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."

Comments

What you don't see can't hurt you?

[daveschroeder]

Yes, it's sad to see a symbolic engineering marvel like the EV1 go, but all this does is shift the pollution elsewhere. Not to mention not being very practical at all.

See here 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, 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?

[Retric]

Solar cells work they produce way more energy over their lifetime than it takes to make them. But there are other methods of generating energy from solar power that are much cheaper. One simple method is to use a solar collector to heat water then either use that water directly to say heat a house or use it to generate electricity. Another is to have a tracking solar collector to magnify the amount of light hitting your solar cell thus giving you 10x the energy from that solar cell over it's life time with the cost of some cheep plastic lenses.

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.

NPR

[blackmonday]

Search NPR.org for an interesting article. According to GM, there where only 50 people committed to buying an EV1. That didn't stop environmentalists from chaining themselves to the last enclave of EV1s in Burbank, CA.

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.

To heck with hybrid/electric ...

[La0tsu]

Let's get on with diesel. Why?

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/

Re:To heck with hybrid/electric ...

[QuantumRiff]

They have these, they are called Locomotives. Check out Howstuffworks.com's article on locomotives. The big (okay HUGE) diesel engine goes between 300-900 rpm, all it does is power a generator, that runs an electric motor on each axle. Instant tourqe, lots of power, regenerative braking, and no big, heavy, nasty to work on transmission.. (the article talks about a transmission strong enough for a locomotive to get up to over a 100Mph would require a 32 speed transmission that would weigh twice as much as the locomotive)

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:Hybrids replaced electric cars

[n1ywb]

You get BETTER range and BETTER milage in CITY conditions. They electric system is only beneficial during acceleration, so it's great in stop and go traffic. Cruising on the highway it provides no benefit, in fact the extra weight reduces your mileage slightly. People don't understand that and that's why some people have been whining that their hybrids don't get the mileage they expected. If you do mostly highway cruising you really are better off with a normal, fuel efficient gasoline vehicle.

Of course on the highways here in the NYC area, and in most metro areas, stop and go is the rule.

Re:No surprise, this.

[einTier]

Car and Driver had an excellent article about these cars a few years back.

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:Hybrids replaced electric cars

[huge colin]

The gas-electric hybrid sounds good, until one realizes that they're heavier, more complex, and therefore substantially more expensive than an equivalent gasoline-engined car.

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.