EV1 - Driving it the final week before the crusher.
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- Опубликовано: 3 фев 2009
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My 1997 EV1. Footage taken in November, 2003 just a week before the car was returned, under duress, to my local Saturn dealer. Soon after, the car was crushed. As you can clearly see, the car deserved a good crushing - for my own good.
To answer everybody's question:
1. The leases could not be extended, the car could not be purchased at the end of lease.
2. I now drive a Tesla Model 3. 
Авто/Мото
120 miles per charge = about 192km, and it is close to 2017 Nissan Leaf. If GM kept up improving EV1 instead, we could've enjoyed better electric cars than now in less expensive price than nowadays.
"The car's batteries get only about 120 miles per charge." in 1997 - LOL
Right? It took Nissan until 2018 to create better range in the Leaf.
@@darelldd you do understand that the leaf 1.0 is a full sized car, not just a 911 interior compacted? Still, ~200km is a good range for an ev, even today.
True but also consider recharging and no high-speed ones at different locations as now.
@@darelldd yep: the Leaf as much bigger batteries, but is aerodynamicaly totaly innefficient, so not netter: today is the best aerodynamic electric car the Tesla model 3...
@@eivis13 Uh, yeah. I "understand". I've owned all these cars. The LEAF 1.0 came 15 years after this car! And it was not "full size" by any means. You'd be surprised at how much room there was in the EV1 even though it was only a two-seater.
This video came out 10 years ago and it seems like everyone is watching it now for some reason.
Apparently linked from Doug DeMuro's review of the EV1 owner's manual. 300 new comments and 100 new subscribers in the past three days. Yikes.
@@darelldd Start making EV videos! :)
This car was so far ahead of its time. Even without lithium batteries it had 120 miles of range, and my 2012 Nissan Leaf only got about 80 miles when it was new. Imagine where EVs would be today. This is why I will never buy a GM car - even though the Bolt looks promising, GM will never erase the damage it did to the EV world by crushing these cars. RIP EV1...we lost you too soon.
I think it hade 80 Miles
Mike likes trains As a gm car salesman by law the factory must stock/produce replacement parts up to x (my guess is 10 years. Could be wrong) amount years. It didn't make sense to keep these cars and parts around. I live in California and we sell a ton of Bolts. Also the EV1 name will live on as AV1. Honda, Toyota, and Ford has ever cars back then for lease only. No need to hate on GM.
I think a lot of why the ev1 died was the big oil companies wanting to get rid of competition they saw how well the ev1 did and wanted to get rid of it to save their paychecks
In defense of the leaf... The EV1 with lead acid had 16-18KWH battery which is the same capacity as the Chevy Volt. The later versions had a 26KWH NIMH battery but due to the design of the vehicle, while the NIMH versions had a larger capacity battery, the efficiency went down 50% because they had to retrofit a cooling system that used the air conditioner so the total range didn't increase much. It would have required a complete redesign of the vehicle to use the NIMH batteries properly without a massively energy sucking cooling system.
Don't go by the 'range' the vehicles were rated at, those used older testing methods. I had one of these vehicles, 1997 EV1 and the range was quite a bit lower than its actual rating. They were fun vehicles and I liked the sound of them when driven but they weren't ready for prime time by any measure. I think GM crushing these vehicles was a travesty and it really left a sour taste in my mouth for their 'commitment' to green vehicles.
I own a Tesla Model S now.
GM of today isn't the same people. Your logic makes sense only if you look at corporations as always the same thing. I'd buy a Mustang GT500 today even though Henry Ford was kinda a Nazi, because it isn't the same Ford anymore.
I like how we’re all getting this in our suggested after 10 years. All I did was watch Doug’s vid on the owners manual
10 years later.. and RUclips showed me this video..
Thanks for uploading it.
Welcome!
Sir why was it crushed its automotive history
Crushed because it represented a better product than what was currently making corporate profit.
shout out to this guy for hitting skids in this thing
Probably the only ones ever recorded for this vehicle
By the time when the second generation Prius launched having less advanced technology than the EV1.
