Slashdot Mirror
General Motor's EV1 Electric Cars Scrapped
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."
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
Hydrides currently achieve volumetric energy densities 50% better than liquid hydrogen (and safer than gasoline). There's no mention of this on the page you've linked -- but then the writer clearly has a pro-gasoline axe to grind.
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).
>>Won't somebody think of the CARS!!!
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/
- 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.Sustainability and energy independence essay
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.
Hydro; a clean, infinitely renewable resouce.
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 studies 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...
Life, the Universe, and Everything... in my image.
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.
"OH SHIT, THERE'S A HORSE IN THE HOSPITAL!"
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.
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
Goto some Prius enthusiast sites, or this specific page and you'll find there something called warp stealth.
:)
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.