GM EV1 Electric Car

[Honduh]

So my Uncle rented a movie call "Who Killed the Electric car" and insisted that I watched it, so I did last night. It was released in 2006. It is the story of the GM EV1 which was a revolutionary car at its time. It was the answer to the CA law of 10% of vehicles being sold in the state must be 0% emissions by 2003. The car was on the roads from 1996-2003 when GM took ALL of them back after their lease was up. The car was only offered under a lease and didn't cost much more than any other car lease. They were only able to be found at Saturn dealers, but didn't carry the Saturn badge, it was simply badged a GM. It was able to get 80-120 miles on a single charge and the cost to charge them was about "60 cents a gallon", and had no problem reaching highway speeds. It was powered by a 137hp 3-phase AC induction motor. In the movie the EV1 was actually seen out accelerating a miata and a 300zx. Other car companys like Toyota and Ford answered to this by simply converting already existing cars to fully electric adn were able to use the same docking stations to charge their batteries. They seem to only have been available in California and parts of Arizona. Docking stations where installed at peoples homes and places of work, and some housing developments even had stations where 10 or so cars were able to be parked and charged. Apparently you can still find these stations in the states but obviously no cars at them.

After pressures from the oil and car companys CARB dropped their 0 emissions standard and after that, GM canned its EV1 car and program completely. Owners were not offered to renew their lease on their EV1 and were forced to give them back to gm. The last one came off the road in 2003. All EV1's were taking to the GM Proving Grounds and CRUSHED! For no reason. People leasing these cars begged to buy them back from GM but were declined by GM. It quite sad actually. There is ONE EV1 that was not crushed and its in some sort of private collection somewhere but GM made sure it was "disabled" before letting it go. After this ford and toyota also crushed or shredded all of their electric cars.

Maybe if GM didn't end this program and car they wouldn't be begging for Billions of dollars today to bail them out. They now have something in the works called the "Volt", but what if they had kept going back in 1996?

This was GM's response the the Movie:

http://fyi.gmblogs.com/2006/06/who_i..._about_th.html

Here is some more info on the EV1:

http://www.greencar.com/features/gm-ev1/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_EV1

http://www.ev1.pair.com/charge_acros...html/faqs.html

And some info on the movie:

http://www.whokilledtheelectriccar.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_kil...e_electric_car

This is what the car looked like:









And this is what a private station looked like:



And this is what GM did to them once they got all of them back:

[OMGz Turbo]

wow crazyness

[TROLL]

Yeah I saw this and was disturbed enough to start a thread as well here... http://www.tristatetuners.com/forum/...t=electric+car
But yours is pretty good and has a lot of pretty pictures so we can just continue discussion here.
Whats interesting, bringing it to current time, is to read about the Chevy Volt and how much money they've put into it, and how their president says that the success of the company relies on the success of this car. I remember in an interview people asking why they killed the EV1 but are now coming out with another car now... pretty interesting.

[Honduh]

I think they were foolish to get rid of the EV1. After they killed the EV1 they adopted the freaking HUMMER of all things. I bet they wish they would have kept the car going now and they would be one of the main leaders in the electric car foundations of today.

[461_SS]

Originally Posted by Honduh

It was powered by a 137hp 3-phase AC induction motor

Wow, That thing has more hp then my car! lol

[Honduh]

I found the clip I mentioned of the EV1 owning a miata and 300zx:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArrhG...eature=related

[Honduh]

I found these videos too. About the Impact or also know as the EV1 generation 1.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExTQH...eature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_A98NOWmUw

[jdm free]

so why did they destroy them all? and did they only lease them when released?

[OPZ]

There's an article in last months Popular Science about the Volt and the president of GM mention's the EV1 at some press conference since he knows its coming. I can't find the article, but its related to this lil diagram thing: http://www.popsci.com/cars/article/2...-volts-battery

[Honduh]

Originally Posted by jdm free

so why did they destroy them all? and did they only lease them when released?

GM and Texaco and other oil companys destroyed the car. GM sold their stock share of the company producing the batteries to OIL companys. There is over a trillion dollars worth of oil left in the earth and I guess they plan to suck it dry to the last drop.

And yes they only leased them when they were available to basically keep them on a leash.

[tdmopar59]

i saw this in a science class a couple years ago.... i really think it was a pretty cool car...

[jdm free]

Originally Posted by Honduh

GM and Texaco and other oil companys destroyed the car. GM sold their stock share of the company producing the batteries to OIL companys. There is over a trillion dollars worth of oil left in the earth and I guess they plan to suck it dry to the last drop.

And yes they only leased them when they were available to basically keep them on a leash.

damn that sucks. i hate how the govt wants to fund these companies to make alternative fuel vehicles. but i guess they kinda have to otherwise this would happen again

[Stillen GLE]

why the hell did they crush them thats nut's

[jdm free]

Originally Posted by Stillen GLE

why the hell did they crush them thats nut's

what else would u do to keep people from using them?

[Spocknasty]

They did not stock the parts to repair them over years given the low amount of vehicles produced...but does that warrant them being crushed?? Being an experimental vehicle with new technology I can see them not letting people own them. However GM fails for not making a new generation of better electronic vehicles until their asses are on the chopping block.

[Honduh]

They didn't stock the parts because the cars never really broke in the first place. Also there was a huge waiting list for these. GM trys to say that no body wanted them, but they really didn't advertise them very well.

[Eclipse GSX 61]

They sure are fugly.

[Honduh]

You think everything that isn't a burnt orange dsm is ugly.

[Eclipse GSX 61]

Not really. AND ITS NOT ORANGE YOU COLOR BLIND POS lol.

Actually I love Eclipses, Evos, Stis, Talons, Most BMW's, Audi S4's S5's, VW R32's, um basically anything that isnt a Honda except Aaron's.

[Honduh]

Whatever, fanboy. Keep it out of my thread please.