Ev1 looks much better then the Chevy Bolt. It could have been revolutionary with todays batteries!!
+Tesla Fan It was already revolutionary in the 1990's, of course. Today GM should have been releasing their 4th generation EV. Instead, we're about to see their second FIRST generation EV. And that'll come out maybe a year before Tesla - a company that didn't even exist when the EV1 was created - will release their truly THIRD generation EV.
Sad that GM, of all companies, was so ahead of its time and killed it's own electric car.
Spinning my tires even in the slightest like that in my neighborhood would cause all the old folks to come out for blood. Luckily you had a gem that was so quiet, such an interesting car that makes me wonder what they would be like today if GM never scrapped them
ikr, I tried to fly a rc helicopter on my street once and like half the neighborhood came outside...
i know what you mean lol.
Thank you Doug Demuro for forcing this in my recommended videos.
it's *Daddy Doug
@@Omar-em7rl *Daddy Demuro
I had to re read. Thought you said Dong Demuro lol
It’s weird how related videos just show up after you watch something. This video is a decade old!
That's sad. They should have let everyone keep them.
I had no idea this video was out there. Rare footage.
This video was ahead of its time.
Apart from the fact it looks like it was made in the 90's
Wonder what the Doug score would be on this?
What a neat car! Such a shame to destroy something that could have been so useful. My EV doesn't even peel out like that.
There was a wee bit of a trick to defeat the factory traction control. Learned to do it early on, and had fun ever since. :-)
They said it wasn't profitable, they lied. It was extremely profitable, but they were afraid it would make their combustion engines useless.
Ha! There's a guy who knows!
lol youtube recommended this to like a million people 10 years after being uploaded.
Damn thing sounded good for an EV of the time, and didn't really look that bad either.
The music in this video is perfectly 90s. A truly amazing car, well ahead of its time!
Hold on, a video from 2009, and comments from 6 minutes ago, an hour ago, another hour ago, 4 hours ago, just some video about EV1s being crushed due to the manufacturer? Good guy RUclips algorithm.
Doug Demuro sent us here
OI!
It's just heartbreaking. Watch the movie "Who Killed the Electric Car" and you see that it's actually more than that: it's criminal.
There was demand, the car (by the third gen) was brilliant, owners were raving about it and had it gone into full mass production across the country it would have been successful and profitable. But GM wanted to sell Hummers so,....
GREAT vid on Netflix, yes. Very criminal, yes. Hummers, oh yes, let's promote the worst of all business and human behavior. Not to mention, the way we're expected to worship the hucksters in the hallowed halls of the US car industry. It's over. There's a reason children's stories like The Wizard of Oz and The Emperor's New Clothes hold up after hundreds of years.
I guess the question will always remain. Many auto makers had proved that a viable zero emissions vehicle was possible. Why exactly did the California Air Resources Board decide at the last minute to reverse their mandate for ZEVs?
@@spazzman90 because they proved it was possible, not viable. It took a 2 decades past and a decade of building ultra luxury ev's by tesla before they could drop the price down to 35k, and even that's not really encouraged because even with selling just the expensive ones, they are having trouble making a profit. Both corporate bosses and the car unions were extremely corrupt back then as well, they could have never done it even if they had the technology.
the EV1 sounds like a jet turbine!
I thought the same thing.
The one time that GM made a great new car that everyone loved and actually wanted. But instead of letting people actually buy it, they make sure to crush and destroy every last one of them. GM should have never been bailed out. They've been digging themselves their own grave since this decision. They already had spent a billion bucks developing and even building the EV. They had already done it. You can see the passion the creators put into this project. Had they just made more of the car they would have been leading the auto industry and beaten Nissan to market by 10 years. But why would you want to do that? That might actually be a good business decision and we at GM only like to go bankrupt, cost the government millions, and make shitty fucking J.D. Power commericals.
Shwa Andary cheap Tesla’s for 30k are the future with rising fossil fuel cost ;)
After doug review the owners manual youtube knew it was time to bless this video
Antonio is that your evo
Wow. Is this what it feels like to be blessed? I thought there'd be more rapture.
