- Posted on Thursday, December 21st, 2006 at 8:29 am
MARK PHELAN: Electric car killer?
By Brian Akre
GM Corporate Communications
The following article by Mark Phelan, auto critic with the Detroit Free Press, appeared on the newspaper’s front page Wednesday, Dec. 20, 2006. Because it deals with the recent film that we believe mischaracterized GM and its investment in the EV1 electric car, we thought we’d share it with you. (Reprinted with permission.)
MARK PHELAN: Electric car killer? Don’t blame GM, Toyota exec says
December 20, 2006
FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
“Who Killed the Electric Car?” caused a furor when it was released this year. The movie hammers away at GM and its EV1 electric car. (Sony Classic Pictures)
It’s the kind of thing you hear over dinner every week in Detroit, but it comes as a surprise when a top executive with Toyota leans across the table to make the point.
“The movie ‘Who Killed the Electric Car?’ was terribly one-sided,” Ernest Bastien, Toyota Motor Sales vice president for vehicle operations, said intensely. “It was not balanced at all.”
We were talking in Charlotte, N.C., a couple of weeks ago. I was there to drive Toyota’s new 2007 Tundra pickup, and the change in topic was completely unexpected.
If it’s not surprising enough to hear Toyota defending GM, try this on for size: The film’s director pretty much agrees.
“We let Toyota off the hook for how they subverted the program” to sell electric cars because GM had a higher profile, director Chris Paine told me over the phone Sunday.
The automakers, of course, don’t think they subverted anything.
GM’s Saturn EV1 electric car and Toyota’s RAV4-EV electric SUV failed for the same reason — customers didn’t want them — said Bastien, who was point man for Toyota’s short-lived effort to sell the RAV4-EV in California.
GM delivered about 800 EV1s to customers from 1996 through 2000, while Toyota delivered 342 RAV4-EVs in 2002-03.
The film, which suggested GM sabotaged a promising technology that could reduce fuel consumption and pollution, caused a furor when it was released earlier this year.
The movie also intentionally ignored Toyota’s experience to make its case, Bastien said.
“We shared all our experience with the RAV4-EV,” but the filmmakers intentionally omitted it, he said.
He said the movie’s suggestion that GM “chose not to make money on a car people wanted to buy in California” is ridiculous.
“They spent a huge amount of money advertising that car in California,” Bastien said. “People wouldn’t buy them.”
Toyota did everything it could to attract buyers to the RAV4-EV, too. It subsidized the price, so customers paid $279 a month — the same price as the company’s hit Prius hybrid. The price included an expensive home charging station.
Toyota used the same savvy Internet-intensive marketing model that fueled the Prius craze. It even gave its dealers a sweetheart deal so they could make twice as much selling a RAV4-EV as a Prius.
To no avail. Toyota sold about 300 RAV4-EVs in 2002, compared with 20,119 Priuses. Buyers waited in line for the hybrid. They avoided the electric car like it was a downed power line and Toyota, like GM, pulled the plug on the project.
“Customers are not willing to compromise on things they need,” Bastien said. “They need cruising range. They don’t want to worry about running out of fuel, and they don’t want to wait five hours to recharge. The movie didn’t give any consideration to that fact.”
Filmmaker Paine bought a RAV4-EV, but he’s not buying Toyota’s explanation.
“I don’t agree that they made a good-faith effort to sell the car,” he said. “Their priority was the Prius. The EV1 and RAV4-EV were never properly marketed.
“Toyota was no better than GM.”
Which brings us back to the original question: Why was the movie so much harder on GM?
It made a better target.
“GM handled it so poorly,” Paine said.
His crew filmed protesters outside Toyota’s offices, but the company’s security guards came out and gave them bottled water and Toyota key chains.
GM, Paine said, turned the water sprinklers on protesters. GM insists they were timed sprinklers, and the protesters just happened to be there at the wrong moment.
