In 1996 an all electric car was built by GM by the states that could of solved one of our polution problems, and our dependency on gas. Inside of paying 3-4 dollars of gallon for gas, we would of been paying 60 cents for the electricity. So the question is what happened to this car? where did id disapear to?
2006-07-25 09:19:43 · 12 answers · asked by tiggersworld2001 1 in Environment
I work for a transportation research program and we have a GM EV. To answer all your questions, the EV1's aren't some sort of revolutionary vehicle. It is a car with a huge heavy bank of regular automotive batteries strapped to the undercarriage. Like someone said earlier, the first electric cars were made years ago, it's not some amazing feat. If it were so great it would have gone to market, the government or oil companies didn't kill it or whatever, that is the dumbest thing I have ever heard. I wish you all had the chance to drive this one and you would stop all this rambling about your conspiracies. It barely drives 100 miles on a charge, and that is after we did some tweaking to it. Once you get to like half charge the batteries drain quick. We recently crawled back to our office in it going like 4 mph, very unsafe on the highway.
Yeah, you could make electric vehicles and with current battery technology you could make one that drove a good distance, but the cost would be phenomenal. The technology just wasn't there back in '96 and it's not quite here today either. No one killed the electric car, GM realized it wasn't all that and was kind of embarrased and didn't want the first "flopped" electric vehicle on their record.
2006-07-26 02:42:50 · answer #1 · answered by Gekko 3 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Forget about 1996, the first electric cars were made in the 1800's. That's right EIGHTEEN hundreds, not nineteen hundreds. The problem is that battery technology did not progress as fast as internal combustion engine technology, so most cars today are not electric. Golf carts are a notable exception, since they don't have to go fast or far and don't have air conditioning.
2006-07-25 09:31:54 · answer #2 · answered by campbelp2002 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
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The question you ask is partially answered by the new movie "Who Killed the Electric Car", but I have another answer for you.
GM's EV1 electric car is dead, but its children are not dead.
The designer of the 'guts' of the EV1, the advanced electric drivetrain, went on to start his own company, called 'AC Propulsion.' That company licensed the technology to Tesla Motors, who have just announced an all-electric sports car:
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http://www.teslamotors.com
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This car answers all the objections. It does 0-60 in 4 seconds. Top speed 130mph. Travels 250 miles on a charge. And the batteries charge in only 3-1/2 hours.
Electricity to run it costs onlt 1 cent per mile (if you charge at night, using off-peak electricity, there's plenty of juice to support millions of Teslas.)
It's expensive as heck, but they're working on a cheaper one, too.
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2006-07-25 11:31:18 · answer #3 · answered by apeweek 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
GM did not want to market or maintain the EV1. The EV1 could not be purchased, only leased; when the lease term expired, the cars had to be turned back over to GM. Some EV1s are in storage, certainly. Scuttlebutt has it that most were destroyed.
2006-07-25 13:23:15 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
definite, i ought to. I said a documentary that reported the automobiles were leased by the automobile corporation. contained in the top they took all of them decrease back and trashed them. there are a range of of effective pastimes that choose you to stay with the combustion engine. Your mechanic for one. They take a lot extra aspects and upkeep than an electric powered automobile.
2016-10-15 05:02:53 · answer #5 · answered by ? 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It was not economically viable. When the consumers want an electrical car enough that the manufacturers can make a profit producing it, they will be available.
2006-07-28 11:43:04 · answer #6 · answered by Ray 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
they were not successful for a start you couldn't plug them in anywhere except home you couldn't pop in to your local garage to plug them in to recharge the batteries new ones are coming on the market that will switch over from petrol to electric but until garages have an outlet for them they wont be going very far from home....
2006-07-25 09:25:15 · answer #7 · answered by madison 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
When you think about how much money oil companies would lose (who have strong ties to governments), its not that much of a mystery.
New movie coming out: Who Killed the Electric Car?
http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1809353030/info
2006-07-25 09:24:21 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 0⤋
President Bush and his oil company buddies bought the patent.
2006-07-25 09:26:25 · answer #9 · answered by E C 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
no one wanted it.
it did not go very far.
you could only plug it in at home.
when you drove somewhere you could not plug it in.
if you turned the lights on while you drove it reduced the distance even more.
it did not go very fast.
2006-07-25 11:45:18 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