Who killed the electric car? Who cares?

Not cost effective.

Old technology. And they were pretty much hand built. So very cost prohibitive.

Now, if they had simply kept the model going, improved on them, etc. THEN they would be lord god kings of the automotive industry. But they were shortsighted and impatient. They just didn't have the patience or the farsight to wait.

I'm sure they haven't abandoned what they developed and learned from the EV1. I'm sure whatever ideas and technologies they can salvage will be incorporated into the Volt.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Jun 16 2007, 05:21 PM) [snapback]463155[/snapback]</div>

Yea right, Like the Volt is gonna happen.

we'll see when it gets here.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TomorrowMatters @ Jun 16 2007, 07:39 PM) [snapback]463164[/snapback]</div>

I hear the Volt will run on water and emit only pure oxygen. In fact, I've heard it cleanses the atmosphere as you drive it.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(nytimez @ Jun 16 2007, 11:51 PM) [snapback]463321[/snapback]</div>

It flies to, like the pigs out of my butt.

 

What a great movie that was. It was quite an eyeopener for me. It just amazes me that GM argues that they heavily marketed the car... I was in my middle 30's at the time when the EV1 was developed. I never even knew that such a vehicle was available...NEVER! I did not see one advertisement. Had I known that such a car was available, I would have jumped on the chance to buy one!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(priusFTW @ Jun 17 2007, 05:52 PM) [snapback]463580[/snapback]</div>

You didn't see all those 5-second ads on cable access at 3am?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(JackDodge @ Jun 16 2007, 05:57 PM) [snapback]463148[/snapback]</div>

They probably did.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(burritos @ Jun 16 2007, 11:47 PM) [snapback]463346[/snapback]</div>

in flight mode, the oxygen omitted from the volt turns into 100 dollar bills.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(priusFTW @ Jun 17 2007, 05:52 PM) [snapback]463580[/snapback]</div>

You probably didn't know about Toyota's EV at the time either. Those bastards at Toyota! They canceled their EV program too!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Marlin @ Jun 18 2007, 09:21 AM) [snapback]463913[/snapback]</div>

Toyota did act shamefully on a few accounts including taking back leases and crushing <or otherwise disposing of working electric cars> but they were the only major car company to SELL full sized electric cars to consumers. Not that it was easy getting one but there are a number of them out there on the road today. I am sure one of our forum readers has one.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Marlin @ Jun 18 2007, 08:21 AM) [snapback]463913[/snapback]</div>

Actually, probably every major car maker had an EV program. Only everyone else didn't actually make one, only to steal them back and destroy them all.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Marlin @ Jun 18 2007, 09:21 AM) [snapback]463913[/snapback]</div>

I wonder why? Why did all the auto companies who made EV vehicles no longer makes them? Because it makes no economic sense!!! It's in economic 101 ( I still have the book). In general, a company will not or discontinue making a product that does't make a profit in a market economy, which we have here in America. There are exceptions--the prowler, viper (surely those two cars contribute to Chrysler's losing money. GM claims they lost 1and 1/2 billion on the EV program. I am sure all the other companies also lost money. I wonder where the battery technology would be today if all the billions spent on the ev program was spent on battery R&D for cars. GM and the other car companies will make cars that will run on anything, including cow chips, cooking oil, solar, nuclear, etc. if it makes them money.

 

It's pretty clear that GM didn't want EVs to succeed. A lot of good technology came out of the effort. Frankly, I think the biggest thing hurting EVs is their reliability and lack of ongoing service/maintenance. This will kill dealerships. Since most auto mfgs have a lot of money tied up in dealerships it doesn't surprise me that there's not a lot of interest in making EVs work. It's a pandora's box thing. Once somebody does it, everybody will have to follow suit. But no one wants to because they'll lose a cash cow.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jtmhog @ Jun 18 2007, 02:20 PM) [snapback]464133[/snapback]</div>

Doesn't make economic sense? Isn't that what that Liar Lutz said about the Prius ? ... Fact is, GM would gladly destroy a long term profit idea, if it dared to interfere with their gas guzzlin monster SUV short term profit products.

 

Did you not hear the interviews with an actual mechanic who worked on the EV-1's ?? He said the regenerative braking (much like system used in Prius) was so efficient in "braking" the vehicle that they never had to replace a set of brake linings in ANY of the EV-1's !!
Did you also see how trying to maintain the EV-1 would "crunch" not only gasoline station business, but would almost shut-down places like Midas Muffler, Jiffy Lube, and even the GM service centers if eventually the majority of vehicles in America were electric. Imagine, no more oil or air filters would be sold, no more mufflers or tailpipes, no spark plugs, distributor caps, catalytic converters, no fuel filters, NO OIL, no gasoline, etc., etc. Just tires, wiper blades and occasional shock absorbers !! And after a few fender benders, the body shops would be okay in the game, but others would slowly "die" as the EV-1 matured and started selling to the masses !!