Whatever the case, the GM footage was more dramatic, entertaining video. It made it into the movie. Toyota wound up on the cutting-room floor.”I don’t want to say that we picked on GM,” Paine said. “The EV1 was the iconic electric vehicle. That’s why we focused on GM.”
Let me translate that: GM ended up in the crosshairs because it invested the most time and effort into its electric vehicle. The futuristic EV1 was designed from the start to be a revolution. It was the poster child for electric vehicles. The sedate RAV4-EV looked like just another small SUV.
GM declined to comment.
The nail that sticks up will be hammered down, as they say. GM was the nail. “Who Killed the Electric Car?” was the hammer.
And Ernest Bastien deserves credit for sticking up for the truth, regardless of hammers.
Contact MARK PHELAN at 313-222-6731 or phelan@freepress.com.
Original FYI column by Dave Barthmuss on the EV1.
29 Comments
Craig Mackintosh
But, let’s not give up hope. Things have moved on a ways from the days of the EV1. Check out the latest:
http://www.celsias.com/blog/2006/12/21/the-electric-car-revisited
Marc Geller
As the film, if not the column, makes clear, there are other views of the electric car story. Curious? Check out plugsandcars.blogspot.com
Paul Scott
Plug In America, a non-profit organization advocating for plug-in vehicles, takes great exception to Mark Phelan’s one-sided column on EVs. While Mr. Phelan interviewed members of Plug In America (PIA) for his column, none of the information we gave him was included in his column. He essentially gave Toyota a free ride with no rebuttal.
PIA’s Mike Kane had authored a white paper contrasting Toyota’s marketing campaign for the RAV4 EV with the Prius. That paper was forwarded to Mr. Phelan and he was told that it provided a strong counter to Toyota’s claim that both vehicles received similar marketing help. Mr. Phelan stated in a phone call this morning that he did not have time to read it before publishing his column. He further stated that he did not have time to incorporate our verbal response in his column. In a phone interview last week, Paul Scott of PIA provided Mr. Phelan with anecdotal evidence of his efforts to buy the Toyota EV in 2002. This evidence is backed up by dozens of other prospective buyers of the RAV4 EV that could easily be verified, yet none of this evidence was presented to counter Toyota’s Ernest Bastian.
Phelan states that GM delivered about 800 EV1s while Toyota delivered 342 RAV4 EVs without mentioning that those numbers represented 100% of the vehicles made available for retail lease or purchase. Scott was very specific in countering this common media contention as it is constantly brought up in articles favorable to GM and Toyota as evidence that, even though they tried, GM and Toyota couldn’t sell any more than this paltry number of vehicles. When a carmaker sells or leases 100% of the vehicles offered, and there are waiting lists of thousands of people who are clamoring for more, it is disingenuous to the extreme to claim this program as a failure. Upon further examination, we believe Mr. Phelan would find that the total number of EVs offered by GM and Toyota are not based on what the market would bear, but are notably similar to the minimum number of cars required to be made available by the CARB mandate.
Phelan states that Toyota “did everything it could to attract buyers to the RAV4-EV”. This is patently false! If Phelan had taken the time to read Mr. Kane’s paper, he would know that there was a significant difference in how Toyota marketed the Prius from how it marketed the EV. In fact, Toyota regularly promotes the Prius by denigrating the RAV4 EV with the marketing tagline, “you don’t have to plug it in”. Those who did hear of the RAV4 EV and tried to get one found that only a few dealers even carried them, and several of those weren’t enthusiastic about it, trying to convert customers to other Toyota products. None of this suggests dealers who were given “a sweetheart deal so they could make twice as much selling a RAV4-EV as a Prius”. Most importantly, it should never have been an either/or scenario; there is indeed a market for both.
He further states “Toyota… subsidized the price, so customers paid $279 a month”. This, too, is patently false. The list price of the RAV4-EV was $42,500 vs. $21,000 for the Prius. Three-year leases were generally well over $570 per month.
