> That decision, and the fury it sparked among EV1 lessees who fought to keep their cars, is the subject of Chris Paine’s 2006 documentary “Who Killed the Electric Car?” It is essential viewing for anyone interested in how the auto industry, oil companies, regulators, and consumer culture shaped the trajectory of electric transportation. Paine does not let anyone off the hook easily, and the film holds up as both a piece of investigative storytelling and a snapshot of an industry at a crossroads.
The conspiracy about GM killing the EV1 is very hyperbolic and the documentary is mostly a fantasy.
Carmakers releasing test cars to markets and then destroying them was a common practice - GM did the same with their hydrogen cars, the famous turbine engine cars, and even large scale prototypes like the Aerovette. In many cases they were only able to circumvent safety/testing regulation because these were not registerable cars.
Even if the market tests were successful, the only placed they planned to sell them was California as a compliance car for CARB. No matter how you try to spin it, a lead-acid battery powered car was not ever going to be the car of the future.
> Carmakers releasing test cars to markets and then destroying them was a common practice - GM did the same with their hydrogen cars, the famous turbine engine cars, and even large scale prototypes like the Aerovette. In many cases they were only able to circumvent safety/testing regulation because these were not registerable cars.
The EV1 wasn't just a "test car". It was a production vehicle which was built (as you said) to comply with the California ZEV mandate, which GM also spent millions lobbying against, and eventually defeating, while they were contracting with an outside engineering firm to design the EV1.
TTBOMK, GM didn't spend millions lobbying against turbine engine and hydrogen fuel cell tech.
> It was a production vehicle which was built (as you said) to comply with the California ZEV mandate.
It was never a true production car - none of the cars GM leased were registerable because they did not have a finalized production design submitted to safety or (ironically) EPA standards.
Technically GM did lobby against hydrogen fuel cell tech at the same time because the ZEV mandate specifically also included hydrogen as a potential solution. But no one is accusing GM of also killing the hydrogen car just because it made it less far along the development process.
I know it's the real controversial opinion - but nobody was wrong. The experience of CARB more or less proved that a successful EV was not immediately available. But mass hybridization probably resulted in more measurable emissions savings than the original 10% ZEV goal ever would have.
Yes, and unlike what has been done in the Prius, these were large-format cells. The patents on them ultimately ended up sold to a Chevron subsidiary, which would only license the technology under absurd terms. They assumed that lithium-based battery technologies wouldn't be suitable. Oops.
Yes, the exact same battery technology Toyota was already using in their Prius, which is still in-use in many Toyota hybrid models still on the road. The battery was not the problem.
You couldn't go far on those early Prius batteries. I had a circa-2009 Prius and semi-intentionally ran out of gas to see what happened. I was able to drive a couple of miles to a gas station, but the battery was depleting extremely quickly, and I doubt it would have lasted ten minutes.
Prius had 0.91 kWh battery and the EV1 had 26.4 kWh with NiMH. The EV1 was expensive, $80k to produce in 1996 money. A large part of that had to be the battery.
And despite that expensive battery, it could only go about 100 miles on a charge. For a point of reference, my old Tesla has a nominal 85kWh battery, which I think is actually about 77kWh usable, so about 3x the capacity. And its range is somewhat weak compared to what's typical today.
It's a pretty decent approximation to say that the battery is the only problem for EVs. Everything else is either standard car stuff, or small/cheap/simple enough not to be a major problem. Nearly all of the progress in EVs that we've seen since the EV1 has been down to battery improvements. Take the EV1 and give it a modern battery and it'll be pretty decent. Take any modern EV and give it a 1999 battery and it'll be absolutely awful.
My mom got to test one of these for like 3 months. While only a 2 seater, it was a super cool car. For the time it was very modern. And it was very quiet, it had a gentle horn you could honk so that people knew you were there. She let me drive a few times and it was also very quick.
I've been watching these videos, I'm honestly shocked about the complete 180 gm is pulling...
In the past, they would have wanted the motors disabled and the batteries incapacitated (if they weren't already, because half of them were trash), if they couldn't legally scare you into letting them scrap the car.
I kindof feel like there's some ulterior motive, like they want another museum piece for themselves, or sales are really hurting and they want to drum up some good will. Call me skeptical if you must, but they _really_ didn't want these on the road.
I don’t think it was all that mysterious, or even sinister. The car was a compliance car, it was mandated by the state to exist, and was not at the time a profitable model. All of them were leased. When the mandate expired or whatever, selling the cars instead of taking them back would have meant supporting this very different car for a long time with parts and repair service. This would have been a huge headache, and not worth it by any measure. Yes, they could have attempted to make BEVs happen for the mass market in general, but every carmaker was free to do so and they all seemed to agree that it wasn’t a good risk until Tesla came years later and made that bet with the S and the 3. But that was 15 years of advancement later.
And GM could have crushed all of them, but apparently was proud enough of it and not afraid people would ‘discover its secrets’ and build a new EV, since they decided to just park a half dozen or whatever at schools for students to poke and prod at. I get that the optics of crushing them made them look like a villain from the “Captain Planet” cartoon, but it would have been foolish for them to do anything else.
It's not just that the car was a compliance car, it's that these were experimental models. They were not able to be registered by individuals because they didn't go through all of the mandated safety regulations that normal models do.
It's eternally fascinating that people can't or won't grasp that the cars cost far more to produce than they could put them to market for, instead deciding that it was a big conspiracy.
It took until ~2015 for batteries to become practical for expensive mass market cars.
