Featured GM could have led the electric revolution with the EV1

They may still have a chance at being the leader.... As in, separate from Tesla, the dominant force in EV vehicle manufacturing is still up for grabs over the next ten years.

And thanks for sharing this article! I'm a big fan of aluminum Gen1 Honda insight and this EV1 almost seems like an early predecessor of that design.

 

I had a GM EV1 lease. It was a sad day when they took it back at the end of the lease. I moved to the 2000 Honda Insight MT. Now I have a 2011 Prius, two 2000 Honda Insights, and a 2011 Honda CR-Z.


iPad ?

 

No.
They couldn't have.
Anybody who thinks differently either wasn't around during the 1990s OR they were taught history by the same assistant football coaches teaching social studies and history that make the American school system what it is...

As it is....Hybrids took a full decade of scratching and clawing to gain currency after they were real-world useful- ALONG WITH a certain reputation shared by bicyclists, vegans, US soccer fans, and other cross-grainers.
The only reason that EV's are getting boot-strapped a little more rapidly NOW lies in the fact that the EV-2 was NOT a short ranged, slow, marginally built, hideously ugly car but rather a FAST AS HELL, visually attractive, roadster....one example of which is currently in an elliptical heliocentric orbit which is being tracked on the web by many MANY EVangelists.

Of course.....getting massive tax kickbacks didn't hurt either.

GM could have gone along on the ride, and it could be argued that both they and FoMoCo ARE going along for the ride.....along with the rest of us, but the EV-1?

Nope.
Not even close.

The early bird gets the worm, but it's the SECOND mouse that gets the cheese!

 

i'm still waiting for the revolution...

 

You seem to believe GM was incapable of doing what Toyota did making an efficient car, a 1st Gen hybrid or a 1st Gen EV.
Also the EV1 was anything but slow compared to normal gas chuggers of the day
The NIMH version was comparable if not better than the first Nissan Leafs on the market

GMs engineers hands were tied by GMs desire to not do the legwork to make the chassis itself a production intent vehicle.
GM made many components out of billet to avoid engineering time and casting/metallurgical costs which is kindergarten engineering level stuff.
I will take the EV1 engineers mathematical ability to calculate costs of each component once corrected for production intent over your belief.

Had GM taking the nod seriously instead of manipulating legislation they would have had a better product than the 1st Gen Insight a year earlier. AKA A hybrid or a very efficient 5speed diesel.

As it was CARB and GM was moving toward a hybrid or even just a fuel efficient vehicle and the BEV was never going to be on the table for mass production.

That’s the reality of the time.

And yes had Cali kept pressure you would have seen very small numbers of BEVs and GM + others would have likely been far ahead of where they are today in a variety of competencies, including hybrids and Chassis building.

The EV1 as a plain 3cylinder diesel would have had an 80mpg+ highway rating
As a hybrid the city metric would have been nearly as good.
As a country there would have been at least 4 hybrids on the market not just the Gen1 Insight/Prius

It is also possible that a low range PHEV would have arrived 5 years earlier.
The Volt actually was a steel EV1 chassis, tunnel and all and recycled much of the earlier engineering effort for the body.

True the plug ins would only be in very small numbers 2000-2009 but it still would have been better all around with more choice early in the market and GM would have been forced into thinking of how to build small efficient chassis which they and Ford have always fought.

It is also worth noting that EV battery costs have dropped about 3x faster than what was expected in 2010
If GM were forced to make hybrids and small numbers of plug ins I can guarantee battery costs would have dropped in the “historic” era making the 2011 models less expensive to build.

Roads not taken…

 

Nope.
I didn't SAY that and I don't believe that.

The MARKET said that....and the MARKET believed that.

Unlike the fanboys who write all of the "if only" articles I actually had renewed my driver's license a few times by the late 90's, and I actually remember what was going on at the time.
I also seem to recall that when the Prius hit the market in 1997 they were only available in Japan....and they had to claw their way into the market kicking and screaming before they went "mainstream" some 7-8 years after the NHW10 model kicked off......and BY "mainstream" I mean when the G2's started to become "popular" in the early 2000s....and by "popular" I mean viable only as a niche vehicle in alabaster deserts with inversion layers where 2x gas prices and other enhancements almost paid for the "hybrid premium."

GM could not (then as now) pierce the Asian market...only for different reasons (think trade restrictions, labor union efficiency, and the market differences) and Diesels (then as now) are HORRIBLE as private passenger cars for anyone who cares about the environment, or, (outside the EU) their company's bottom line.

