, GM constantly blasting hybrids as failures, before the high gas prices era, yet now they are doing a 180 and try to play catch-up.

If GM was so negative about hybrids, why even bother making a hybrid vehicle and sell a hydrogen car! GM by far has the most hydrogen vehicles among all the other manufacturers, worldwide!

The truth is, again, for Karl and all those who have selective memories, GM and all domestic auto manufacturers have had plenty of time to develop fuel-efficient cars for US. Our government has given billions to alternative fuel programs and research projects such as "Freedom Car". However, after all the research and resources spent, none of the manufacturers have any interest in promoting fuel efficiency as its goal.

Instead of trying to make EV1 work, GM, with Honda and Toyota, decided to spend much time and resources to fight California regulations through courts. Once they won the lawsuit, all efforts into EVs were immediately dropped.

Instead of praising GM for actually lifting a finger for EV1, please step back and look at the big picture:

Yes, GM has a few bright spots here and there, but the pattern is still the same: all the projects and prototypes are always used as a Public Relations effort, but we hardly ever see any technological or fuel improvements in their production vehicles.

GM is not evil for only concentrating on making money, by selling big trucks and SUVs. But to defend GM as if it was a victim of poor timing is FALSE.

prm2000 - Jun 27, 2006 9:49 pm (#8 Total: 24)

The irony is that GM had a great chance to be a leader into the next century, but chose short-term profits instead. The net result is that GM may go bankrupt and the next generation of great American automaking is coming out of Silicon Valley, not Detroit. The future is in the hands of the Tesla Motors and Wrightspeeds of the world, not with GM and Ford.

The fact that it is dramatically more efficent and cleaner aside, I would have thought the news of a street-legal prototype of a $100K+ Wrightspeed blowing the doors off of a $400K Porsche Carrera GT would have sent shockwaves through the industry, yet I don't even hear it mentioned here. I may have missed it, but it wasn't loud.

Hopefully there will be a little more coverage for Tesla Motors next month.

busulover - Jun 28, 2006 9:22 am (#9 Total: 24)

Not that I am down with Wrightspeeds, but the anti-EV crowd has already deconstructed the mystique of the vehicle.

Obviously, the first thing they attack are the batteries. It's expensive, the range is limited, etc. Nevermind that the maintenance cost of supercars are always expensive. People do not realize that some supercars only get a few rounds on the track before something breaks, and cost thousands to repair.

Then they downplay the Wrightspeed vehicle for its base, the ATOM. Just because an EV was not designed from the ground up seems to be a problem, but then putting a gas engine on the ATOM then it's great fun. There is always something to nitpick.

Lastly, there is always the ever increase bar. Although average Americans only commute a short distance, people still expect a "tank" of fuel to last a great distance, nevermind that EVs would be fully charged while one sleeps. Now that some EVs are surpassing the century mark, the nay-sayers just keep on pushing the bar, wanting even more range before they would stop criticizing EVs. When finally an EV would be 1-to-1 or surpass the specs of regular vehicles, then I'm sure the critics will attack the price, even if EVs are a percent more.

Truth is people fear change, and supporting EVs would seem like they are giving up the love-affair with some fantasy images of shifting gears or fixing the car in the garage. In the next 30 years, we do not all have to be converted to driving EVs, but there is no reason that we should shoot down EVs just because it cannot do miracles. There are many advantages to having EVs, and anyone who is interested can certainly do the research for themselves.

kwillman - Jul 20, 2006 11:19 am (#10 Total: 24)

"but that is a national figure and the EV1 was only sold in California and Arizona, primarily in Los Angeles."

OK, I'm no genius here, but if GM wanted this car to succeed, why would they make LA their test market? Especially considering they were well aware that this was a limited mileage vehicle...

robhar - Jul 29, 2006 2:56 am (#11 Total: 24)

GM says the world did not and does not want the EV-1 or any other pluggage, fully electric car, and who could argue with them. With a staggering 3.2 billion dollar quarterly loss, GM definitely has its finger on the pulse of what the US and the world wants, in terms of cars.

But hey, GM did get to retire 34,410 of their most knowledgeable and experienced workers. In the bizarroworld of American finance, that makes them a more competitive company. Because workers are widgets, completely interchangeable and easily replaced.

Sadly, in the next five to seven years, I expect to see that GM employee count go to zero. Which I guess will make the company infinitely competitive to the spin wizards of Wall Street.

Every day we waste more time inventing ever more byzantine explanations of why the deception, disrespect and outright stupidity demonstratred by big oil,big steel and big automakers in the US to their customers, employees and suppliers is really just shrewd good business.

The day has already come when Japan, China, Korea and the EU either laugh or are simply struck dumb by our foolishness. in refusing to embrace change and benefit from it, we stand as the village idiot, declaring that the sun will stop in its tracks, because we demand it.