Thanks to you I saw what an EV1 drives like. My best compliments for you!
wow 10 years ago GM didnt want nothing to do with EV's. Now on there home page, they talk alot about there future tech on EV's.
I presume they've kept the old pressing tools so they could start production again, this time with Li-ion batteries?
8:20 looks like the current mustangs rear tail light area
Now that's trippy
No wonder😄
Damn i want one now
Well sadly you will never get one
It looked good in red and I love the noise it made.
The elite realized that it was too good for this world
I love the sound of that car!
It was tuned on purpose to make that sound.
thank you youtube for recommending this 10 years later
Welcome to another episode of: *WhY iS tHiS iN mY rEcOmMeNdEd??*
You watched Doug read the EV1 Owner's manual
This is proof it’s not that we didn’t have the technology but greed is what killed these amazing cars. Fuck these oil tycoons!
Incorrect. They did not have the Technology to sustain the project back then. The EV1 required far too much maintenance to be considered practical. The cost of the vehicles maintenance was far too high for the average person to afford and thus the reason why these vehicles were leased and not sold outright. The project failed to produce adequate results and was terminated. Greed was not a motivating factor here. I was in California at the time these were produced. I saw them 1st hand and even test drove one, The cost of the Lead Acid batteries, alone, would have caused a lot of strife and left vehicles sitting in driveways as owners would have to take out loans just to deal with the issue of replacing them. The level of Technology was simply not where it needed to be in those days.
Democrat California regulations prevented GM from going any further with it: "In addition, the cost of maintaining a parts supply and service infrastructure for the 15-year minimum required by the state of California meant that existing leases would not be renewed, and all the cars would have to be returned to GM's possession."
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_EV1#Cancellation
100% not this. There is no law that has a minimum support time for cars that are out of warranty. I'll leave this comment up. But please stop posting the same inflammatory and incorrect information multiple times.
This car is like the "Dodo" of of cars
It's at least nice to know a small handful of these are still kicking around at universities and museums.
I suspect by now GM could be the most advanced electric car maker. How stupid was that?
Pretty stupid, in my estimation.
If I could have any car, it would be that one. To me, it is the most legendary car ever and the sound is phenomenal.
Sounds like a plane taking of. :D
unfortunately, only 40 were spared and only 3 of them run. one got a complete overhaul since GM took the motor, batteries, and all the controllers, they just pretty much had an EV1 rolling chassis and they stuffed in various components from other EV vehicles, the 2nd was another university project, haven't read up into it much. the third belongs to the Smithsonian, only one left unmodified from the factory, it is however rarely on display. there used to be a fourth when a university had a complete one with the inverter Disabled, it didn't take them long to re-enable the inverter and have a factory EV1, unfortunately, they killed it trying to make an autonomous pizza delivery vehicle, something broke in the shifter and no replacement parts have been found, so it's been stripped and is now sitting out in the elements covered in dust. don't ask me why but i'm still holding out hope someone locked one away in a garage or a barn somewhere, although i highly doubt it for the small production numbers.
How does an auto maker sue an entire state? That just shows you who is really in charge and making decisions.
This makes me want to cry.
It seems odd to say now, but didn't at the time: It DID make us cry. Returning the car - knowing its fate - was more than just losing a car. It was losing what that car symbolized. At the time, it appeared that the age of the modern EV was over before it ever had a chance to get started. There were some dark years.... and now here we are. GM could have been dominant in this space, but spent hundreds of millions to throw it all away, and start over a day late and a dollar short.
I definitely understand both the personal and broader pain, and I agree about the prospects of GM back then. That board of executives simply lacked principles. The industry revamp that resulted in Wagoner and friends being ousted was one of the proudest moments in United States history.
Am I the only one who liked the look and style of it?
The wheel cover and wrap around glass on windshield and rear windshield.
You aren't the only one. It definitely grew on me as well.
I don’t know why this popped up in my recommendations 10 years later but I’m glad it did. Wasn’t around to see one in the wild but I got to see one at the Peterson not to long ago.
