Re: (ET) gm car

["David Roden (Akron OH USA)" <roden ald net>]

On 12 Mar 2003 at 7:11, Pieter Litchfield wrote:

> Well don't condemn GM too soon.

The story goes that when GM showed the Impact prototype at the LA auto 
show 
in I think 1991, one of their executives was standing next to a very 
enthusiastic member of CARB (California Air Resources Board)He turned to 
him 
and said, "You're not going to make us BUILD that car, are you?"

You know about CARB, right?  The organization charged with protecting CA's 
air?  They were stacked with compliant members by the CA governor.  GM and 
others actually SUED them for trying to do their jobs.  They caved.  Now 
the 
automakers know that they can get what they want by threatening legal 
action.  Not only can CARB now not get ZEVs, they won't be able to get any 
further improvement in conventional vehicles.  They may as well disband.

Back to the EV1. Read "The Car That Could" (if you can find a copy). That 
will tell you some of what happened.  

GM is not interested in the public good nor in advancing the state of the 
art in transportation.  The US (and world) economic system doesn't lend 
itself well to anything but short-term bottom line.  If EVs come to the US 
--
 and GM and the others will do everything possible to see that they don't 
-- 
but if they do, it will be from small manufacturers.  And US law makes it 
very, very difficult for a small manufacturer with limited resources to 
put 
a vehicle on sale.

The thing is, the EV1 situation is just a damn shame.  The better you know 
the EV1, the more you'll lament GM's abandonment of it.  They designed an 
EV 
that, with a little more refinement, would have been superlative (the main 
issue was that they didn't include decent battery management hardware).  
It's a vehicle that not only is "green," it's emotionally gratifying to 
drive.  That's why the drivers got so desperately attached to it.  

GM made a business decision to walk away from that beautiful engineering.  
That's bad enough.  But they could have sold the cars to the drivers with 
the understanding that GM wouldn't support them.  They refused.  They are 
going to take them and crush them.  Crush them!  What if GE had done that 
with the Elec-trak?

GM imply that they want to avoid liability.  I don't believe that it was 
or 
is that.  They knew the car was too successful and they're afraid that 
customer demand will "make us BUILD that car."  

And they just don't want to.  

Right to the end, GM had waiting lists for the EV1, and that doesn't even 
count the people who they turned away because their incomes were too low 
or 
for other obscure reasons.  That's despite the paucity of advertising, 
despite their constant negative PR for their own vehicle in every one of 
the 
media, from the auto mags to network television news.  If they had let 
those 
few hundred leased EV1s stay in the hands of real world drivers, the 
demand 
would have continued to grow even with all their active work against it.  
And all GM wanted to do was bury the whole issue, especially since they 
had 
finally coerced CARB into giving up.  

Add to this the fact that ^just now^ battery technology is finally 
catching 
up -- well, as far as I'm concerned, what happened with the EV1 ought to 
be 
a crime.

Sorry to hit so hard.  This whole debacle, including GM's bad faith 
behavior 
and utterly brazen legal action, the Washington administration's 
outrageous 
interference in it, and CARB's craven irresponsiblity, just about makes me 
livid.  

> For the moment, it appears that hybrids are gaining acceptance.

I know some people don't agree with me -- but these are not hybrids.  The 
definition of a hybrid is a vehicle that uses two sources of energy.  
These 
cars derive all their energy from gasoline.  

They're more efficient, and that's good.  But they're not true hybrids.

Now, if Toyota were to make the motor capable of continuous use instead of 
intermittent, add battery capacity, make it possible to plug it in for 
part 
of the energy, and allow it to run for several miles on electricity alone 
without ever starting the engine -- the Prius would be a true hybrid.  
There 
are people working to hack the car's software and hardware to make that 
possible, but it appears to be a formidable challenge.


David Roden - Akron, Ohio, USA
1991 Solectria Force 144vac
1991 Ford Escort Green/EV 128vdc
1970 GE Elec-trak E15 36vdc
1974 Avco New Idea 36vdc
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