Phelan also says that “Toyota delivered 342 RAV4-EVs in 2002-03″, suggesting that the vehicle was available for two years. In fact, it was only available for 8 months, from February to October of 2002. The only reason that Toyota delivered vehicles in 2003 is that they received more orders than they were capable of fulfilling and buyers at the end of the program had to wait several months to take delivery of their vehicles.
Phelan also says “buyers…avoided the electric car like it was a downed power line”. Clever turn of phrase that, but it happens to be completely false. Hardly anyone knew of the existence of these vehicles, and for those who did hear of them, the process of actually buying one was filled with obstacles most buyers would never put up with, and sales staff who openly attempted to turn buyers away from the EV and toward the Prius. This happened all over California and there are many who will testify to this.
Finally, Bastian is quoted as saying “Customers are not willing to compromise on things they need. They need cruising range. They don’t want to worry about running out of fuel, and they don’t want to wait five hours to recharge. The movie didn’t give any consideration to that fact.” In fact, the film itself showed consumers expressing exactly these concerns, though Mr. Phelan conversely doesn’t consider that today’s batteries provide up to 300 miles of range, and that even the 100-150 miles available then is several times the average commute in the US. EVs have never been represented by their proponents as the cars for everyone- neither is the Hummer, and that’s not the point. The case for a product, EVs included, is not about the people who don’t want the product, it’s about the people that do. The only relevant question is whether there are enough of those people to make a business case. But even that question only matters if the company in question truly wants to be in that business. Toyota has already answered that question with respect to the RAV4 EV program; all that matters now is where they go from here- will they rest on their Prius laurels, or respond to consumers’ collective demand for better vehicles that run on cleaner, cheaper, domestic energy and minimize dependence on petroleum? Given that the industry takes its cues from NAIAS in Detroit, we’re mere weeks from an answer.
Plug In America respectfully asks that the Detroit Free Press correct the many inaccuracies in the Phelan column at the earliest opportunity.
Sincerely,
Paul Scott
Mike Kane
Plug In America
Terence Dowling
Well, yes - the movie was too easy on Toyota. GM acted like an American company and just crushed the EV1. Toyota said “yes you can buy one” and then went out of its way to make that essentially impossibe. I had the pleasure of leasing two EV1s and tried to buy them at end-of-lease. I now drive one of the “saved” Ford RangerEVs.
BILL HOOPES
YOU CAN FOOL SOME OF THE PE0PLE ALL THE TIME,ECT. FIRST FORD, THEN GM DOWN THE TUBS. THANK GOD I DRIVE A EV ALL THE TIME!!!
Michael Kobb
Utter and complete biased nonsense.
I leased an EV-1 from GM until GM required me to give it back. I bought a RAV4-EV from Toyota the instant that they were available.
I think I know what I’m talking about, from personal experience.
Toyota sold “only” 300 or so RAV4-EVs to the public because *that’s as many as were made available!*
Multiple EV-1 sales representatives have come forward to say that they had thousands of names on a waiting list for the EV-1 when GM canceled the program. Today used RAV4-EVs sell used on eBay, with 40,000 miles or more, for more than their new purchase price. There was demand.
In fact, when Toyota announced plans to make the RAV available for sale to the public, they said that they expected their (admittedly-limited) inventory to sell out in about two years. They sold every car they had in about nine months, with more people left wanting to buy.
The range and recharging arguments presented here are also rather tired. The RAV’s range when fully charged is in the vicinity of 100 miles, depending upon conditions. The 1999 EV-1’s was even longer (120 or more). The average American drives 33 miles per day. Sure, sometimes you need to drive longer distances, but for the daily commute and errands, which are the vast majority of daily driving, an EV is wonderfully convenient. I never ever need to interrupt my day and go out of my way to go to a gas station. I plug my car in at home and unplug it when I leave in the morning. For a typical two-car family, one of those cars can very easily be an EV.
I can’t let the comment about an “expensive charging station” pass. There’s nobody to blame for the expense of the charging station but GM. GM designed the expensive inductive charging system used in both the EV-1 and the RAV4-EV. The conductive system used by Honda in their vehicles (also shown in the movie) cost 1/10 as much.