GM came with the excuse that they didn't create a market for this ev1.(lost lots of money) But how can you get this car off if u lease it to your customers, why not sell it. once its yours then spare parts batteries and other replacements can be sold. the gains would be far greater than a lease. I think it was planned to be scrapped. well TESLA got in the void and made a success. GM is now playing catch up.
They leased them so that once the laws were changed they could collect them all up again and pretend like it never happened.
AGREED! Thank you Mr. Musk :-)
fisioserv GM is playing catch up? Did you know GM sells an all electric car called the Bolt since 2016. The price is $37,000 brand new before discounts.
They didn’t want to deal with servicing these, or competitors getting them. If they sold them, they could have sold it at a massive profit margin since nothing like it existed.
You had me right up until the end. The cars were not gathered up and crushed because their "experiment" was over. They were crushed specifically to avoid having to make more of them when GM realized that they'd just proven to CARB that EVs were viable.
RUclips recommendations
2009...nah
2010..nah
2011...nope
2012....hmm
2013...shmmm
2014...zzzzzzz
2015..........
2016.....uuuhh
2017.....psssstt
2018.....hmm maybe....nahh
2019....here u go...
Seriously...
Honestly
i would of stored it in a shed or storage container and claim that it was stolen.
True dat
@dougdemuro brought us here lol. This might be the best quality video I seen that's 10 years old !!
Awww, thanks.
But the Actual video is more than 15 years old! Uploaded to RUclips as a 6 year old video!
I was distributing it on DVD for quite some time. Back in the day, it wasn't possible to upload a video this long to RUclips (if I remember correctly). Also I had copyright issues with the news segment and the music (drives me nuts when it is music that I own, and I'm not making any money off of this!)
Great video!!! I wonder what the ramifications would have been if you (or any owner) would have said, someone stole it. Sorry. Would they charge you? I wonder.....
Amazing video. Thank you for documenting this car for the future. Very little exists about it, so videos like these will be awesome in the future of advancing EVs. Coolest thing is, with that flowing center dash, you can see a good bit of 2011 Chevy Volt!
You're welcome. But of course Doug is currently getting all of the credit.
Why did these cars HAVE to be crushed ?
Trashing the tires a bit before returning it... well, they crushed it anyway so you might as well have some fun with it. It has a very SciFi sound, love it!
Just re-watched Who Killed the Electric Car, was this very car in it?
Haven’t watched it but yes it is about the EV1
Yep, it was.
Yes. This very car was in it. As was *I*.
When pushed by CARB (California Air Resources Board), GM developed the EV1. When GM and other auto-makers pushed back and successfully sued CARB, they crushed the EV1. Despite how much we need and like the EV1, GM doesn't care and wants to keep doing the same ol' thing they've been doing for almost 100 years.
To be accurate, it actually worked the other way around with CARB. GM demonstrated that an acceptable EV could be made. And THAT is what gave CARB the confidence to be able to create a mandate. Somewhat Ironic that GM pretty much created the push from CARB by building this car... and then turned around and sued CARB to avoid having to make the car. It would be comical if not true...
Great camera for 2003 standards! The sound of the EV1 brings back so many memories. I got to see and drive one back in 2000, at tech school. Back then it was used as a teaching platform, with GM loaning one to the school. No idea what became of it 14 years later. It was an interesting piece of technology, no doubt could have owned the hybrid market today. Instead, Toyota did thanks to the Prius.
+Lynx Star Automotive (Gabe V) Thanks for the nice words on the video!
Some nerd needs to remake this car. It’s clearly got a small but hardcore fan base.
A C That’s the Chevy Bolt
@@devinbender8428 Before that even, there were plenty of "compliance cars" like the Focus Electric and Chevy Spark EV. I thought they'd feel thrown together, but I went in on a whim to test a used Chevy Spark EV thinking I wouldn't like it and I signed the papers for it a few hours later.
Check out tzev.com. He's rebuilding one and is almost done.
This brings back so many memories - I had a blue 1st Gen one, then got someone in SoCal to assume the lease, and leased a red NiMH one, and of course had to return it to its doom. It's one reason I will never buy a GM product. They only made 1150 of them I think. At this time, at work there were 2 other guys with EVs - an EV1 and a Honda EV plus. We were on the fringe for sure, but always were hoping that it would catch on. Thanks for posting this.