I am not an expert but I believe that US regulations require that manufacturers make a range of vehicle types to sell on the US market. You don't need to sell a lot of, say, compact cars - but you need to offer a compact car in order to sell your cash-cow large trucks.
CAFE didn't work like this, it was a lot dumber. Basically it weighed the fuel economy for vehicles under 6000 pounds between two categories: passenger cars (sedans, coupes, wagons) and light trucks (vans, SUVs, crossovers). Passenger cars had an MPG target of ~8 MPG higher than light trucks. Car manufacturers that couldn't get their MPG (weighted between sales of the two categories from that manufacturer) below the targets were fined. Essentially this incentivized car companies to sell fewer passenger cars and more light trucks so their target MPG was lower. This is why crossovers have basically taken over the market in the US. Car manufacturers modified their designs to count as light trucks (lowering the MPG by 1-2), but since the target for light trucks is 8 MPG lower than passenger cars, they look more compliant on paper. We've gone from passenger cars making up ~50% of US car sales in 2000 to ~20% of car sales today.
I use the past tense because the Trump admin has gotten rid of the fines for this regulation so it basically doesn't matter anymore (one of the few good moves it's done). It'll be interesting to see if small cars are able to make a recovery in the US, or if it's too late.
I am sure it'll be a few years as manufacturers will worry that a future admin (if we get such a thing lol) could un-remove the fees - but it would be wonderful to see actual small trucks again.
CAFE wasn't 'dumb', it was designed to prevent the 'big three' from manufacturing (new generations of) small cars outside the USA (i.e. in Mexico), with non-UAW labor. CAFE was not designed to protect the environment or reduce emissions; that was just a PR veneer to make it more palatable. You're completely correct that it led to strange designs, perhaps most notably the PT Cruiser (which was classified as a truck https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysler_PT_Cruiser).
And it killed a bunch of useful smaller truckish vehicles because they scored poorly. The Ford Ranger, the Chevy Astro, the Crown Vic and every other sedan with a big ass.
And even now, the fantasy of the $30,000 EV hasn't really been realized. In the US, your only option right now is the Leaf, but good luck finding one for under $32,000.
If that was the fantasy even 6 years ago, the fantasy should have been updated for inflation to a $40,000 EV. I don’t even mean to exaggerate — that’s how much inflation we’ve had since 2020. We have plenty of sub-$40k EVs.
I thought they destroyed them all because they didn't want to have to provide the legally required parts and service for them. Now that they are in classic car territory, those requirements no longer exist.
I find the obsession with ev1 very US centric. There were many many other electric cars released before EV1. I think that documentary is to blame for this, GM was not the only company exploring EV's and there were other players as well. They just, for some reason or another, did not commit to it fully.
It's nice, and special, and purpose built, and quasi-production, and so on. Not just a Peugeot hatch or BMW 2002 or VW Golf or some Aixam quadricycle bejaardewagen with an electric drivetrain crudely crammed in, but a proper car designed by a major manufacturer from the ground up as an EV. I think it's pretty cool. I wish somebody would take molds off an EV1 and sell a kit car or Miata body shell.
This is common for all cars of all makes. You want people to buy new ones so there is an areg where old cars are a liability. People buying new cars trade them in after three years, so you want some value left so they can afford that, but you want them to wear out in about 12 so that people have reason to keep buying more instead of keeping the old. Then after about 25 years it is a collectors car and you can be proud of the few left - they are not impacting new sales much (if any) and give people reason to dream about cars.
This is part of GM's broader marketing push to drum up goodwill from younger people. It's the same reason why they have a youtube series about the beginnings of the Cadillac F1 team, which is clearly produced for zoomer and millenial audiences.
I don't think there's anything nefarious here, they are just cultivating a particular image to try to sell cars. It's a reasonable marketing strategy, as marketing strategies go.
If you’ve watched these guys videos, you would know it’s not some sort of cartoon villain trap. They took them to Detroit, showed them a ton of stuff, let them talk to a bunch of very sincere and cool engineers, gave them a bunch of unobtainium spare parts, and gave interviews on the record with executives. Let’s just say GM’s PR department is running a lot better than their cars do these days. Someone there saw the initial buzz about this find, and obviously convinced the C-suite that they could very easily score huge wins in public goodwill, partly counteracting all the “Who Killed the Electric Car” hype.
If you follow their videos, they and a handful of others have secured title to their EV-1s. There are a small number of ways the cars were able to fall out of the leasing agreement and into properly titled private ownership.
In this case, they took advantage of the fact the car was abandoned in Georgia and went to impound action, which let them buy it from the State with title, bypassing any potential agreement with GM.
This particular vehicle was sold at an impound auction under a court order. Any existing legal ownership of the vehicle prior to the auction was extinguished.
I don't know what's inside, but I see a car with an EV1 body around my city. I only ever see it parked, not driving, but it's not always parked in the same spot, so I guess it must drive some time.
Tesla: Tarpening and Eberhard along with Musk’s cash changed the world. GM was a half hearted effort to please some politicians, as evidenced by leasing a few, and in the end destroying them all.
Tarpening and Eberhard left Tesla long before the company had any “change the world” influence on the automotive landscape. If you want to give credit to anyone other than Musk, give it to Tom Gage for designing the AC Propulsion tzero. Tarpening and Eberhard’s business plan was little more than “make a handful of tzero clones for weird enthusiasts like us.”
Look at that simple 90s dash and tactile controls.
Do you know how many more EVs would be adopted if they weren't marketing iPads-on-wheels to the masses? It's the biggest hindrance to the industry behind lack of charging infra.