Finally, why was the movie harder on GM? Because GM was far and away the most egregious in its behavior. GM never made the cars available for sale. Ever. Only available for lease.
In the face of people begging and pleading to keep the cars, GM took them back. In the face of people ready to buy the cars (with money in escrow), GM crushed them.
Toyota, by contrast, did make the cars available for sale. Although they have done some rather bad things since then, like spinning the truth about how their program was run, they did at least behave better than GM.
Richard
Did you even see the movie?
This article sounds like a puff piece for Toyota / Gm.
“Who killed the Electric Car” wasn’t a one sided Michael Moore film…
I don’t know how it could have been any more fair.
It placed the demise of the first generation Electric Car squarely where it belongs.
(1) Consumers
(2) Big Oil
(3) GM
(4) California Resources Board
(The scumbag that ran CRB at the time, jumped ship ( $$$$) and went to work for the Oil industry)
Prior to this movie, I didn’t give a rats behind about electric cars. I had NEVER seen an ad or a commercial for an electric car EVER, and that’s odd since I was in advertising.
I am looking forward to the next generation of Electric Cars/ Plug-in Hybrids, not only to clean up the Air…but to be free of the noose that middle east has around our throat.
P.s. Rent the movie
Claudine Jones
I’m a private individual who has been driving all electric for eight years; I have leased both the GM EV1 and Toyota RAV4EV, (and presently own the Toyota). My purely anecdotal response to Mr. Phelan’s article is that I have had zero problems with these vehicles that would constitute deal-breakers in the auto world. With my previous ICEs, on a year to year comparison, I’ve spent more time & money, and experienced commensurately more exasperation on an exponential scale in 25 years of driving them than I have in the last eight with EVs. Would I buy an PHEV or a BEV if it were offered? I believe I’ve already answered that with my pocketbook. Would my neighbors? I don’t know, but they ought to get the chance.
Darell Dickey
This article claims to be uncovering the “facts” about the EV situation in the late 1990’s, yet the author is guilty of doing what he accuses the director of the film Who Killed the Electric Car of doing - presenting inaccuracies and opinion masquerading as fact. And leaving out pertinent information.
There are more things inaccurate about the article than accurate. From simple items like stating that the movie did not consider that customers wanted more range and less recharge time. That point WAS presented in the movie. I’d be happy to send the author a DVD so he could actually watch the film sometime.
To more complex items like comparing the Rav4EV marketing to the marketing of the Prius. That orders were taken online was about the only similarity between the two campaigns.
* The Rav4EV cost twice as much to purchase and twice as much to lease as the Prius.
* The Rav4EV could only be purchased in CA, and only from 25 dealerships.
* Toyota’s Customer Service Hotline could not tell me at which dealers the Rav4EV was for sale - DURING the short time the cars were being sold.
* The Rav4EV came in only two colors, and if you wanted the color that wasn’t currently on the boat from Japan, the wait could be many months - or in some cases, FOREVER.
* I’ve seen hundreds of Prius advertisements, and never once saw one of these “targeted” Rav4EV advertisements before the cars were sold.
* The Prius was a modern car, and a new design. The Rav4EV was almost TWO model generations old by the time it was sold to consumers.
* Consumers had to jump through countless hoops to purchase the car. A charger had to be installed an inspected before the car would even be released from the port.
* The sales people at the “special dealerships” knew nothing of the capabilities of the Rav4EV, but could rattle off all the pertinent information on the Prius.
* Many customers who are proactive in the use of alternative vehicles wish to NOT drive an SUV. Even a small one like the Rav4EV.
* At the same time the Rav4EV was for sale, the Prius was being marketed as being a superior choice over the EV because “you don’t have to plug it in.”
The sad news is that I could go on. The good news is that I won’t. The movie was not balanced. There wasn’t time to point out all the anti-EV actions taken by all of the big auto companies. Everybody knows that and the director says as much. The story needed to be told in 90 minutes. GM was the first out of the blocks with a consumer EV, and GM was by far the most aggressive in taking them all back and disposing of them “for our own good.” Though there is plenty of blame to go around, GM was the best target for the film.
