A surviving EV1!!!!

volvoclearinghouse wrote: Am I the only one who envisions a 455 Toronado drivetrain wedged into the back?

Yep. I think you are all alone in that thought.

In other news:

Tesla Nabs 8% of the U.S. Luxury Car Market

aircooled wrote: In other news: Tesla Nabs 8% of the U.S. Luxury Car Market

Errr, it grabs 8% of a very small slice of the luxury car market, not of the whole lux car market.

Tesla Motors, Market Capitalization: 16 Billion dollars

There was also one in the outside parking lot of CAR at OSU when I was there in 2006ish.

I think the future truck team had stripped the drivetrain parts.

volvoclearinghouse wrote: Am I the only one who envisions a 455 Toronado drivetrain wedged into the back?

I knew Jay Leno lurked on the board.

aircooled wrote: In other news: Tesla Nabs 8% of the U.S. Luxury Car Market

I don't think I believe that.

The saddest car club page...in the world. Scroll down to the pictures of the wall of crushed cars.

http://www.eanet.com/ev1-club/

Is it just me or does the rear taillight/bumper section remind you of a mid 90's Saturn? The wheels also look very "Saturnish".

Just a thought.. continue.

Very interesting read.

Will wrote:

aircooled wrote: In other news: Tesla Nabs 8% of the U.S. Luxury Car Market

I don't think I believe that.

Well, as noted, it's not a huge market. But I can say, I have been seeing (relatively) a lot of these cars around. I generally see one every other day or so. I of course live in an area that has a fair number of luxury cars.

I sat in an EV1 once, in 2005. They gave some pieces of them away and my college had one. It's ugly on the inside. I don't care what the conspiracy theorists say, that car was not ready for prime time, and GM knew it. It was a neat design, though, and the exterior is fun.

Watching the first movie, I came away with a dislike of nearly everyone. It's pretty clear that GM was a blind giant rolling over everyone. Actually engaging their customers would have been far better. They didn't seem to want to be forced to make certain cars by the government of one state, and lobbied against it. The EV1 program seemed to be a Trojan horse they'd built within their own walls, so they tried killing it with lukewarm marketing and support. Rich people liked their oddball electric cars and didn't want to give them back so much that they got themselves arrested over a silly demonstration that made them look worse than they thought.

If you spend some time on eBay, you'll occasionally find a Chevrolet S10 EV. These are factory electric front wheel drive pickups with roughly the same drivetrain as the EV1. I think I've seen someone on the internet declare plans to swap the parts into a Honda Insight 1st gen to make the nearest approximation to an EV1 they can manage.

In reply to Mike:

While nice to bash GM for not strongly marketing an EV that California "required"- there's a little footnote that few people actually realize. As GM worked and spent a billion dollars on the EV, it was found that a gas engine can emit the same emissions as electrical power generation plants, and actually less than many of them. So by California's constitution, if the OEM's come up with a more effective AND cheaper way to meet the air quality that the ARB was looking for, they are required to allow that solution. Which is why there was a lawsuit over it late in the 1990's. And the result was that PZEV vehicles were allowed as substitutions of EV's.

So GM spent a ton of money, and it was still cheaper for them to drop the EV and produce PZEV vehicles. A lot cheaper. Why try to sell electric cars at a major loss when you can make money selling cars?

aircooled wrote: Tesla Motors, Market Capitalization: 16 Billion dollars

Understand that the Market Cap is a preception of what stock holders value a company at, not the actual value.

For instance, Ford's current market cap is $67B. And Ford produces a few million cars at plants worldwide compared to thousands of cars at one plant.

At one point, the market cap was below $10B.

So that's not really a good indication of a company.

TL,DR version. I agree with most of Mike's sentiments, but not EVERYONE in GM was trying to kill the car. Also, Nashco's AWD hybrid fiero build is the essence of awesome!

Mike wrote: Watching the first movie, I came away with a dislike of nearly everyone. It's pretty clear that GM was a blind giant rolling over everyone. Actually engaging their customers would have been far better.

A agree entirely with the sentiment of what you're saying. I think GM could have sold the cars to the whiny rich kids with a it-is-your-problem-now clause. (i.e. if you buy it, you know do so in the full knowledge that we're not supporting it, our dealers won't be servicing it, and we're not making replacement parts.)

Mike wrote: The EV1 program seemed to be a Trojan horse they'd built within their own walls, so they tried killing it with lukewarm marketing and support.

Big company, with lots of people, and lots of competing interests. I'm sure there were people who wanted to kill it. (I've heard that it felt every bit as peppy off the line as the base model of gen4 mustang.....appearing as a possible competitor to a cash cow doesn't help your chances of survival.) However, at the same time that GM was being pilloried by the first film, they were funding R&D into batteries and EV drive trains. By the time the film was finished (2006) the chevy volt was in the planning stage (the concept car unveiled in Jan. of 2007.)

This is what I meant about documentary filmmakers caring more about their sweeping narrative than about nuanced, detailed treatment of the facts. GM would have looked a lot less douchey if the film had said "Well, they crushed the electric car that I love, but they've been funding research on another one that will come out in a couple years."

Mike wrote: Rich people liked their oddball electric cars and didn't want to give them back so much that they got themselves arrested over a silly demonstration that made them look worse than they thought.

This is 100% true. Their antics are the kind of thing that make most people hate environmentalists. (And yes, I consider myself - with my recycled metal streetrod - to be one.)

Mike wrote: If you spend some time on eBay, you'll occasionally find a Chevrolet S10 EV. These are factory electric front wheel drive pickups with roughly the same drivetrain as the EV1. I think I've seen someone on the internet declare plans to swap the parts into a Honda Insight 1st gen to make the nearest approximation to an EV1 they can manage.