> As GM’s team put it: “EV1 set in motion everything we’re doing in electric right now”
Sounds line GM is taking credit for EV industry’s success after they recalled and sent to the crusher the very car model these people are trying to restore.
If you read the history you’ll see the appropriate word is “restarted” the EV revolution. It was on and off again in a slow march to the point that allowed Tesla to exist. I’m not diminishing the role Tesla played, but it has to be taken in context. They stood on shoulders.
I think looking at every carmaker’s lineup should make it obvious that they don’t give a crap what powers a car, they are just trying to sell what’s popular. EVs were trendy for a couple years and a margin-subsidizing $7000 was available so everybody enthusiastically brought out EVs. Now they’re less popular so they’re all pulling back. Arguably even Tesla is doing so, given that Musk has intimidated that he didn’t really think Tesla was going to keep selling cars forever.
When the demand is sufficient, the cars will be sold in numbers to match it. Demand will increase as it becomes practical to own an EV for more people. This mainly has to do with charging infrastructure at every level, which is capital intensive for both individuals and governments.
Do you suggest we ignore or include in this history the original contributions of the first electric cars from all the way back in the single digits of the 1900s?
There was a long time between those cars and the modern electric car where the only thing electric was "golf carts" (not general purpose cars), or homemade conversions. The EV1 was the first commercial car in the memory of most people alive today. The 1900s ones were fun/interesting historical things, but not practical.
In a way it feels like a sick and twisted joke that GM is willing to help with this, especially how they've been treating their current EV lineup.
BrightDrop's dead, the Bolt was loved and killed and brought back and killed again, they keep making questionable decisions with their infotainment and subscription models (no CarPlay, mandatory consumer Google Account and OnStar subscriptions), the best thing they even apparently sell right now has a Honda (re)badge on it...
The anti CarPlay stance is a real deal killer for me. I put an aftermarket radio in my Chevy Express to get CarPlay, and have a long history of Chevy, GMC, and Buick ownership, but this one blocks me from buying a new GM car.
My blazer doesn't have android auto either... where are these usb things, I might be interested. I really want my phone to respond to 'ok google' not the car saying 'this needs a subscription'
Annoyingly "Android Auto" and "Android Automotive" are completely different things.
Android Auto is where you can connect your phone to the car and your phone projects onto the car's display with apps and navigation.
Android Automotive is when the car itself is running Android Automotive for its infotainment OS, meaning it has access to a limited Android App Store to install apps natively into the car's infotainment system and you can sign in with your Google account.
Some cars with Android Automotive also support CarPlay and Android Auto on top of it, but GM has decided to disable those features, meaning you have to use the built-in Android Automotive system to manage your media streaming apps and pay GM for the data access plan.
These cars are sold with data plans which last quite a few years. What model year is your Blazer? I think that my Equinox has app access for 3 years and maps / google assistant for 8 years. I've tested tethering with my phone and it works with that, so I have a path forward once the built-in subscription lapses.
2024. I refused their privacy policy, so that might be why I'm getting nothing. I don't drive much so I'm worth more to GM than they are to me.
If GM tries to block it there are a number of ways a lawyer can fight back and likely win. The Magnuson Moss warranty act was historically written about car radios for starters. There are other consumer protection laws as well. You need a good lawyer, but I suspect they will take the case for the expected gains in the return lawsuit. If I were them I'd get a lawyer to write this up in a "white paper" - It would be a few thousand, but it is also something GM will likely see if they think about doing anything.
Honda Prologue is an option if you really like the Ultium SUVs, sadly only a Blazer sized rebadge and no Equinox.
I do wonder what the outlook for that is now, they were supposed to be a shorter term bridge until Honda had their own EVs but Honda recently killed a bunch of EV plans so maybe the GM partnership sticks around a while?
I have a blazer ev without it and I agree it is the biggest negative. If I drove 8 hours a day their onstar is better, but if you use a car a reasonable amount it isn't worth a subscription (or setting everything up that is already in the phone)
Honestly I'm an apple guy and felt the same until I drove their Blazer EV and loved the native google maps. This is way better than projecting from phone. The native integration knows about car's battery state all the time and auto-suggests stops. Any native map in car do they but they usually aren't good quality maps. In GM's case, the native maps are google maps. I can also sign in on my google account and I don't need internet to use it (in case I'm in a remote area).
I feel I want every car to have native google maps now.
>The native integration knows about car's battery state all the time and auto-suggests stops.
CarPlay does this on my F150 Lightning. It manages state, preconditioning when routing to a charging stop, will suggest charging stops as I'm routing, etc. etc.
There's really nothing special about GM's implementation IMO, except that they charge you monthly to access it.
Given GM's history with this vehicle, I'd assume any contact with them is an attempt to lay claim to ownership of the vehicle. There's no way I'd even communicate with them
I hadn’t heard that they killed the Bolt again! At least there is the 2027 model, which us starting to show up at dealers. With the Iran war, I expect much more interest in EVs right now, so this version of the Bolt may sell out fast.
> We are seeing the administration try the same tactics now in 2025 and 2026 to kill EVs,
Interesting… if removing subsidies has caused Ford to write off 20 billion and Honda to announce they took a 15 billion dollar loss mainly on EVs… maybe something is wrong?
I’m in this industry, it’s going to get worse. We’re looking at 2034 vehicles now, and surprise, they’re ICE.
Honestly, instead of subsidizing EVs themselves, the government should spend their money on initiatives that make them more attractive, and it should probably be carrots not sticks at this point, because a quick read of the room would indicate that most people reeeeally don’t want to feel bullied into buying an EV that doesn’t fit into their lifestyle.