Awesome. I wonder if mine was your lease return?? Mine was still considered Gen 1, but but with the updated Panasonic batteries.
All the cool vehicles gm would have produced by now from sedans to suburbans.. damn shame.
We were all cheated by big Oil!!
When corruption becomes obvious.
What a fantastic car and absolutely love the super-futuristic layout of the curved dash layout. So rad!
GM could have owned the EV market if they had persevered with the EV1. They probably would have short-circuited the formation of Tesla Motors and today would be selling their tech to EV latecomers.
MrMathiasdv GM will pull a dumb move everywhere
The problem was though, GM couldn't make any money with the EV1... It just allowed them to make more money in California, with other cars... Even still, Tesla isn't exactly swimming in profit, yet.
@@rkan2 - GM never even tried to make money from the EV1. It was a response to the California law in force at the time. They only built about 1100 of them and never sold them outright. As soon as they managed to lobby CA to weaken the law, they abandoned EV1. They didn't know what they had. They were like Xerox with the first GUI computer and no idea what to do with it because all they could think about was copy machine toner. Ironically, Rick Wagoner, CEO at the time, said killing the EV1 was his worst decision as CEO and is now on the board of ChargePoint.
They probablywould have gone bankrupt, was 1 dollar gas days then, and even now, Tesla's having a hard time being profitable at a reasonable price. GM was corrupt and the unions were also corrupt, the stories of drugs and hookers at plants are notorious, its why the japanese couldn't even really help them to fix their production standards to the toyota standard back when they were cooperating. The conspiracies are a fun explanation, but the reality is more mundane and dirty.
Very sad :( a great car ahead of its time :(
haha! I'm so glad you actually took it for some spirited driving.
+Andrew J (Jawse36) :-) Pretty much always.
It's so great that this video exists. I would never have suspected that EVs could be that advanced 20 years ago. I never knew Toyota made an actual EV RAV4 in 1997, while they're only producing hybrid RAV4s now. It's so cool you actually owned one of the very few EV RAV4s, do you still own it?
I mean it was 10 years ago so he probably just has teslas now.
Nobody ever "owned" the EV1's. Except for schools and museums they were all returned under the closed-end leases. I returned the car in 2003 because I had to. The EV1 was the first of five EVs that I've had.
@@darelldd Why did they make everyone sign close ended leases and eventually have to return the vehicles??
@@TheTyisawesome because they're aholes and just want the money.
@@darelldd Yes of course for the EV1, but I was thinking about the RAV4. Did you get to buy that one and actually own it?
Great vid! Thank you for putting it together.
I drove an EV1 at a test drive event, racing against a Corvette and off the line the EV took it. What a great car.
That would explain why they killed it. GM killed so many great things trying to protect it's precious golden child.
The EV1 was a really cool car! It's a real tragedy that they were all taken away and destroyed. I don't believe the claims that drivers didn't want it. The hydrogen fuel-cell car was a waste. They should have kept the EV and developed gas/electric hybrids.
RandomActivities Well, they did as a response to Tesla, and now they have the Chevy Volt, and the Chevy Bolt EV.
And five years later, bailout! And who is the EV king? TESLA! Could have been GM. Oh well.
The battery was good for only 120 miles, so they had reasons not to produce it...
That's actually a good range. We just started to get ovet that with modern electric cars. Literally just a few years ago. But now it's so important to build them, but it wasn't 20 years ago? Bullshit...
The EV revolution should have happened back then. GM realized that electric cars were too good, and represented a serious threat to the oil industry, so they tried to kill them off.
Ten years later, we got the Nissan Leaf and electric cars made a comeback, but their development was delayed a decade because of what GM did.
Mike likes trains ten years later they came back because they realized they could make even more money on our back with EVs lol
20 years old and still looks like its from the future
GM finally learned and the Chevy Bolt is available in many cites all across the USA. It took a while but was worth the wait. I have a Tesla model 3 on order and drive a used 2012 Tesla model S now. Amazing.