The truth about the actions of the auto companies can easily be found by asking those of us who lived through it on the consumer side. We were the ones supposedly being marketed to. We were the ones paying the leases and purchase price. And the reality of the situation does not match what the auto makers continue to tell the press. The truth is easy to find and verify. One just needs to want to find it.
noel park
I think that most people understand the dynamics of the EV1 saga, and don’t pay much attention to this film. I am a pretty attentive car guy, and an advocate for high mileage vehicles on this blog. I have not seen the film, and have no intention of doing so.
Take what you learned from the EV1, apply it to plug in hybrid or other high mileage technology, reclaim the high ground, and eclipse Toyota and the Prius. This is the way to reestablish the premier engineering reputation of GM, and to turn lemons into lemonade.
Based upon GM’s experience with battery technology in the EV1, spare me Mr. Waggoner’s cop out that the plug in Vue will appear “when battery technology allows”. When’s that? 2010? “Later in the decade?” 2020? By then Toyota and Honda will have driven a few more nails in your coffin. Get out in front of this issue before it’s too late!
Gene Markel
The electric car that uses batteries that are recharged from a power utility outlet is a transfer of the emissions from the vehicle to the coal burning utility.
Bob Thompson
GM had very little choice but to axe the EV1. It was one money loosing project, with really, very little chance of ever being to sell any appreciable volume, based on range, battery cost, manufacturing cost and narrow customer acceptance. GM sunk about $1.5B into this project and could have sunk another $1.5B into it, with the same result. “The dog just wouldn;t hunt.” The leasing program for the EV1 may not have been the be go, but charging about $130,000/vehicle based on low volume engineering and manufacturing costs would also have yielded little additional volume and the car would have suffered the same fate. GM subsidized the heck out the EV1, and I really believe that killing was the right business strategy.
Paul Scott
Gene Markel states: “The electric car that uses batteries that are recharged from a power utility outlet is a transfer of the emissions from the vehicle to the coal burning utility.”
Gene, where do you get the electricity to run the appliances in your house? From the same place you would get the power to run an EV. Why is it OK for you to use that power in your house, but not to run your car?
If you would take the time to look into this issue, you’d find that there are many studies that have measured the pollution generated, well-to-wheels, for both EVs and internal combustion engines (ICE). In every study, the conclusion is the same. EVs are cleaner by far. This is because EVs are extremely efficient and ICE is extremely inefficient. Approximately 85% of the energy that goes into the battery of an EV turns the wheels. Approximately 25% of the energy in gas turns the wheels.
If pollution from a power plant is something you wish to diminish, and we all should want that, then you should be getting your power from renewable sources like wind or solar. Over 200 utilities in the U.S. offer “green energy” plans that essentially allow the customer to pay a little extra and that money goes to buy more wind power.
Plug In America surveyed the EV owners in California and found that a full 48% of them use solar to power their homes and cars. This is contrast to less than 1% of Californians as a whole.
Lastly, if you have a friend or relative fighting in Iraq, you would know there is a better reason to drive on cleaner, cheaper, domestic electricity than on gas. We have never fought a war for electricity, and we never will.
Michael Kobb
Gene Markel drags out a very tired argument indeed when he suggests that EVs are just a way to transfer emissions from the tail pipe to the coal plant smoke stack.
Mr. Markel, I invite you to do a little more reading. There have been a number of studies of this very claim, and they have found it to be false. In fact, because electric drive is more efficient than a gasoline engine, even an EV charged from a coal-heavy power grid is a cleaner alternative than a gasoline-powered car.
And, electric vehicles have the added benefit of being able to be charged from solar (like mine) or other clean sources like wind. It’s a more flexible alternative, and cleaner on all counts.