Everybody who thinks that we need heavy-handed mandates and to fully eliminate ICE vehicles is just setting themselves up for disappointment.
The us govt literally tried carrots (tax credits) and now the new administration is threatening owners with sticks (absurdly high national registration fees).
Oh, and everyone who couldn't afford an EV complained about the subsidies.
The easiest way to make EVs more attractive is taxing carbon.
The easiest way to make EVs more attractive is to have a battery w/ the power density of a 14-gallon stamped-steel tank filled with gasoline, at no more than 10% of the total BOM cost of the vehicle.
And in the paragraph after that, the article makes its single reference to Elon Musk, calling him crazy. Completely out of place in the article. It's clear that both the sentence you quote and the following one are there for political purposes, and have nothing to do with the topic at hand. Would not surprise me to learn that the editor threw them in after the article was written - they just have nothing to do with the article.
If Elon can’t be named without someone feeling the need to comment on his behavior, that’s mostly on him. His public persona has made a neutral reference to him into a possible implicit endorsement.
I agree the comment seemed out of place and I’m speculating about why they put it in, but that’s one reason I would do so. Someone who does a Nazi salute on TV with a bizarre smile on his face is not just another business guy.
>It's clear that both the sentence you quote and the following one are there for political purposes,
Yes. These people can literally not fucking help themselves.
I personally see it as a pettiness and weak character that they cannot let ideology drop from the foreground even for a second.
Again, I’m in this industry. There was a marketing push because they saw a way to easily sell new and second cars even to people it doesn’t work for. Marketing pushed so hard that there’s an equal pushback from reality.
Just make sure the lawyers don't get a chance to rewrite history. I think this is mostly an attempt to wash the shame away from what was clearly technology ahead of it's time. They chose poorly and Elon Musk would be an unknown millionaire today if GM decided to continue development of the EV1.
This statement doesn’t really seem supported by facts. Battery technology just wasn’t able to make this car for the mass market 25 years ago. GM continuing to keep this very low-volume car in the showrooms for 15 more years at an unattractive price point would not have changed anything. Even if GM had produced a car like the Model S around the same time that Tesla did in our timeline, that would not have guaranteed them anything, nor would it have constrained Tesla’s founders from taking the risk to start that company and succeeding.
That's an old argument. The Prius hybrid was already running around with the same battery technology. They could have shifted. They could have pivoted. They could have done a very low volume production. The car was killed.
It's the correct argument. Bob Lutz deals with it in one of his books.
The EV1 was a evaluation exercise/hedge against regulation; the impetus was a lunatic assertion in 1990 by the CA gov't: they wanted 10% of cars sold in the state by 2000 to be electric. Nobody outside of Sacramento thought this would be doable, but it was an excuse to do some useful R&D, as well as to demonstrate to lawmakers the difficulties involved.
As for the Prius-the Gen I Toyota Hybrid Synergy Drive cost $380 million in 1990s dollars for R&D. Anybody at GM trying to spend that kind of money on an experimental(!) powertrain for a low-volume(!!) economy(!!!) car would've been fired. At Toyota, Shoichiro Toyoda was supportive of such an idea, despite the limited opportunity for near-term profit; and if you have that last name at that company, nobody's gonna fire you.
If they hadn't lobbied to make small cars more expensive because the margins were lower, they could have built a model that was capable of being EV or gasoline, to get economy of scale for most of the vehicle. Well, worked with Daewoo to make a nicer version of the Chevy Aveo which could be a 4-seater gasoline car or 2-seater EV... Well, problem with that idea is the EV-1 was only popular with Hollywood types because it was a statement vehicle, so everybody knew what you were doing. I guess the dual-purpose vehicle would not.
> That decision, and the fury it sparked among EV1 lessees who fought to keep their cars, is the subject of Chris Paine’s 2006 documentary “Who Killed the Electric Car?” It is essential viewing for anyone interested in how the auto industry, oil companies, regulators, and consumer culture shaped the trajectory of electric transportation. Paine does not let anyone off the hook easily, and the film holds up as both a piece of investigative storytelling and a snapshot of an industry at a crossroads.
The conspiracy about GM killing the EV1 is very hyperbolic and the documentary is mostly a fantasy.
Carmakers releasing test cars to markets and then destroying them was a common practice - GM did the same with their hydrogen cars, the famous turbine engine cars, and even large scale prototypes like the Aerovette. In many cases they were only able to circumvent safety/testing regulation because these were not registerable cars.
Even if the market tests were successful, the only placed they planned to sell them was California as a compliance car for CARB. No matter how you try to spin it, a lead-acid battery powered car was not ever going to be the car of the future.
> Carmakers releasing test cars to markets and then destroying them was a common practice - GM did the same with their hydrogen cars, the famous turbine engine cars, and even large scale prototypes like the Aerovette. In many cases they were only able to circumvent safety/testing regulation because these were not registerable cars.
The EV1 wasn't just a "test car". It was a production vehicle which was built (as you said) to comply with the California ZEV mandate, which GM also spent millions lobbying against, and eventually defeating, while they were contracting with an outside engineering firm to design the EV1.
TTBOMK, GM didn't spend millions lobbying against turbine engine and hydrogen fuel cell tech.
http://www.evnut.com/carb_ruling.htm
> It was a production vehicle which was built (as you said) to comply with the California ZEV mandate.
It was never a true production car - none of the cars GM leased were registerable because they did not have a finalized production design submitted to safety or (ironically) EPA standards.
Technically GM did lobby against hydrogen fuel cell tech at the same time because the ZEV mandate specifically also included hydrogen as a potential solution. But no one is accusing GM of also killing the hydrogen car just because it made it less far along the development process.