Stuff like this is why you went bankrupt, GM. You had it and you dropped it because it couldnt be married with the brand and so you didnt know how/care to advertise it. What a disgrace. America had the world beat and we trashed it instead.
*Makes electric car to show people why they're bad*
*People love them*
*_Oh fuck crush it_*
You don't actually believe that, do you? They could've easily just made the car bad if they wanted to prove it was bad. These were experimental cars and at the end of said experiment gm had absolutely no interest in being responsible for them. Being able to service cars costs a lot of money and these would still be haunting gm service departments to this day. Easier to crush them and move on.
This thing even sounded very well 👍
You're lucky to have driven the car for 6 years?
It's so sad the oil companies can push companies this way.
The car companies can survive but i hope the oil companies days are numbered. What they did in Africa was a insane disgrace.
I would have had it 'stolen' and hidden or stored. Can you imagine how great the ev's could have been if they kept at it?
PS, you have an absolutely angelic little cherub there.
PPS, 120 miles is actually really good especially back then. For inner city driving 120 should last 4-5 days or just enough for a weeks worth of employment commuting.
Is beyond sad how short sighted companies can be. Hell samething occurred in the mid /early 1900's. The US had many ev's, trams and cars.
sorry if i disliked your comment i accidently tapped it oops
8:56 is why they crushed them
Yep. Another reason why I will never buy a GM car. They killed off a brilliant EV and gave us fucking Hummer instead.
Lol right. 5k pound suv with 5 cylinder
I hate gm for crushing them, my dad drove one back in 98 and he loved it, wish they coulda stayed
Just finished watching the documentary about who kill the electric car and boy I' tell you, these car looked great. Not only no oil no gas no dirtiness. Damn it if only people would have some BALLS and NOT give in to profit and the oil companies. What a great car from GM!!!!! Such a shame. DAMN IT!
Hearing this reminds me of hearing Lego Island song from the PC game. Truly nostalgia feeling. Shames me to see GM didn't continue this. Considering it could of been put under a Pontiac, Oldsmobile, or even a Saturn to save one of those brands with a car like this. Or even a SUV, mini truck. Ect.
That charging port! Awesome.
Thank you very much for this relic of a video, Darell! I've had the opportunity of seeing one of those, sitting on a lonely corner of the College For Creative Studies building in Detroit. I'd already read about it, and never thought I would have the opportunity to see one, let alone sit on the car and interact with it.
I even went so far as to take home an old brochure that was sitting on a pile of documents by the trunk, one of those from the Gen-2 vehicle (with testimonies from famous owners and other curiosities about the EV1). A very kind professor at CCS gave it to me, after noticing how interested I was in the vehicle.
These were wonderful cars, and of course we can understand the reasons for its demise by GM (regardless of the usual conspiracy theories indicating that it was a huge political and economical move), but it's tough to see them as a dark page of history.
I love it! So sad it's gone. Would've loved to have one
Imagine replacing that rear window lmaooo rip bank account
So sad, I worked for a Saturn dealer in chicago when these were around, sadly we never got them. Thankfully you made this video back in 03 and many others can enjoy a snip-it of these cars today. Thanks for preserving this bit of history.
Cheers. Thanks for the support.
The Big Three sabotaged and killed the electric car in those days. Good luck trying that today with Tesla taking over the market.
Studebaker built and sold electric cars for a decade in the early 1900's. It was the 800lb gorilla back in the day. Had an electric car market materialized, it is Studebaker that would have dominated the market. Who knows, the "Big 3' may have faded away 100 years ago had that happened.
A wild battery artificial shortage appears!
Thanks for paving the way for us second generation electric car owners. I rent the battery but own my car, I wouldn't have done it if I didn't see the documentary or the news.
What a lovely, positive comment! Thanks for stoping by. Cheers to you for being part of the solution.
Think where we'd be if GM hadn't abandoned their EV project back then. It's like a dozen years of EV development and progress were lost.
Indeed. We should be on second and third generation EVs by now. And yet... instead of incremental improvements, we seem to keep starting over with first-generation units. Except for... Tesla.