The Sun is rapidly setting on GM's legacy of ignorance.

collarge - Aug 13, 2006 2:05 am (#12 Total: 24)

As I get up this morning with clips from “Who killed the electric car in my mind” and the reading of this article on this web site in my mind I ponder who is right and who is wrong.
So I do my first task of the day checking my email on the laptop, now the laptop has been on now for 4 days, running quiet happily in sleep mode with me opening to check the web and email now and then, my phone as well has not seen a charger in nearly a week.
As I take my wife to work who is only 4 miles down the road I pass a Milk Float that is returning from its rounds, it seems from the age of 14 when I was doing the paper rounds I would see the Electric floats every morning, now I see them again 20 years later and they have not evolved, they even seem to be stuck at the same speed, and yet my phone and laptop now seem to last 4 times longer and drive more power than ever.

I have been a Petrol head I love engines and love to work on them they can sound so sweet and the satisfaction in accelerating hard with some perfect gear changes is music to my ears, but up to recently I let go of my V12 Jag and now in a very economical diesel Volvo, so boring, I now want an electric car, it would be smooth as it would accelerate without changing gear and quiet, I hate hearing that diesel start, it always sounds knackered to me.

So what im basically saying is me as the consumer is ready for the electric car, so where is it. Or do I have to modify a milk float, or go to the USA and steal an EV1 from the scrap yard.

electricloon - Sep 10, 2006 6:37 am (#13 Total: 24)

One major problem with EVs not mentioned so far is the additional energy needed to operate things like: headlights, defoggers, windshield wipers etc. Heat might be considered a luxury in LA, but most other places it's an absolute necessity. I have heard that the EVs range on a full charge would be cut dramatically if driving at night, or in rain. Personally I think the heating/defogging systems in most conventional cars are still not up to what they ideally should be, and until battery technology improves by about 2 orders of magnitude, EVs will never be all-weather vehicles. Internal combustion vehicles solve the heating/ defogging problem with heat from the cooling system, which is basically waste energy. That seems very efficient to me. My guess is that driving an electric vehicle in January in Chicago would be much less energy efficient than a conventional internal combustion vehicle. The EV is in effect sending that waste heat energy up a stack at the generating plant.

s10ev - Oct 15, 2006 11:30 pm (#14 Total: 24)

1. Well you have this right GM did not sell the EV1 they only would lease it. Many people would have bought the vehicle had they sold it. Why go off on the nation average 29 miles when the EV1 could go 80 miles with the lead acid Panasonic batteries or 120 miles with NiMH batteries. This range does not take into account any opportunity charging. I think of it this way how many hours a day do most people drive in a day? If it is one to two hours then you have the other 22 hours the vehicle is doing nothing it could be plugged in. The time you do not waste going to a gas station any more is a great value ask a person who drives one everyday.

2 So all the major car manufacturers started making electric vehicles because they wanted to? Then they all just quit all on their own all together? The ZEV program specified that by 1998, 2% of all new cars sold were to have no emissions. You do not consider 2% of the sales mandated to mean they must build a zero emissions vehicles? The Toyota Prius is a very clean vehicle but it is a totaly different than other ICE vehicles but not zero emissions. Some vehicles that are so called Hybrid are just turning off the motor. Then using the battery to restart the vehicle is a marketing tool not a leap in technology. Even the Prius a true hybrid is not equivelant of an electric vehicle. It is not because it has fuel injection and computer processing and fuel injection technology has allowed internal combustion engines to burn so cleanly that they are the equivelant of ZEVs. This shows you do not have a clear understanding of what your talking about.

You also have no understanding of large power plants they are not shut down at night when demand goes down. At some large hydroelectric dams in California and Oregon they pump water back at night because they lose that energy if this is not done. It is not as efficent as just using the power but at night they have excess power. It does stop some night time generation from being a total loss. If electric vehicles charged at night millions of electric vehiles would have little effect on our current system.

3. Your really off on this one If having to supply parts the reason as you say for GM not selling the EV1. How do you explain the parts used in the GM made Factory S-10 electric vehicle? It has the exact same electric motor, charging system, controller, batteries and other parts. If you take away the truck body it is the EV1. I have gone to order parts and they are discontinued. So much for your theory they have to keep making parts unless you think brakes are not a critical part. Try ordering the vacuum pump for the 1997 to 1998 S-10 EV brakes. The trucks were sold to large utility companies and after GM dropped servicing them the utility companies sold them to the highest bidder.

Again you have no idea what your talking about." I'm sure GM also worried about the potential for lawsuits if owners bought the cars and started modifying them" I don't know if you noticed but we have been modifying cars since they started making them. You seriously believe now they are worried we are going to hot rod the electric car?


