How do you feel about Chevy and its actions regarding the EV1?

Question

I feel that GM did a huge dis-service to its legacy, stockholders, and to the earth in general by killing a perfectly good platform for change.
I also would hope that C.A.R.B. (and any other equal entitiy) would grow a set of balls and re-instate the mandate that big business fought so hard against.

I hope that someone can explain to me why I should support a business that doesn't support it's customers...

For thelochnessmonstah;
Good points, and I appreciate input from somebody who drove one.

I happen to drive a Ford F350 with the 6.9 naturally aspirited engine. I have it all but connected for cooking grease.
(The hoses are there, just not plumbed in for operation)
I am debating whether I want to do a large auxillary tank or keep it like it is with the 19 gallon midship tank.

I also agree that all the rest of the makers dropped the ball also.

Answer 1

I was on the design team for the EV-1. It was always intended to be a commuter vehicle. We knew that the national average commute was 25 miles. That is well within the range of the vehicle.

I do blame GM for not marketing the EV-1 as a commuter vehicle. No plug in electric vehicle will ever be a long distance cruiser. Most of our driving is not the family summer road trip but the short jaunts to the store or to the soccer field for the the kids practice. Or work.

Consider this: If you have a solar voltaic panel array to generate electricity and a Geo thermal heat pump to heat and cool your house that only needs electricity to run. Add an electric vehicle to do your commuting/short hops and you are independent of oil.

BTW even burning bio fuel is still burning fuel. There may be fewer hydrocarbons but there are still hydrocarbons. Get on the no hydrocarbons program.

Answer 2

The EV-1 platform for general mass production is generally a failure due to short drive distances and limited speed, and lack of creature comforts with out seriously effecting range. If you happen to live in close proxiemity to ever place you go to then the car would be viable, but not for a company that needs to make profit to stay alive.

You can convert you own personal car to elecric if you want and have all the same issues you would have in a GM built electric car.

Also Hybrids are the next big lie of the enviromentalists since the car doesn't do its job when they pass me doing 85 on I-10 with there Barrack Obama, and move-on.org stickers covering a full 1/2 the car. HYBRIDS ONLY WORK at speeds less the 65mph when the batterys are capable of doing there job. Plus on average they still don't do much better then a civic with the manual trans. OOOOHHHH 5mpg better I'm saving the earth, and never mind the hazardous batterys in the trunk.

The only way we can get cars capable of using less fuel is to make cars lighter, extremely aerodynamic, and pulling back on EPA emission regulations. Either way no one is going to want to de-regulate to save gas and have a car that can be taken out by a Yaris, and double as your coffin.

Diesel engines are the best option for Bio-fuel since oils from plant material are easier to make currently then the alcohols that would be needed to run in a gas style motor.

Plus the car manufacturers do support us the produce cars we want, and buy. You may have noticed all the new cars rolling around streets. Just becouse you want a car that is not sellable except for at a very high cost then very few people would buy them so then who would really buy them? Chevy has the most cars that can run on E-85 which is the most enviromentally friendly fuel out there.

I want a new 64 riveira's to be built but they don't have them so I get over it and build what I want. I have a 73 boat tail Riv that gets 22mpg with nothing more then perfected Older technology, and is capable of more when I get money for the next round of improvements.

You can do the same buy the car you like, and pay an extra 7500-10000 for the electric conversion and have the EV-2 you want. Many people do this, and you can do the same. Just becouse GM doesn't do it don't let it stop you.

Answer 3

Auto makers are in business to earn a profit as any other company. If the public is not keen on a product for whatever reason, it's not worth the investment of developement dollars to produce it. They have to produce a winning design every time to make money or the R and D money is all for nothing...can't do that too many times or the investors will go somewhere else. That's why hybrid's are in demand, they give basically the same or better performance as an alternative gas only car with better mileage. A combination of performance, reliability, ease of use/maintenance, price, and resale value are all considerations of a marketable car and you can't experiment too much without losing public interest---there's no law forcing people to buy them so it's up to the manufacturer to get it right. There's also a payoff line--the minimum amount of cars sold to make a profit....if enough people don't buy them, it's not worth the investment...a big gamble at times. A mandate only saddles you with making a product that is not viable on it's own merit or is a tool to force people to think in other terms of transportation they may not have considered. Usually, government mandates something but doesn't fund it and expects companies to do the best they can or absorb the cost and guess who eventually pays for it...Mr. Public. If the demand is there, it will get built.

Answer 4

Some thoughts on the EV1.

The EV1 was a fairly crummy platform for change because it came equipped with such ground-breaking features as heavy metal batteries, limited capacity, limited range, and mediocre driving personality. This is because it was a marketing test by General Motors to see if there really was any interest in this sort of a vehicle. They leased 900 of them, and the reviews were great. This is because the sort of person that wants to lease an EV is the sort of person who wants to like it simply because it's electric.

Heavy metal batteries and regionalistic N.I.M.B.Y. power generation pollution aspirations aside, I drove one. I wasn't impressed. It felt somewhat akin to driving a very quiet CRX on skinny tires with a dead cylinder and a 5 gallon gas tank.

It wasn't marketable outside of a very particular niche in southern California if for no other reason than that battery powered cars get even worse range in the cold and low rolling resistance tires aren't exactly exemplary in the poor weather traction department.

Furthermore, why hump GM about it? Honda and Toyota killed their mass production EVs, as did Ford. Chrysler never even got into the game, as far as I know

A final thought: If you want to be a real conservationist, buy a 1980 Chevy 6.2 diesel truck and run it on biodiesel. Save the energy and planetary pillage involved in the creation of new cars and fix an old one from a junkyard.

Answer 5

When GM introduced the EV1 it came out in Los Angeles. The Dept of Water and Power for LA was partnered with GM on the trial. DWP/GM would "loan" a car to selected individuals and DWP would install a charging station at their home. The users were asked to evaluate the car for GM. Wisely GM would not sell any EV1s, at best a conditional lease because it was a "pilot" program.

The public expected to get in a car and have it preform just like a gasoline powered car, it didn't. Around town, and short trips it was OK (off the line performance was on par with most imports). Range was limited., and charging was slow. If you "ran out of gas" you were S.O.L.; the vehicle would have to be towed to a recharge station and sit for 8 hrs. or so. Public charging stations were few and far between.

Granted, most of these problems could eventually be fixed with time, but GM didn't get the reception it needed to invest more time and effort in a high risk endeavor.

Answer 6

good i need better gas milleage cars