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=htt...D1%26safe%3Doff

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(hill @ Jun 18 2007, 02:36 PM) [snapback]464143[/snapback]</div>

OK, so GM is evil, Lutz is a liar, and EV cars from 5 to 10 years ago were fantastically profitable and were in such high demand that they could have sold hundreds of thousands of them. If that's so, they why did every other car maker, including Toyota, abandon their EV product lines?

 

Written by: Kermit Whitfield, Senior Associate Editor

The Once and Future Electric Car. "Why did we abandon the electric vehicle?" asks Dr. Jean Botti, chief technologist at Delphi Corp.'s Innovation Center. He pauses, then answers his own rhetorical question, "Two reasons: range and battery cost." Find a way to mitigate those two drawbacks, he posits, and there is no good reason why plug-in electric vehicles (EVs) couldn't be back on the road, and this time in much higher volumes. The idea sounds slightly subversive. After all, if there is one path in the automotive industry's recent technological history that most can agree was a dead end it is plug-in electrics. But the problem with those vehicles lay almost entirely in their reliance on heavy, expensive conventional batteries, not in the electric motors used or their control electronics. Replace those batteries with a power source that is durable, lightweight and offers a range analogous to an internal combustion engine, and suddenly plug-in electrics become a viable option. For Botti that power source is a solid-oxide fuel cell (SOFC). He proposes a powertrain concept unglamorously called "EV range extender" that is similar in layout to the ones that drive hybrid vehicles today, but instead of an internal combustion engine powering the electric motor, there is the SOFC running on diesel fuel. Also unlike a hybrid, this system would bring back the bank of batteries used in EVs, but greatly downsize it to reduce cost and weight and increase usable packaging space. Delphi's modeling suggests that a 100-kg lithium battery array would meet necessary performance criteria and save enough space to turn a two-seater into a four-seater.

The improvements are compelling. Using an EV equipped with nickel-metal hydride batteries for comparison, Botti estimates that Delphi's SOFC powertrain would be 329 kg lighter (560 kg vs. 231 kg); have the capacity to store more than 10 times more energy (1081 MJ vs. 100 MJ); and would have a driving range of 350 miles instead of the EV's abbreviated 110 miles. But like the old EVs, the range extender would depend primarily on its electric plug for motive power. "85% of trips will run on grid power alone," says Botti. For the other 15% he thinks an SOFC is the best answer that will be available in the near-term. "Hydrogen fuel cells will come very far down the road," Botti predicts. That road stretches 25 years out. In the meantime, SOFC could help fill the gap. He ticks off some advantages of solid oxide over hydrogen fuel cells:

1. No new fueling infrastructure needed since SOFC can run on a variety of fuels including gasoline and diesel.

2. SOFCs operate at 800[degrees]C and generate plenty of recoverable heat, making them practical for cold climates.

3. Material costs should be lower since SOFCs are made with ceramics and don't require the precious metals currently needed by hydrogen units.

Still, Botti says it will probably take a decade or so before we see the SOFC-enhanced EVs on the road. But in as little as four years from now he expects SOFC technology to be available on a smaller scale as an auxiliary power unit (APU) that would replace a vehicle's 12-V battery and raise fuel-to-electric efficiency from the current 10-17% to 35-50%. Which raises the question: If the technology will be ready in four years why not bring on the EV range extender sooner? The answer is market economics. According to Botti, an SOFC APU would compete with alternatives like starter/generators which generate power for about $150/kW, but if the technology went head-to-head with an internal combustion engine as a primary power source it would have to fall within the $30-$50/kW range, which is too tall an order for the fledgling system in the near-term. What Botti leaves unsaid is that the failure of a few APUs on production vehicles could probably be taken in stride, but if motorists were left stranded by malfunctioning SOFC units, widespread adoption of the technology could be doomed. So the strategy is to gain some years of real-world data with the APU and then move on to a full-fledged SOFC hybrid powertrain. "It's a step-by-step evolution," says Botti.

Right now the chief technologist seems less concerned with the technology itself than the economies of scale needed to bring it to market. "I'm not too worried about the mechanics," he says, "But the fuel cell has to become cheaper. We need to work on getting the volume up."

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(nytimez @ Jun 16 2007, 11:51 PM) [snapback]463321[/snapback]</div>

It's the automotive equivalent of celery; consumes more calories to chew it than you gain by eating it.