I know it's the real controversial opinion - but nobody was wrong. The experience of CARB more or less proved that a successful EV was not immediately available. But mass hybridization probably resulted in more measurable emissions savings than the original 10% ZEV goal ever would have.
The earliest prototypes of what would become the Tesla Roadster used lead acid batteries.
Wait didn't they have a NiMH battery too?
Yes, and unlike what has been done in the Prius, these were large-format cells. The patents on them ultimately ended up sold to a Chevron subsidiary, which would only license the technology under absurd terms. They assumed that lithium-based battery technologies wouldn't be suitable. Oops.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_encumbrance_of_large_au...
Yes, the exact same battery technology Toyota was already using in their Prius, which is still in-use in many Toyota hybrid models still on the road. The battery was not the problem.
You couldn't go far on those early Prius batteries. I had a circa-2009 Prius and semi-intentionally ran out of gas to see what happened. I was able to drive a couple of miles to a gas station, but the battery was depleting extremely quickly, and I doubt it would have lasted ten minutes.
Prius had 0.91 kWh battery and the EV1 had 26.4 kWh with NiMH. The EV1 was expensive, $80k to produce in 1996 money. A large part of that had to be the battery.
And despite that expensive battery, it could only go about 100 miles on a charge. For a point of reference, my old Tesla has a nominal 85kWh battery, which I think is actually about 77kWh usable, so about 3x the capacity. And its range is somewhat weak compared to what's typical today.
It's a pretty decent approximation to say that the battery is the only problem for EVs. Everything else is either standard car stuff, or small/cheap/simple enough not to be a major problem. Nearly all of the progress in EVs that we've seen since the EV1 has been down to battery improvements. Take the EV1 and give it a modern battery and it'll be pretty decent. Take any modern EV and give it a 1999 battery and it'll be absolutely awful.
Eventually, near the end. The first run of them was lead-acid; the battery was about 60% of the weight of the vehicle.
NiMH batteries suck too
My mom got to test one of these for like 3 months. While only a 2 seater, it was a super cool car. For the time it was very modern. And it was very quiet, it had a gentle horn you could honk so that people knew you were there. She let me drive a few times and it was also very quick.
I've been watching these videos, I'm honestly shocked about the complete 180 gm is pulling...
In the past, they would have wanted the motors disabled and the batteries incapacitated (if they weren't already, because half of them were trash), if they couldn't legally scare you into letting them scrap the car.
I kindof feel like there's some ulterior motive, like they want another museum piece for themselves, or sales are really hurting and they want to drum up some good will. Call me skeptical if you must, but they _really_ didn't want these on the road.
I don’t think it was all that mysterious, or even sinister. The car was a compliance car, it was mandated by the state to exist, and was not at the time a profitable model. All of them were leased. When the mandate expired or whatever, selling the cars instead of taking them back would have meant supporting this very different car for a long time with parts and repair service. This would have been a huge headache, and not worth it by any measure. Yes, they could have attempted to make BEVs happen for the mass market in general, but every carmaker was free to do so and they all seemed to agree that it wasn’t a good risk until Tesla came years later and made that bet with the S and the 3. But that was 15 years of advancement later.
And GM could have crushed all of them, but apparently was proud enough of it and not afraid people would ‘discover its secrets’ and build a new EV, since they decided to just park a half dozen or whatever at schools for students to poke and prod at. I get that the optics of crushing them made them look like a villain from the “Captain Planet” cartoon, but it would have been foolish for them to do anything else.
It's not just that the car was a compliance car, it's that these were experimental models. They were not able to be registered by individuals because they didn't go through all of the mandated safety regulations that normal models do.
So the state first mandates the cars exist, then mandates the cars be destroyed. Truly this is government efficiency at its finest.
Was it even a compliance car?
It's eternally fascinating that people can't or won't grasp that the cars cost far more to produce than they could put them to market for, instead deciding that it was a big conspiracy.
It took until ~2015 for batteries to become practical for expensive mass market cars.
> Was it even a compliance car?
I am not an expert but I believe that US regulations require that manufacturers make a range of vehicle types to sell on the US market. You don't need to sell a lot of, say, compact cars - but you need to offer a compact car in order to sell your cash-cow large trucks.
CAFE didn't work like this, it was a lot dumber. Basically it weighed the fuel economy for vehicles under 6000 pounds between two categories: passenger cars (sedans, coupes, wagons) and light trucks (vans, SUVs, crossovers). Passenger cars had an MPG target of ~8 MPG higher than light trucks. Car manufacturers that couldn't get their MPG (weighted between sales of the two categories from that manufacturer) below the targets were fined. Essentially this incentivized car companies to sell fewer passenger cars and more light trucks so their target MPG was lower. This is why crossovers have basically taken over the market in the US. Car manufacturers modified their designs to count as light trucks (lowering the MPG by 1-2), but since the target for light trucks is 8 MPG lower than passenger cars, they look more compliant on paper. We've gone from passenger cars making up ~50% of US car sales in 2000 to ~20% of car sales today.
I use the past tense because the Trump admin has gotten rid of the fines for this regulation so it basically doesn't matter anymore (one of the few good moves it's done). It'll be interesting to see if small cars are able to make a recovery in the US, or if it's too late.
I am sure it'll be a few years as manufacturers will worry that a future admin (if we get such a thing lol) could un-remove the fees - but it would be wonderful to see actual small trucks again.