To start off Mr. Markel’s reading, Elon Musk, chairman of Tesla Motors, had an interesting write-up of this issue in his blog recently:
http://www.teslamotors.com/blog1/index.php?p=8
Paul
The electric car that uses batteries that are recharged from a power utility outlet is a transfer of the emissions from the vehicle to the coal burning utility. - Gene Markel
Which is easier to do: Regulate emissions at a few thousand coal plants or regulate emissions from one hundred million cars?
I’m not so concerned about who did what in the past. I’m more concerned about what people are going to be doing in the future. The first company to permanently release a practical electric car will be the one to capture the market.
And right now, it doesn’t look like any of the big automakers are going to do it before Tesla does.
Anthony J. Gioia
Question rather than a comment:
Why doesn’t GM explain why it recalled all the EV1’s and refused to sell them to those who wanted to purchase them?
Mike Thompson
Even if an Electric Vehicle is powered from a coal fired plant, it’s cleaner than a conventional gasoline car. The exhaust pipe from a conventional car is producing pollution where we live, work and play. The occupants of the car behind are breathing that direct exhaust. While coal plants need to be phased out in the future, the coal plant exhaust stack isn’t directly in front of your car.
Using the California electric power grid an Electric Vehicle is 97% cleaner than a conventional gasoline vehicle.
Remember that as we make the electric grid cleaner, we’re also making Electric Vehicles cleaner. Few, if any, vehicles get cleaner with age like Electric Vehicles powered by a cleaner electric grid in the near future.
If you want to drive a True Zero Emissions vehicle today, you can purchase zero emissions wind energy electricity credits for a penny or two a mile that offset the electricity used to charge your Electric Vehicle with clean wind electricity put into the grid for your wind energy credits.
Or you can produce your own zero emissions electricity like many Electric Vehicle owners have done using solar electric (PV) panels on your roof. In California, the payback can be 6 years or less depeneding on your local electric rates and how you finance it. If the PV system is financed with your home mortgage, you can get positive cash flow from the first day.
Will
I had to wait months to get my Toyota Rav 4 EV….i couldn’t get an EV 1 there were none available…..
Everyone who has driven with me in my car wants to know where they can get one and are terribly disappointed to find out that they are not available…..
When I went to the Toyota dealer in Glendale, the car was hidden away in the back…I had to make an appointment to test drive it….and the salesman knew almost nothing about the car.
There is a demand for these reliable trouble free Toyota all electric vehicles and the last one sold recently sold on EBAY for $58,000…
People are willing to pay for them too!!!
Dave Davidson
Comparing the marketing of the RAV4 EV to the Prius is not only misleading, it is completely dishonest. The RAV4 EV was only made available at a few dealerships in California. When the RAV4 EV was made available for purchuse rather than lease only, I contacted a California dealer to purchase one. I was willing to pick up the car and charger at the dealer, and pay cash for it. The dealer refused to sell me one since I do not live in California (I live in Maryland). I was told by the salesman that the only way I could purchase a RAV4 EV was to have someone in California front for me, have the charger installed at their address as well as have the car titled at their address. I would then have to retitle the car in my name, have the charger uninstalled, and go through the process all over again in Maryland, titling it as a used car. I could not pick up the car like I can any other Toyota. As I don’t know anyone in California, I was out of luck trying to get one of the 342 that were offered for sale to individuals (the article failed to mention that several thousand were leased - not sold - to fleet customers only). By contrast, I could (and still can) walk into any local Toyota deaer and drive off in a new Prius.
I have seen the movie and agree that GM was the focus of it, likely because the EV1 was so advanced compared to EVs offered by other companies. A sequel should be made highlighting the other companies involved in producing and leasing (not selling) electric cars and trucks, only to recall and crush them.
Darell Dickey
Bob Thompson writes: “GM had very little choice but to axe the EV1. It was one money loosing project, with really, very little chance of ever being to sell any appreciable volume”
To put this into perspective, let’s look at the recent Chevy SSR “roadster pickup” situation. How much money did GM spend in design and development for this vehicle? How much in advertising (this one I actually saw tons of advertising for!). Only to see dismal (understatement) sales numbers. GM could hardly give this vehicle away. The SSR sat on the lots longer than any other car in recent memory.