4. The EV1 is not done poorly but GM did stop making all of them better. GM had the NiMH battery and all of the EV1 vehicles could have been updated so their range would have expanded their demand. The NiMH batteries were a vast improvement over the lead acid battery.

5. I have been in business for over 20 years and I have a good idea of what a free market is. A few large companies providing the energy for all the transportation in one country is not a free market. Buying into the NiMH battery market might be explained that they are looking down the road. However what incentive do they have to develop it now? Even if other battery technology exceeds the NiMH which is the very best battery ever developed to date. What is a company that is in the business of selling fuel lost with this small write of

foobar1024 - Oct 18, 2006 4:21 pm (#15 Total: 24)

Karl writes: "Actually, some might argue gasoline-powered ZEV's are better than electric vehicles because they don't have to be charged by an electric power station, most of which have coal stacks that spew far more pollution than ZEV exhaust pipes."

Then they would be arguing wrongly. That's simply a false statement and demonstrates a lack of understanding about energy efficiencies of power plants versus the internal combustion engine. Fossil burning plants are dirty, but they are also very efficient. Last time I checked there is no combined cycle generator inside a Chevrolet or Ford or Toyota.

California Air Resources Board studies show that battery electric vehicles emit at least 67% lower greenhouse gases than gasoline cars. Nationally, two government studies have found PHEVs would result in large reductions even on the national grid (50% coal). Battery EVs also get cleaner as they get older, because the electric grid gets cleaner every decade.

Considering you started the paragraph with condescending "Fact" please stick to just that in the future.

chevy598 - Dec 8, 2006 12:54 am (#16 Total: 24)

It's 2006 and we still doen't have batteries good enough to power a car all day long. I don't want to take ten days to go from Florida to Michigan driving 150 miles and having to stop overnight to charge my car, and if it can't be used by a one car family as an everyday hauler it is a useless technology. Were not going to save the world building cars with limited mileage for people with money to show off. No one takes into account how much of are daily fuel is used by semis, aircrafts, boats, lawnmowers, and other machines. If every vehicle was run on electric we would still have one heck of a diesel fuel bill.
Another question to ask yourself is how much will energy companies charge per KWH when 200 million vehicles are charging on the grid? You can forget about night time being non peak hours.

bmeinetz - Dec 15, 2006 10:23 am (#17 Total: 24)

Karl, what's a gasoline-powered ZEV? A gasoline-powered, zero emissions vehicle? Please. Your ignorance is showing.

And your claim that coal-fired power plants "spew far more pollution than ZEV exhaust pipes", coupled with your attempt to steer the argument to a debate over whether today's internal combustion engines are cleaner than yesterday's (no debate) makes you sound more like a Petroleum Institute advocate than a car critic. Let's stick to facts.

jimini - Jun 9, 2007 4:55 pm (#18 Total: 24)

Its 2007 and gas prices have risen so much. Americans are feeling the stupidity of California for fighting to have the electric cars killed. The documentary "who killed the electric car?" opend my eyes alot, along with reading several articles about it and reviews. It makes me furious that something so inovative was kept from so many americans. I would love to see the electric car return and help the economy, but we live in good old america... so it will never happen.

dblouin - Jul 7, 2007 3:29 pm (#19 Total: 24)

Is the idea that the product must be perfect or be annihilated? Or is the idea to produce a non-starter in order to make a grand show, which then is demonstrated publicly as a failure, thereby reinforcing dependence on internal combustion, gas-fueled vehicles, and the gas, oil and parts which are part and parcel of such ownership?
Because it seems odd to me that a company would rescind re-leasing offers, not include a purchasing option in its contract, not sell the EXISTING cars to existing lessors who sincerely wished to keep the vehicles, even considering and accepting its limitations. And then--to put the capper on it, to outright destroy the vehicles rather than sell them to willing buyers. What kind of sense does THAT make. Certainly not common sense!!

jumpsteady - Jul 20, 2007 1:13 pm (#20 Total: 24)

I live in Tennessee, and have never heard of or knew of the existence of the EV1. I'd call myself a car nut, I have had a few 70s muscle cars, and a couple of 2 seaters. I work on my own cars, and have had scripts to a few car mags. I've heard so much about the hydrogen fuel cell cars that you *can't buy. But never knew about the production EV1 till I saw the movie. I couldn't wait for the movie to end. Just so I could go jump on Ebay and search for this electric vehicle. I wanted one so bad, to run around town, and "stick it to the man" by plugging in instead of pumping. How many families have 1 car anyway? I think most have more and you could use the other car for your cross country drives which we all do everyday, right?
Now at the end of the movie, I felt like the car, crushed. Truly. It's so sad. I didn't see that one coming!