CAFE wasn't 'dumb', it was designed to prevent the 'big three' from manufacturing (new generations of) small cars outside the USA (i.e. in Mexico), with non-UAW labor. CAFE was not designed to protect the environment or reduce emissions; that was just a PR veneer to make it more palatable. You're completely correct that it led to strange designs, perhaps most notably the PT Cruiser (which was classified as a truck https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysler_PT_Cruiser).
And it killed a bunch of useful smaller truckish vehicles because they scored poorly. The Ford Ranger, the Chevy Astro, the Crown Vic and every other sedan with a big ass.
California not US regulations in this case.
ah! thank you
And even now, the fantasy of the $30,000 EV hasn't really been realized. In the US, your only option right now is the Leaf, but good luck finding one for under $32,000.
There's uncountable numbers of used Tesla Model 3's for under $30,000
If that was the fantasy even 6 years ago, the fantasy should have been updated for inflation to a $40,000 EV. I don’t even mean to exaggerate — that’s how much inflation we’ve had since 2020. We have plenty of sub-$40k EVs.
Meanwhile Europe has access to $30k EVs because they didn't stock a 100% tariff on Chinese EVs. Hell, a leapmotor to3 is almost down to $20k.
To be furiously pedantic: I can walk into my local GM dealer down the road and buy a 2027 Bolt for 29000~ right now.
I thought they destroyed them all because they didn't want to have to provide the legally required parts and service for them. Now that they are in classic car territory, those requirements no longer exist.
I find the obsession with ev1 very US centric. There were many many other electric cars released before EV1. I think that documentary is to blame for this, GM was not the only company exploring EV's and there were other players as well. They just, for some reason or another, did not commit to it fully.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_battery_electric_vehic...
It's nice, and special, and purpose built, and quasi-production, and so on. Not just a Peugeot hatch or BMW 2002 or VW Golf or some Aixam quadricycle bejaardewagen with an electric drivetrain crudely crammed in, but a proper car designed by a major manufacturer from the ground up as an EV. I think it's pretty cool. I wish somebody would take molds off an EV1 and sell a kit car or Miata body shell.
This is common for all cars of all makes. You want people to buy new ones so there is an areg where old cars are a liability. People buying new cars trade them in after three years, so you want some value left so they can afford that, but you want them to wear out in about 12 so that people have reason to keep buying more instead of keeping the old. Then after about 25 years it is a collectors car and you can be proud of the few left - they are not impacting new sales much (if any) and give people reason to dream about cars.
It's a trap, they've got a car crusher at the ready for sure.
This is part of GM's broader marketing push to drum up goodwill from younger people. It's the same reason why they have a youtube series about the beginnings of the Cadillac F1 team, which is clearly produced for zoomer and millenial audiences.
I don't think there's anything nefarious here, they are just cultivating a particular image to try to sell cars. It's a reasonable marketing strategy, as marketing strategies go.
Some Millennials are reaching their mid 40s now.
Still on the younger end for people who have enough money to buy a car, which now averages $~40k. Zoomers are economically screwed.
Maybe GM is still the legal owner since they were all leased, so that would be a possible sad outcome.
If you’ve watched these guys videos, you would know it’s not some sort of cartoon villain trap. They took them to Detroit, showed them a ton of stuff, let them talk to a bunch of very sincere and cool engineers, gave them a bunch of unobtainium spare parts, and gave interviews on the record with executives. Let’s just say GM’s PR department is running a lot better than their cars do these days. Someone there saw the initial buzz about this find, and obviously convinced the C-suite that they could very easily score huge wins in public goodwill, partly counteracting all the “Who Killed the Electric Car” hype.
If you follow their videos, they and a handful of others have secured title to their EV-1s. There are a small number of ways the cars were able to fall out of the leasing agreement and into properly titled private ownership.
In this case, they took advantage of the fact the car was abandoned in Georgia and went to impound action, which let them buy it from the State with title, bypassing any potential agreement with GM.
This particular vehicle was sold at an impound auction under a court order. Any existing legal ownership of the vehicle prior to the auction was extinguished.
I don't know what's inside, but I see a car with an EV1 body around my city. I only ever see it parked, not driving, but it's not always parked in the same spot, so I guess it must drive some time.
Tesla: Tarpening and Eberhard along with Musk’s cash changed the world. GM was a half hearted effort to please some politicians, as evidenced by leasing a few, and in the end destroying them all.
Tarpening and Eberhard left Tesla long before the company had any “change the world” influence on the automotive landscape. If you want to give credit to anyone other than Musk, give it to Tom Gage for designing the AC Propulsion tzero. Tarpening and Eberhard’s business plan was little more than “make a handful of tzero clones for weird enthusiasts like us.”
Look at that simple 90s dash and tactile controls.
Do you know how many more EVs would be adopted if they weren't marketing iPads-on-wheels to the masses? It's the biggest hindrance to the industry behind lack of charging infra.
People act like other new cars aren't exactly the same on the inside.
0?
At least 1.
It's an unfortunate accident that GM sent engineers instead of lawyers. I'm sure this will be corrected soon.
> As GM’s team put it: “EV1 set in motion everything we’re doing in electric right now”
Sounds line GM is taking credit for EV industry’s success after they recalled and sent to the crusher the very car model these people are trying to restore.
They’re taking credit for their own success? I don’t know how you can construe that to be the industry overall.
You mean Toyota and Tesla’s success? Let’s be real - the Prius and then Model S kickstarted the EV revolution.
If you read the history you’ll see the appropriate word is “restarted” the EV revolution. It was on and off again in a slow march to the point that allowed Tesla to exist. I’m not diminishing the role Tesla played, but it has to be taken in context. They stood on shoulders.