What did GM do about this situation? Did GM stop making them and begin telling potential customers that the car wasn’t ready for market? Did GM take the SSR’s back from loyal owners and crush them? Well, no. The dealers lowered the price and tried to get as many on the road as possible so dealers weren’t stuck with them.
So why did the EV1 need to be taken back from “owners” and destroyed (GM paid to have each of these perfectly-functioning cars recycled, of course). And how was this was a better business decision than what they did with the SSR?
GM has had plenty of money-losing slow sellers over the years. Even ones that they advertised the heck out of. Not one of those “regular” cars was ever taken back from the owners. The result for those cars was having the price lowered in an attempt to reduce the financial losses.
GM’s proported 1.5B investment (this number keeps changing!) COULD have been turned into an industry-leading role in our current alternative transportation landscape. The reward from that could have been huge, of course. Not in the next quarter, but in the next several years - where we are today. Instead, GM took that 1.5B and tossed it out the window as their “good business decision.”
Claude Gelinas
Electric cars are -way- bigger than just GM or Toyota.
Relying on fossil fuels for too long might break this planet of ours beyond repair and this would reflect badly on everyone who chose to keep their current job instead of saving the only planet we have.
Maybe “electricity to propel cars” isn’t 100% perfect but shouldn’t we be looking to get better at it instead of trashing the idea?
Perhaps we should all ponder on this, GM and Toyota’s executives included: to this very day, we have -zero- backup for planet Earth.
If the Earth fails us, by our fault or not, we’re -all- toast.
Harvey
The movie told me the story GM and Toyota never did and had a lot of great enviromentally correct information in it. It was a fun movie to take the children to and gave them new ideas about what is possible. We have since gone for a ride is a RAV-4ev and understand why so many people think it is one of the best cars ever build. It is quite, clean to the air and is easy to recharge. It reminds most kids of their battery operated toys only this one we get to ride around as a family. If GM or Toyota offered them today I would be first in line to buy one (no matter what GM marketing department claims about my desires).
Beaugrand
“Question rather than a comment:
“Why doesn’t GM explain why it recalled all the EV1’s and refused to sell them to those who wanted to purchase them?
“Posted by: Anthony J. Gioia on December 21, 2006 10:43 PM”
——————————
Anthony, I strongly suspect it had more to do with lawyers and liability concerns than with accountants and business concerns.
EV1 could have been a phenomenal basis, not only for future EV programs, but for hybrids as well. The very clumsy way it was handled spotlights the very heart of GMs current dilemma- an ingrained, out-of-touch corporate culture- despite attempts at communication, such as this blog.
edvard
I’ve been curious about the EV1 project for years- way before ” who killed the electric car” came out.
Truthfully, electric cars are still pretty much playthings for the rich or weekend hobbyist. They are practical for those who never-ever leave their immediate region, but honestly, hardly anyone I know actually stays put. I just took a trip this weekend that encompassed over 500 miles. I drive almost 100 miles a day back and forth to work. That just about pushes the limit of the cars in question- the EV1 and RAV4 EV.
It doesn’t take the average person long to deduce that paying 30-40k for an electric car doesn’t translate into a truly practical replacement for current internal combustion powered vehicles. Of course arguments can be made all day as to how I and others can alter our lifestyles- live in cities, live closer to work, or some other highly flamboyant romantic idea but at the end of the day, if Joe Sixpack doesn’t find the product practical, then no amount of rose-colored water will convince him to buy differently.
GM had to end this project for largely liability reasons; the suppliers that made parts for EV1 simply quit making them. Thus if a safety mechanism stopped funtioning, there would be no immediate replacement. I totally agree with GM’s position on this and view it little more than logical business.
By and large, the general public ignored this movie and just like Michael Moore films, was yet one more slap-on-the-back feel good movie for those who disagreed already with a subject they felt impassioned about.
