Featured Prius Gets Respected

it's not an easy task, but i must say, comparing prius to volt shows her naivety on the industry. making a hybrid was a lot more difficult than making the ev1, or any ev, and a lot easier to sell.

although many look at it as complicated, for those willing to engage, they found it was the same as any car. start it, drive it, fill it with gas, rinse and repeat.

and to be truthful, i don't think gm missed out on anything, they are holding their own in new technology, and past problems were a result of union decisions and recession, not technology.

 

ev1 was not really an easy task at all, but it would not have sold all that well. Still they had the phev version, and the 4 seat version, and the nimh patents. They could have had a nimh volt much earlier, and toyota even wanted to partner with them on the prius.

Bob Lutz and Rick Wagoner both admitted dropping the ev1 and not investing in hybrids were huge mistakes. They took the money and spent it on making hydrogen prototypes, and 4 versions of the same car.

Take a look at GM in 2002 versus 2008. 2009 is when wagoner resigned.
GM ends 2002 with $1 billion Q4 profit - MarketWatch
In 2008 gm lost $30B.

GM certainly made other mistakes, but it squandered technical leadership, and both of the guys in the room said killing the ev1 was one of their worst mistakes.

 

The 1998 EV1 would compete nicely with the 68 mile, 2016 smart for two. My 2014 BMW i3-REx has a 72 mile EV range and 78 mile REx range and only seats four.

Bob wilson

 

compete, yes, but what does that mean in terms of sales? almost nothing.

let's not forget this little thing called recession. i don't believe gm's bankruptcy would have been any different, had they continued the electric car program. in fact, the extra losses might have exacerbated it.

 

agreed, but those toxic fields were there long before the ev1 was crushed. there's no question that gm could have been further along, or that toyota kept their eye on the prize. but gm tech is doing fine, and volt blueprints were on the table long before the bankruptcy.
and aren't you the fellow who keeps criticizing toyota's lack of a bev?

 

The smart ED's range is a big limitation, but if I had a commute that it could work for, I'd consider it.
It only needs half a car space in the garage. The EV1 can't beat that.

 

EV1s at the advanced technology GM facility.

Bob Wilson

 

But one of those would still use up a whole car space, unless I Green Horneted it and had the floor flip over.

 

OK so we have a misinterpretation here. In 2002, instead of working to killl the ev1, and sell the battery patents to texico, GM could have worked on its 4 seat ev1 and phev ev1. In 2004 gm who was already partnered with toyota on NUMMI could have easily shared hybrid tech with toyota at very low or no cost as ford did.

Instead they squandered a lead, and pissed off customers. This was the bean counters run at GM, with short term profits and cost cutting pissing off portential and current customers.

The GM team could have easily had a nimh volt out in 2007 as gas prices were rising. Instead they disbanded and demoralized the team. This hurt both engineering and marketing. GM had already test marketed the volt idea to overcome short falls in the ev1, but .... they decided they wanted to invest engineering resources to build 4 versions of the same car, and to push into fuel cells instead. The marketing message was pretty clear, gm didn't care about fuel economy, so when gas prices rose, gm lost tens of billions.