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?

[cmowire]

Hey, it'll happen.

Remember, every time you see "hydrogen", it's a code word for "nuclear".

Sure, we may end up switching to hydrogen fuel cells in lots of places. But that's mostly because it's far more efficent than any other storage mechanism for power, even after the losses in electrolysis efficency to convert water to hydrogen and the losses in fuel cell efficency to convert it back to water again.

The thing is, if they said, "We need to research how to create the nuclear economy, for when the oil runs out," they'd get no money. But if they say, "We need to research the hydrogen economy, for when the oil runs out," and then figure that we'll eventually come to terms with there being no good alternatives to nuclear.

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.

Muted Protests?

[14erCleaner]

The protests would have been better-attended, but many of the protesters were hospitalized for heat exhaustion while trying to bicycle to the desert site.

I drove one.

[MrLogic17]

The feel of it is really just a 2 seater Geo Metro running on batteries. Granted, there was a lot of cool ideas (no key, just a password to get in, and a "run" push button on the dash), but EV1's are *not* ready for prime time.

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

Eradication Fascination

[Shadow Wrought]

I have always pondered human's fascination with things either going extinct or being completely destroyed. Has anyone here really given a thought about the EV-1 in the last few years? Would you have even noticed their dissappearance without a /. story? Yet, because now we know that they are on the verge of compelte destruction, they somehow have a higher value than they did when they were sitting around- but not about to be destroyed.

I wonder if they just made them inoperable (to avoid liability concerns) and sold them as collectable on ebay if they wouldn't make the program profitable after all.

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.

What's wrong with hybrid/electric?

[2nd Post!]

Nothing is stopping hybrid DIESEL.

1) Better efficiency than pure diesel
2) Longer engine life than pure diesel
3) Diesel fule can be produced from non-fossil sources

4) Extra 10 to 40 percent efficiency due to regenerative braking + running the engine at peak efficiency

Parts liabilitt

[husker_man]

These cards didn't need to be destroyed.

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.