But in my opinion,why not focus on what was gained from these experiments. GM and Toyota learned what consumer reactions would be to startling new concepts. They also gained new technology that was immediatly applicable, like the GM Hybrid busses I saw all weekend at the national park I visited, or the regenerative braking now used on many hybrid systems.
These days, electric cars have vastly improved range and technology. Though expensive, they still hold promise.Perhaps 5 years ago was too early to introduce technology that at the time was far from being generally acceptable. Maybe both companies learned a good lesson which as mentioned before is that if you are going to create new products, make sure that they are practical. Not just for eccentric wealthy Californians, but for the Joe sixpacks as well.
CM
GM has already admitted it handled the EV1 very badly.
GM claimed they couldn’t sell the EV1 because of “liability issues” and “a lack of repair parts”. That argument is bogus. Their lawyers could have drawn up “as is” sales contracts absolving GM from any further warranty and liability issues, but their oil company buddies (many on the GM company board) wanted all trace of the program to be literally crushed. Nothing was to stand in the way of Big Oil profits, and the subsequent decline of GM fuel economy then caused the decline of GM itself.
Paul
It doesn’t take the average person long to deduce that paying 30-40k for an electric car doesn’t translate into a truly practical replacement for current internal combustion powered vehicles. Of course arguments can be made all day as to how I and others can alter our lifestyles- live in cities, live closer to work, or some other highly flamboyant romantic idea but at the end of the day, if Joe Sixpack doesn’t find the product practical, then no amount of rose-colored water will convince him to buy differently. - edvard
If a product is going to make money, it shouldn’t matter how many are sold or for what price. If practicality for an average person were the overriding factor, we wouldn’t have Corvettes. Those are terribly unpractical, very expensive, but GM makes them anyway. Why? Because there’s a market. Just like the Corvette, the EV1 had small but growing market.
The people who bought an EV1 were of a similar mindset to people who buy Corvettes. They wanted a unique car that was an outward representation of the type of person they are, and they wanted it regardless of price.
If GM decided to recall and crush every impractical, expensive, unpopular (in terms of sales) Corvette and not offer any way for people to keep them if they wanted, the outcry would be huge.
Just a thought
Every Chevy dealer in North America can service a vette.
Every mechanic already understands how a vette works and doesn’t need extra training.
A lot of the parts on the vette are used in other GM vehicles and will be produced buy suppliers for years to come.
The vette is highly profitable while still being manufactured in small numbers.
While small numbers of people actually buy a vette, millions dream about it.
Most dealers don’t have and can’t afford the equipment to service the EV1.
Most mechanics wouldn’t know the first thing to do under the hood of an EV1.
The parts in the EV1 were very specific and not shared with other vehicles therefore would be harder to supply over the long term.
The EV wasn’t profitable without either a HUGE increase in the price or a HUGE increase in the volume, more than likely both.
Millions of people dream of not spending money on gas and helping the environment but few are willing to make changes to their own lifestyle.
PS - If EVs are so easy to build and going to sell like hotcakes and make the first company who builds them rich, why don’t some of you just go build some.
CE
If Toyota dealers can service Priuses, which have all the complexities and wear items of both electric and ICE cars, GM could have serviced EV1s. If production of every new technology was kept as artificially low as the EV1, we wouldn’t have anything. The first personal comptuers were sold exclusively to “enthusiasts” (nerds) even though 1) you had to assemble it yourself 2) it had no screen and no keyboard 3) you had to program it yourself by flipping switches on the front 4) was so limited in shipping form it could do nothing useful. Trillions of dollars later, I think we can all be thankful for those relatively few enthusiasts, and the manufacturers who provided them with what they wanted . . . like GM who just announced the Chevy Volt! 40 miles per charge. 600 miles on the gas tank!
William Young
But why do they destroy and crush every car that still has good life. That is a huge waste. A deal was made with someone ( big Corporations). A total recall on every electric car. Come on! And then to shred the evidense. And how about the other sub stories in the movie like the battery developer bought out by oil company and then told inventor not to talk about or publish his work and progress!
Leave a Reply
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)