Who Killed The Electric Car
Who Killed The Electric Car
Was GM's EV1 electric car project deliberately killed by the motor and oil industry?
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The EV1 was an electric car developed by General Motors between 1996 and 1999, and marketed in California. With a maximum range of 80-100 miles per charge, the two-seat elecric car was very popular with those lucky enough to drive one of the 1,100 manufactured. However GM made the decision to lease rather than sell the cars to consumers, and recalled and crushed all the vehicles when they cancelled the project against the wishes of the lease-holders 100 of whom offered to buy their cars and waive their ongoing product liability rights.
The EV1 offered impressive performance with acceleration from 0-60 mpg in just 8 seconds and a computer-limited top speed of 80mph. Thanks to its ultra-low wind resistance coefficient (just 0.195) and electric motor the car was virtually silent even at highway speeds. The 26 12 volt lead-acid batteries held almost 20kWh of energy and could be 80% charged in just a couple of hours. Full charging took eight hours.
GM invested over £0.5 billion developing and marketing the EV1 with at least £300 million spent on research and development of the vehicle. Their claim that the project was not financially viable as it stood cannot be disputed - each EV1 had a sale value of around $40,000, but cost $80,000 to develop and manufacture. Obviously the more cars they made, the lower the per unit costs would have been due to economies of scale, but GM claim that there was not a market for their product.
Why GM then decided to destroy the remaining models when cancelling the EV1 project is subject to a lot of controversy. A recent documentary film called Who Killed The Electric Car discusses the history of the electric car in particular looking at General Motors and the EV1. The film analyses the roles of the oil companies, car companies, government, batteries, hydrogen fuel cells, and consumers in the death of the EV1 electric car project.
You can read General Motors' counter arguments at the GM Blog titled Who Ignored the Facts About the Electric Car?. Here a GM spokesperson discusses how the technology used in the EV1 lives on today in their buses, green SUVs, and hydrogen fuel cell powered vehicles. He also reiterates how the EV1 was not financially viable since there was not a market for pure electric cars.
Interestingly General Motors now have a new concept vehicle, the Volt electric car which will have a battery powered range of just 40 miles, but will have an onboard petrol engine which can recharge the batteries on the go and increase the range to 640 miles at 50 mpg. This vehicle is still a good few years away from production.
Article Last Modified: 10:47, 9th Jan 2007Comment on this Article
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