A car company spends all that time and money on R&D to put this car on the road. After carb backs down, and they no longer are *required to make these cars they have 1 goal. To get these cars off the road, and DESTROY them. By taking them from the hands of the customers who supported them, loved the cars and wanted to buy them. This they justifed because they didn't want to shelf parts for a few hundred cars? Come on!

The only way I can believe that there is no evil ulterior motive behind this is if I believe they're just plain stupid. The best R&D this type of car could have had would been if they stayed on road and seen what tears up! I *do believe their stupidity, GM doesn't like being told what kind of car to make. To prove their point, they're saying, If you force us to make a car we don't want to make, we will take that car back and destroy it because we CAN.

aepheme - Aug 20, 2007 10:46 am (#21 Total: 24)

I just finished watching this movie, and it's certainly an effectively produced documentary. As for the validity of the argument, well... There's no need to get into the details (the original blog post was very effective in dismantling them from an automotive insider's viewpoint). But you don't even really have to delve that far to see the major flaw...

This is (at best) a simple conspiracy movie! It's better suited for late-night talk radio and X-files conventions than widespread consumption. The director's asking you to believe that there's a global conspiracy among the auto manufacturers to kill this technology (at great cost to themselves). How likely is this? This is a highly competitive market. It borders on ridiculous to believe that there's some dark room where the CEOs of the major auto companies get together and decide on different technologies (oh, and let's not forget that Big Oil is the one actually pulling the strings).

It's just silly. If this were truly a viable business opportunity, one of the auto manufacturers wouldn't have hesitated for a second to commercialize it! Do you really think they'd pass up a chance to make money and gain an advantage over their competitors?

Wake Up! There is NO global conspiracy. How can people believe this tripe?

kurtdaniel - Sep 28, 2007 6:19 pm (#22 Total: 24)

Timing is everything and the GM EV was designed and developed in a period when US fuel prices were very low.
Because of the low interest on the part of the buying public, the program was phased out. Unfortunately near the end of the phaseout there was a fuel price spike.
So it is quite easy to "Monday morning quarterback" GM's decision to terminate the program.
Even at $3/gallon there does not seem to be that much interest in very small cars.
The Honda 2 seat hybrid of similar size to the EV1 is being discontinued also..Vw muffler

erevman - Feb 8, 2008 8:27 pm (#23 Total: 24)

erevman - Feb 9, 2008 8:08 pm (#24 Total: 24)

Karl’s Lie #1: No one wanted the car.

Oh really? Every single EV1 that was made found a leasee. Inspire of the fact that it was expensive and you had to wait on a list for months. Not one EV1 ever sat on a lot waiting for someone to lease it. They were spoken for before they even came off the assembly line. GM could not keep up with demand. Even Mel Gibson had to wait to get one! You say Jetta is a better car? How many miles can the Jetta go without burning any gas? Zero. The EV1? Up to 150 miles. I love how you quote only the EV1’s worst possible range of 60 miles. That was for the first generation EV1 that had lead-acid batteries which could get between 60 and 80 miles per change. You did the same with the charge time you quote of 15 hours. The gen 2 EV1 with NiMH batteries could fully charge in 2 hours.

Karl’s Lie #2
Electricity is dirtier that gas because most power plants are coal fired.

Wrong. Only 50% of the plants in the USA are coal and even if they were all coal electricity would still be cleaner because electric cars are 80% effecant while gas cars are about 30% efficient. Also, the coal plant’s stack is far away from the city while the gas cars tailpipe is right there in the city filling everyone’s lungs with particulates. Coal plant’s emissions can be cleaned and scrubbed. We can also replace coal plants with cleaner alternatives without everyone having to toss their car and buy a new one. I for one want to see us stop sending trillions of dollars to the middle east where they hate us. Don’t you think our trade imbalance is bad?

Karl’s Lie #3
“GM purposely made the EV1 perform poorly so that it could never succeed.”

Where did this come from? Did you not watch the movie? Every owner in the movie loved the performance! It had a zero to 60 time around 7-8 seconds! That was great for an economy car in the 1990s!

Karl’s Lie #4 It is not the oil companies that are evil it is the people that made the movie are evil and out to make a profit by it.

Oh really? Then why did GM sell the patent to the special NiMH battery to two oil companies that are refusing to let anyone use it to make large batteries? And why did GM lobby the federal government to get them to sue California into dropping the Zero Emission regulation? Why did they stop making a car that they developed almost for free on tax payer money that they couldn’t make fast enough to keep up with demand?

References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug-in_hybrid#Patent_encumbrance_of_NiMH_batteries
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_EV1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Killed_the_Electric_Car%3F
http://www.ev1.org/msg/6.htm
http://www.ev1.org/msg/3.htm
http://ev1.org/index.htm