An over 125 year, often abandoned, stuttering march filled with stories of invisible battles by the entrenched to keep the status quo.
I think looking at every carmaker’s lineup should make it obvious that they don’t give a crap what powers a car, they are just trying to sell what’s popular. EVs were trendy for a couple years and a margin-subsidizing $7000 was available so everybody enthusiastically brought out EVs. Now they’re less popular so they’re all pulling back. Arguably even Tesla is doing so, given that Musk has intimidated that he didn’t really think Tesla was going to keep selling cars forever.
When the demand is sufficient, the cars will be sold in numbers to match it. Demand will increase as it becomes practical to own an EV for more people. This mainly has to do with charging infrastructure at every level, which is capital intensive for both individuals and governments.
Do you suggest we ignore or include in this history the original contributions of the first electric cars from all the way back in the single digits of the 1900s?
There was a long time between those cars and the modern electric car where the only thing electric was "golf carts" (not general purpose cars), or homemade conversions. The EV1 was the first commercial car in the memory of most people alive today. The 1900s ones were fun/interesting historical things, but not practical.
Those were important too, but the ev1 started that modern ev.
It's not a success if you quit the race at the finish line, even if you were in the lead.
Right before that in the paragraph:
> The EV1 introduced technologies that remain foundational to modern EVs
In a way it feels like a sick and twisted joke that GM is willing to help with this, especially how they've been treating their current EV lineup.
BrightDrop's dead, the Bolt was loved and killed and brought back and killed again, they keep making questionable decisions with their infotainment and subscription models (no CarPlay, mandatory consumer Google Account and OnStar subscriptions), the best thing they even apparently sell right now has a Honda (re)badge on it...
The anti CarPlay stance is a real deal killer for me. I put an aftermarket radio in my Chevy Express to get CarPlay, and have a long history of Chevy, GMC, and Buick ownership, but this one blocks me from buying a new GM car.
I've been satisfied with Android Automotive on my Equinox EV. I did see that there are USB dongles which can allegedly add Android Auto to the car.
My blazer doesn't have android auto either... where are these usb things, I might be interested. I really want my phone to respond to 'ok google' not the car saying 'this needs a subscription'
Annoyingly "Android Auto" and "Android Automotive" are completely different things.
Android Auto is where you can connect your phone to the car and your phone projects onto the car's display with apps and navigation.
Android Automotive is when the car itself is running Android Automotive for its infotainment OS, meaning it has access to a limited Android App Store to install apps natively into the car's infotainment system and you can sign in with your Google account.
Some cars with Android Automotive also support CarPlay and Android Auto on top of it, but GM has decided to disable those features, meaning you have to use the built-in Android Automotive system to manage your media streaming apps and pay GM for the data access plan.
These cars are sold with data plans which last quite a few years. What model year is your Blazer? I think that my Equinox has app access for 3 years and maps / google assistant for 8 years. I've tested tethering with my phone and it works with that, so I have a path forward once the built-in subscription lapses.
This is the one that I saw: https://evplay.io/shop/ev-play-lite-gm
It's kind of expensive, and there's a non-zero chance that GM does something to block it.
2024. I refused their privacy policy, so that might be why I'm getting nothing. I don't drive much so I'm worth more to GM than they are to me.
If GM tries to block it there are a number of ways a lawyer can fight back and likely win. The Magnuson Moss warranty act was historically written about car radios for starters. There are other consumer protection laws as well. You need a good lawyer, but I suspect they will take the case for the expected gains in the return lawsuit. If I were them I'd get a lawyer to write this up in a "white paper" - It would be a few thousand, but it is also something GM will likely see if they think about doing anything.
We bought an F150 Lightning instead of a Sierra EV mainly because of this. I'm not interested in 'cars as a service'.
Honda Prologue is an option if you really like the Ultium SUVs, sadly only a Blazer sized rebadge and no Equinox.
I do wonder what the outlook for that is now, they were supposed to be a shorter term bridge until Honda had their own EVs but Honda recently killed a bunch of EV plans so maybe the GM partnership sticks around a while?
The Prologue was part of the EV bloodletting at Honda.
I have a blazer ev without it and I agree it is the biggest negative. If I drove 8 hours a day their onstar is better, but if you use a car a reasonable amount it isn't worth a subscription (or setting everything up that is already in the phone)
Honestly I'm an apple guy and felt the same until I drove their Blazer EV and loved the native google maps. This is way better than projecting from phone. The native integration knows about car's battery state all the time and auto-suggests stops. Any native map in car do they but they usually aren't good quality maps. In GM's case, the native maps are google maps. I can also sign in on my google account and I don't need internet to use it (in case I'm in a remote area).
I feel I want every car to have native google maps now.
>The native integration knows about car's battery state all the time and auto-suggests stops.
CarPlay does this on my F150 Lightning. It manages state, preconditioning when routing to a charging stop, will suggest charging stops as I'm routing, etc. etc.
There's really nothing special about GM's implementation IMO, except that they charge you monthly to access it.
Given GM's history with this vehicle, I'd assume any contact with them is an attempt to lay claim to ownership of the vehicle. There's no way I'd even communicate with them
I hadn’t heard that they killed the Bolt again! At least there is the 2027 model, which us starting to show up at dealers. With the Iran war, I expect much more interest in EVs right now, so this version of the Bolt may sell out fast.
GM’s Cadillac is doing alright with EVs: the Optiq, the Lyriq, the Vistiq are all selling well.
Those names are horrifiq
Equinox EV is also doing well.
You've got it reversed. Honda is rebadging the equinox ev. GM.
