But the design was sold to Chevron who had it destroyed.


Granted, I understand it was purely an electric vehicle and had no gasoline motor supplement. But my question is, doesn't it seem strange after 12 years have passed the new EV we're talking about (Volt) that still won't be out for at least 2 more years is only going to have an electric-only range of 40 miles??

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_EV1

What happened?

 

Crash test standards?

EDIT: The volt also has to have a realistic price tag.

 

I've thought the same thing by self. I wonder what the cost and weight of EV1 batteries is compared to the Volt.

 

That article makes it sound like GM made the EV1 specifically to show that electric cars were not viable and that there was no demand for them.
Little did they know that gas prices would double and people would be willing to pay the price for such a car.
If GM had kept that technology and continued to develop it, the Prius would look like a dinosaur.

 

I agree, they may have made their blunder of the century.

Kinda like when International(Harvester) quit making trucks and SUV's...the market soon exploded!..

Talk about a shot in the foot...

 

With regards to battery tech. I think it has to do with recharge time. The EV1 took like 8 hours to charge. Now, I think they want that like 2-3 hours for a complete cycle charge. It is silly that in '98 the EV1 could get 100 miles on a charge and now we are shooting for 40.

 

They did *not* make 75-150 miles per charge reliably, sorry.

Our city leased several EV1s when they came out, and one of the most common things to see during that time was the EV1s sitting at the side of the road, battery dead, because someone had floored it a few times.

One magazine did about a dozen quarter mile runs with the car and killed the battery.

Another magazine tried to drive the EV1 across the country and found that they couldn't make it from town to town in the Rockies before the battery gave out.

Also, let's remember that the EV1's battery weighed somewhere in the neighborhood of 1000 lbs (the EV1 without battery was insanely light--they went to extremes to keep the car light).

It sounds like the Volt is a much more practical, mature, and conservatively spec'd car--which we should be very, very happy about.

 

 

I drove the EV1 around the Milford proving grounds back when I was an engineer for GM, and it was a very cheap feeling car, and made all sorts of weird noises. It didn't feel all that solidly built either.

I think the Volt will be much more mainstream, and buyers now expect much more from an electric vehicle. The volt is a totally different kind of powertrain as well, with the addition of the second motor.

Plus, the 40 mile range is very misleading. 40 miles only on battery, yes, but with the second motor kicking in, they expect over a 600 mile range.

Dan

 

There were several versions of the car with dramatically different ranges between them.

I understand these are two very different approaches but it still baffles me that GM is jumping up and down about a car coming out in 2010 costing 40 grand that might actually meet its target of 40 miles before the gasoline motor kicks in.

I'd kind of expect that out of a concept vehicle. If they took it to production it'd probably have been better, though in reality almost anything from GM in that era wasn't exactly king of quality NVH characteristics and materials quality.


True... and that's a big advantage over the EV is that it doesn't just die once the battery runs out. But at the point that the gasoline motor takes over what is the EPA mileage going to be? The same or better than the next gen Prius? I hope so, for the price.

 

The goal; i believe; was ~40 mpg once the gasoline motor kicked in. Does anyone have a better answer?

 

Well that's great. If you can use it to commute to work and do all your errands all week on the electric battery only and then use the gasoline for a weekend trips once in a great awhile, you'll still save tons of fuel.

 

55mpg at least was the number they've been throwing out there. I also heard 150mpg? That one I'm not so sure about...

But hey! If you figure 55mpg + 40 miles electric for ~100miles...that's 100mpg!!!

 

Keep in mind, the Volt will be powered by electric motors. When the battery runs out, the ICE acts as a generator to recharged the batteries. It does not power the wheels.

 

I was thinking more along the line of Dodge not building a Ramcharger SUV after the 94+ Ram redesign. That was a very popular design and the full-size SUV market really did blow up around that time.