We basically are. The Bolt EV is lightyears beyond what the EV1 was capable of. It's like they never stopped making an EV.
But the Chevy Bolt EV is EXCEPTIONAL. since the battery is the driving factor in development, what gains could they have really made in those years besides pushing battery technology investment forward?
Imagine what the range would be on this car if you put a modern lithium battery pack in it.
Flooring it around the neighborhood in an electric car must be funny to see in person 😂
Not nearly as funny as the look on the faces of the muscle-car drivers beaten on the freeway onramp!
Those who killed the EV1 must the shitting their pants over Tesla now.
+Alexandre Boucher "Hey! Let's hinder innovation and curing the planet's failing ecosystem for profit!"
+Alexandre Boucher
During a 2006 interview Rick Wagner the former CEO of GM said he the considered axing the EV-1 program his worst decision.
A lot of ex EV-1 owners went on to buy Priuses.
+Patchuchan Those EV1 -> Prius -> Rav4EV -> Leaf -> Tesla. I can't count how many people followed that path.
+Alexandre Boucher Well as Stephen Colbert once said :"I can't decide if you're a super vilain or hero" to Elon Musk :P. :D
Fortunately the electric car wasn't killed, it just lost the first few rounds. It was only a couple of years later that hybrids were introduced. And now we have the Tesla line, the nissan leaf, ford focus electric and several others!
I have a Civic now, but my next car is going to be an EV => I can't fucking wait..
What a collosal and short sighted thing to do. GM could have been where Tesla is now.. and years ahead of anyone else. EV's are not practical for everyone.. but many would be perfectly happy with them.
Why not let the people who wanted to keep them.. just keep them
A long term fleet could have given them even more information about possible issues.... Such a dumb ass thing to do.
They haven't learned much either.. closing the Lordstown plant is just as short sighted and stupid.
This is the myth, this was a time when gas was a buck a gallon, and there was a reason why Tesla took 20 years and has been selling cars like the model S for close to 100k, and many way past that price with options. The battery technology was not there at the time, and these cars were crushed because of the very same short sighted laws forcing that decision to be made as the car maker didn't want to be saddled with the life time support costs.
The very people in california pushing regulations to force these one off experiments were the types who would never buy american vehicles back then, so it was hardly a cooperative environment.
The OG tesla
Great video Darell! Thanks for archiving this historic footage.
stefspec 10 years has past since you wrote ....... lol
Ahhh that whirring noise! That's awesome!! I'm with the kid, i say whoa too haha
sounds like old trolleybus - i like it ;D
Thank for Sharing Darell. I would have been heart broken to give her up, she was a beauty :D
+David Jackson There have been two times in my life when I became emotional over a car. First was turning in the EV1. That symbolized the end. The EV movement was dead before it started. We were done. The next time came when I recently drove a Tesla P90D. Wow. The game is over, and we've WON.
Wow it even sounded cool and futuristic.
A reminder of how oil companies still rule the world..
It definitely is a goddamn shame what became of this car. It's great that you had the pleasure of driving one for a while.
it's crazy to think that only a single EV1 exists and it's tucked away in a museum
There are several in museums and at universities. They can no longer be operated on public roads. At least not legally.
Thanks for sharing that vid. Your neighbours must have loved you alot everytime you ripped out of your driveway in the EV lol. Do you have a Tesla now?
I have a dual-motor Model 3 now. My 5th EV... this EV1 being my first. And... I didn't drive like that normally. This was my last day with the car though, so my neighbors indulged me. Never mind all the rubber that you can see on the street in front of my driveway. :-)
Seen lots of reviews and test drives of the Volt, Tesla, Volare and others but when I see the videos of regular people driving the EV1's I am impressed by the technology, sound and the way it all works together with not one drop of gas used. Not to mention the look of happiness on peoples face. This car was something especial no doubt. Thanks for the reply.
Why did it have to get crushed
Oil companies still had money to make, I guess. EV1 got in the way.
Nathan Cole watch...Who Killed The Electric Car.
Big oil refused to let any survive. People wanted to buy them outright and there was just no option.