Actually a Blazer, not an Equinox
A "Blazer EV", right? Not to be confused with the same-named gas Blazer (built on a different chassis):
https://www.caranddriver.com/chevrolet/blazer
Yes, Blazer EV
Yeah, and it's still the best thing GM can even build right now. It's an Equinox without GM's bullshit and even includes CarPlay in the package.
It's based on the Blazer, and is larger than an Equinox EV.
The Bolt will be back in 2027.
I'm a huge fan of the Bolt, and I love my 2019. It's a very practical car, and has surprisingly decent range.
For approximately one and a half model years.
https://insideevs.com/news/785214/2027-chevrolet-bolt-limite...
> We are seeing the administration try the same tactics now in 2025 and 2026 to kill EVs,
Interesting… if removing subsidies has caused Ford to write off 20 billion and Honda to announce they took a 15 billion dollar loss mainly on EVs… maybe something is wrong?
I’m in this industry, it’s going to get worse. We’re looking at 2034 vehicles now, and surprise, they’re ICE.
Honestly, instead of subsidizing EVs themselves, the government should spend their money on initiatives that make them more attractive, and it should probably be carrots not sticks at this point, because a quick read of the room would indicate that most people reeeeally don’t want to feel bullied into buying an EV that doesn’t fit into their lifestyle.
Everybody who thinks that we need heavy-handed mandates and to fully eliminate ICE vehicles is just setting themselves up for disappointment.
The us govt literally tried carrots (tax credits) and now the new administration is threatening owners with sticks (absurdly high national registration fees).
Oh, and everyone who couldn't afford an EV complained about the subsidies.
The easiest way to make EVs more attractive is taxing carbon.
The easiest way to make EVs more attractive is to have a battery w/ the power density of a 14-gallon stamped-steel tank filled with gasoline, at no more than 10% of the total BOM cost of the vehicle.
You think making the biggest breakthrough in battery tech is easier than monetary incentives?
It's a difficult thing, but it's only one thing. Paying people to buy & drive cars that they'd otherwise wouldn't isn't a sustainable practice either.
I need a freaking EV that's flat towable. Not a single one released so far has been able to do that.
And in the paragraph after that, the article makes its single reference to Elon Musk, calling him crazy. Completely out of place in the article. It's clear that both the sentence you quote and the following one are there for political purposes, and have nothing to do with the topic at hand. Would not surprise me to learn that the editor threw them in after the article was written - they just have nothing to do with the article.
If Elon can’t be named without someone feeling the need to comment on his behavior, that’s mostly on him. His public persona has made a neutral reference to him into a possible implicit endorsement.
I agree the comment seemed out of place and I’m speculating about why they put it in, but that’s one reason I would do so. Someone who does a Nazi salute on TV with a bizarre smile on his face is not just another business guy.
Lee Iacocca didn’t get those comments.
>It's clear that both the sentence you quote and the following one are there for political purposes,
Yes. These people can literally not fucking help themselves.
I personally see it as a pettiness and weak character that they cannot let ideology drop from the foreground even for a second.
Again, I’m in this industry. There was a marketing push because they saw a way to easily sell new and second cars even to people it doesn’t work for. Marketing pushed so hard that there’s an equal pushback from reality.
Nothing to do with Elon or Trump.
Just make sure the lawyers don't get a chance to rewrite history. I think this is mostly an attempt to wash the shame away from what was clearly technology ahead of it's time. They chose poorly and Elon Musk would be an unknown millionaire today if GM decided to continue development of the EV1.
This statement doesn’t really seem supported by facts. Battery technology just wasn’t able to make this car for the mass market 25 years ago. GM continuing to keep this very low-volume car in the showrooms for 15 more years at an unattractive price point would not have changed anything. Even if GM had produced a car like the Model S around the same time that Tesla did in our timeline, that would not have guaranteed them anything, nor would it have constrained Tesla’s founders from taking the risk to start that company and succeeding.
That's an old argument. The Prius hybrid was already running around with the same battery technology. They could have shifted. They could have pivoted. They could have done a very low volume production. The car was killed.
It's the correct argument. Bob Lutz deals with it in one of his books.
The EV1 was a evaluation exercise/hedge against regulation; the impetus was a lunatic assertion in 1990 by the CA gov't: they wanted 10% of cars sold in the state by 2000 to be electric. Nobody outside of Sacramento thought this would be doable, but it was an excuse to do some useful R&D, as well as to demonstrate to lawmakers the difficulties involved.
As for the Prius-the Gen I Toyota Hybrid Synergy Drive cost $380 million in 1990s dollars for R&D. Anybody at GM trying to spend that kind of money on an experimental(!) powertrain for a low-volume(!!) economy(!!!) car would've been fired. At Toyota, Shoichiro Toyoda was supportive of such an idea, despite the limited opportunity for near-term profit; and if you have that last name at that company, nobody's gonna fire you.
They seemed to do ok with selling the tech as the electric S-10. You can't argue it was a big mistake when they decided to try again.
Yeah if the volt was released a decade earlier they'd have been a frontrunner in the pure ev space in the late 2010s.
If they hadn't lobbied to make small cars more expensive because the margins were lower, they could have built a model that was capable of being EV or gasoline, to get economy of scale for most of the vehicle. Well, worked with Daewoo to make a nicer version of the Chevy Aveo which could be a 4-seater gasoline car or 2-seater EV... Well, problem with that idea is the EV-1 was only popular with Hollywood types because it was a statement vehicle, so everybody knew what you were doing. I guess the dual-purpose vehicle would not.
tl;dr You're right :)