You're kind of new here (i.e. not a full blown dork) so you probably don't know this, but the GRM Hive Mind(TM) has quite a bit of info on those things; Nashco used the drivetrain out of one to build the front half of his AWD hybrid fiero for the $2009 challenge, and the build thread covers 16 pages. (...and drove it a long distance cross country afterwards.)

JoeyM wrote: A agree entirely with the sentiment of what you're saying. I think GM could have sold the cars to the whiny rich kids with a it-is-your-problem-now clause. (i.e. if you buy it, you know do so in the full knowledge that we're not supporting it, our dealers won't be servicing it, and we're not making replacement parts.)

They can't really do this. Even preproduction prototypes get crushed, even though they could be used as company cars or whatever. I've driven at least one perfectly production ready car which was subsequently crushed because it was preproduction. They can't go and put their name out there and hide behind a 'as-is where-is' clause, lawyers would go crazy with that. What if someone died in an EV1 accident? Can you imagine the litigation? Not to mention the brand ruination that can come of having broken down unsupported new cars out there. Sure, the movie ended up being bad PR, but that was unforseen when the decision was made.

Trust me, having crawled over those cars, they were absolutely not ready for public consumption anyway.

Also remember, there is a regulatory requirement to supply parts for a car for a number of years (10 IIRC).

I bet GM wanted to avoid that like the plague it could be.

OK, then my first paragraph could be flat out wrong. The other points remain:

2) GM was funding EV research at the same time the film makers were portraying them as evil/stupid
3) Yes, the stunts of the EV1 addicts made us all look stupid, too
4) Nashco's GRM Challenge entries are awesome!!!!!

Racer1ab wrote:

volvoclearinghouse wrote: Am I the only one who envisions a 455 Toronado drivetrain wedged into the back?

I knew Jay Leno lurked on the board.

I'm kindof like a bizzaro Jay Leno. My entire collection of 20+ cars (used to be over 40, but I've culled it a bit due to moving) likely has a combined appraised worth of less than the single least- valuable car that Jay Leno owns.

My chin is also slightly smaller than his, too. Oh, and I don't have a late night TV show, either.

I'm inclined to side with tuna on the whole GM/EV thing, incidentally. While GM is a big, stupid company and I was opposed fundamentally to the bailout and a lot of things they've done over the years, them leaving the EV1s on the streets would not have been smart. It's similar to what Chrysler tried to do years and years ago with their turbine car, which also, from what I have read, was not ready for prime time. Yet, you don't see Michael Moore making documentaries about "Who Killed The Turbine-Powered Super Awesome Jet Car- George and Me?"

You can whine all you like for GM crushing those cars, but look at it this way: what other major automaker back then was even offering any electric car to anybody?

crickets

GM's done a lot of revolutionary things that have gotten tainted, either through the prism of time or from failed execution/ marketing or managerial incompetence, or (often) all of the above. The Corvair. The Tempest. A rotary-powered Corvette. The Aztec. The Volt. I'd wager to say that if GM had been letting engineers run the company for the past 60+ years, instead of bean counters, they wouldn't be in the mess they're in.

volvoclearinghouse wrote: I'm kindof like a bizzaro Jay Leno. My entire collection of 20+ cars (used to be over 40, but I've culled it a bit due to moving) likely has a combined appraised worth of less than the single least- valuable car that Jay Leno owns.

Nope.
http://video.tvguide.com/Jay+Lenos+Garage/1925+Ford+Model+T+Roadster/2372728
http://www.jaylenosgarage.com/cars/custom-built/the-shotwell/index.shtml#item=73540

volvoclearinghouse wrote: My chin is also slightly smaller than his, too.

This, I believe.

Oh, I almost forgot to plug some GRM coverage in Jay's Garage
http://www.jaylenosgarage.com/cars/custom-built/cheaparral/index.shtml

volvoclearinghouse wrote: You can whine all you like for GM crushing those cars, but look at it this way: what other major automaker back then was even offering any electric car to anybody? *crickets*

Ford- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Ranger_EV

Different years, perhaps, but 4 years of sales ('98-02 for the Ranger, '96-99 for the EV1).

i'm sure there were some others.

In reply to alfadriver:

Correct. GM was first, came out with a revolutionary (if ahem "provacative") design, and made a market test.

Ford slapped some batteries and an electric machine into an already-15-year-old chassis. Something guys were already doing in their garages.

volvoclearinghouse wrote: In reply to alfadriver: Correct. GM was first, came out with a revolutionary (if *ahem* "provacative") design, and made a market test. Ford slapped some batteries and an electric machine into an already-15-year-old chassis. Something guys were already doing in their garages.

First of all, you aksed what other OEM was offering an electric car, so I answered. Ford Ranger.

And look back on the two cars- outside of the chassis- one being unique, the other not so much- the car were the same- lead acid batteries to start with and an electric motor. Some with more advanced batteries.

None the less, GM was NOT the only ones making electric cars. They are the ones who made headlines. As a matter of fact, checking the numbers, Ranger (1500) > EV1 (1117). And I'm sure there were other OEM's making electric cars, hedging their bets that they would be needed.

Its interesting to note that the Ranger and the EV1 had better numbers than Tesla did for quite a while. Not sure how long it took for tesla to break 1000. Now, they finally are making more cars in a year that F150's in a day. Good for them.

In reply to alfadriver:

Didn't GM make an S10 EV as well?

And good for you for bagging on Tesla. They sure don't seem to be lacking for sales or profit.

Toyota RAV4 electric car, same time period of EV1- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_RAV4_EV

So another OEM offering electric cars. And selling more of them than EV1- 1484.

And it's my pleasure to rag on Tesla. They sure get a lot of press for making so few cars. And they have a lot of "value" for being so small. Who's going to go get one?