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?

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: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.