When the EV-1 hit the market it was thought (at the time, by Motortrend, who actually wrote one of the puff-pieces) to be about a $30,000, 2 seat roadster with about a 9-second 0-60 time and about a 90 mile range.
GM didn't sell any because it was never intended to be a consumer product, but rather a government funded technology demonstrator......and EVangelists have some valid bones to pick about THAT, but facts don't care about people's opinions.
They would have been JUST as expensive, JUST as slow, JUST as small, and JUST as range limited.....and......JUST as reliable as a for-sale car as they were as a for-lease car.
HONDA did the same thing for the same reason with it's Clarity (which may be available for sale by now if you're a huffer!)
I bought a car in the mid-1990s that had the exact same seating capacity as the EV-1, for about half of its initial horribly underestimated street price.
It was MUCH faster, Much quicker, and an order of magnitude more maneuverable.
It was more reliable, but that's no suprise since my roadster was built in Nagasaki and not Detroit.
It had faaaaaar better range....and I even got halfway decent mileage (33mpg at the time.)
Of course....I had to give it up when I got married BECUASE it was a two seater and 2 seaters are only marketable to a very small segment of drivers.....BOTH in 1996 AND 2021.

I'll leave the aesthetics of the 1996 EV1 versus a comparably priced 2 seat $30,000-$50,000 car (based on the 1996 leasing values) alone because....EVangelists actually HAVE solved THAT part of the riddle.....which is ONE of the reasons that the EV2....EV3....EVrestofthem are gaining market share. Infrastructure and (real-world) pricing are others.....and EVs are starting to meet those challenges as well!

Because?
It ain't 1996 any more!

 

gm screws itself over and over with EV.

their current endeavor to try and cash in on the high end suv market with the ev Hummer will fail miserably. yaaaaaa, I know, celebrities will buy them, and trucks in the $110,000+range are not uncommon at all right now... but gm always screws up when it comes to ev.

they're REALLY good at making huge profit margin SUVs but terrible at staying committed to the ev market.

it would be awesome to see them throw some of those profits at the bolt/volt lines, but they just cannot let go of the "hybridburban" dream.

 

Except GM is making a gen2 Bolt with a crossover version. With a big price cut compared to the gen1.

 

Extremely hard to find much about the Gen 2 Bolt, some say 2025 ETA and the reveal was missed

 

The 2022 is the new, redesigned one.

 

Yes, if it had a 10 year life cycle.

The Bolt came out for 2017. 2022 will be the sixth year. All the articles on it are saying redesign, which usually isn't used for a refresh.

 

models X & S ..... both aluminum skinned. As aluminum is more difficult to form into body sections, it becomes more costly as well as difficult to repair/rework. That's the trade-off. Having gone on the manufacturing tour up in Fremont California, what caught my eye was how much scrap X & S (rework-able) body parts had been set aside.
.

Must be because of the lessons learned & know your audience.

.

 

GM sent out questionnaires asking if buyers would be interested in a fully electric car. Over 5000 said they would be, but a little more than 1100 leased the car. You can't say GM didn't try.

 

iirc gm took them back and crushed them instead of improving them?

 

So had Toyota with first RAV4 EV.

 

And the Honda EVs that were in the junkyard, ready to be crushed, in Who Killed The Electric Car.

 

So might Honda with their gas bags.
That's supposition, but IIRC the Clarity is lease only - just like the EV1 was.

It makes a lot of sense for a dot.com to do a lease-only run on a limited run technology demonstrator
AND...that's all the EV1 was SUPPOSED to be.

Ops Normal.

GM didn't "kill" the EV (obviously) because EV's aren't dead, and while it's true that they did not lead the 'revolution' a lot of water has gone under the bridge since 1996....and a "revolution" among other things...is a fundamental and relatively sudden organizational change.
GM was (and some say IS) inertially bound, and poorly suited to MAKE that fundamental change...suddenly or otherwise.

Japan OTOH is an island nation that has population densities (for NOW!) and energy paucities that incentivize a shift away from fossil.......and even THEN they did it (and are DOING it) incrementally.

People think that the Hybrids suddenly emerged, fully formed from the dust of the earth, forgetting about the years and years of struggling that it took for them to go from "wow" to 'meh...'

Years from now they might make the same historical revisions for electrocars.