Facts About All Electric Car
In late 2006, an interesting and somewhat controversial documentary was released on DVD. It was called “Who Killed the Electric Car?” and it took a look at the history and evolution of the electric car and the road blocks it has encountered in gaining a good market share.
The main subject matter of “Who Killed the Electric Car?” is the electric car that was introduced by General Motors (GM) called the EV1 back in the 1990s. It was later removed from the market despite the fact that it was well-received and functioned satisfactorily.
the electric car
“Who Killed the Electric Car” starts out by looking at the birth of the EV1 and at the efforts that were made by GM to promote and market the revolutionary car. It also tries to uncover the real reasons why it never had the kind of impact on the automotive market that many had predicted.
Some of the players in this story, with regard to the introduction of the electric motor generator in the United States, plus the organizations that were investigated for their role in, what many believe, the death of the small electric car are: the automobile manufacturers, the United States government, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and the oil industry.
hybrid electric car
Each of these organizations played their part in the demise of the EV1 electric car according to the makers of the all electric car documentary. The film was released to the home video market in November of 2006 by Sony Picture Home Entertainment, after it was shown in conjunction with “An Inconvenient Truth” in theaters in many markets across the US.
The film, “Who Killed the Electric Car” also looks at some of the other difficult challenges that were faced by GM in an attempt to bring the ground-breaking EV1 to the market. Some of these challenges included: battery issues with regard to recharge time, heat build up, reliability and drive time; the promise of hydrogen vehicles and the potential threat of competition; and consumers and their attitudes and habits as related to the small electric sports car.
The premise of “Who Killed the Electric Car” also focuses on some of the problems that were encountered in trying to deal with the California Air Resources Board. The mandates that they passed, negatively impacted the attempt by General Motors to widely and successfully introduce their electric car to the market.
It also looks at some of the other issues of concern at the time, such as air pollution and environmentalism, the political situation with the Middle East, as well as the growing concerns over global warming.
electric motor drive
One of the strangest turns of events that the film chronicles is the fact that GM took possession of virtually all of the EV1 cars that had been leased by consumers. They dismantled them and crushed them, claiming there was no demand for the product. However many consumers came forward and were interviewed for the documentary and showed a clear affinity for, and a desire to keep, their electric cars.
“Who Killed the Electric Car?” also tackles the more sensitive subjects relating to the real reasons why both the automotive industry and the oil industry were interested in foiling the success of the EV1, and as a result, interfered with the widespread introduction of it into the market.
It’s tough listening to yet another victim of
perhaps the most dishonest film ever made.
“Who Killed…” is nothing but a long sequence
of lies, starting with the absurd claim that
GM killed the electric car by cancelling its truly
crappy EV-1. The Toyota Rav4 Electric and Honda
Electric were far better cars than the small
cramped EV-1, and Honda cancelled their electric car
program after less than a year due to lack of public
interest, and Toyota killed theirs the same year the EV-1
program was cancelled, which had been long overdue.
So how come Toyota and Honda aren’t painted as killers
of electric car? Simple. Chris Paine made a backroom
deal with those two companies and in return rewrote
history and does not mention them. And do you really
believe that the EV-1 was cheap transportation? If so,
it’s quite obvious that the film failed (on purpose)
to inform it viewers just how exorbitantly expensive
those electric cars really were.
Some electric car facts the film never told you:
Production costs: EV-1 : over $50,000, more than 3 times
that of the much better Honda Accord. Toyota Rav4 – $43,000,
Honda EV – $53,000.
Costs of ownership : new battery pack about every 5 years :
25 NiMH batteries that weighed 1200 pounds (!!). Replacement
costs : Toyota dealerships reportedly priced a complete
battery pack replacement at $35,000. The EV-1 battery pack cost
well beyond $20,000, but GM leasees were never asked to replace
their batteries, while Toyota demanded that their leasees pay for
theirs (none ever did – they simply turned in their leased
vehicles). The per mile costs of owning an NiMH powered EV are
astronomical – more than 30 cents per mile in battery costs alone,
or over $4,000 per year, 4 times what gas powered drivers were
paying for fuel.
Still think those electric cars were cheap?
Still think avoiding a $20 oil change makes me want to go
own an electric? Do you really believe that maintenance costs
for an EV are significantly less? How can that be, when 98% of
the parts on the electric are found in gas powered cars? My
Buick calls for its first tuneup at 100,000 miles, and costs $20.
Oil changes cost me less than $20 per year. That’s it. The EV-1
was recalled numerous times for mechanical and electrical
problems.
Popularity : no one wanted the EV-1, despite large federal
and state subsidies to those who leased them. No leasee ever
paid anywhere near the cost of those vehicles. Of 5,000 GM
customers who responded to a survey saying that they were
interested in an electric car, only 50 were dumb enough
to sign up. NEVER, in the 6 year life span of the EV-1 (which was
longer than the production run of most cars, making a complete
lie of the claim that the cars weren’t available) were more
than 800 of the 1200 EV-1s on lease at the same time.
ONLY the conscious-stricken, those desperate to drive one and
greenwash their image, wanted those cars. They were one gigantic,
expensive headache. The required 8 hours to recharge. Always
available? Get real.
Other problems: GM reported that fear of running out of
electricity was very strong, especially among their women
drivers.
Could the EV-1 get you where you wanted to go? Not likely.
Can you survive with just the EV-1 and without a gas powered car?
Not unless you never needed or wanted to go to a destination over
40 miles away. That was the limit of the car’s driving radius, although
it would shrink as the batteries aged. At 5 years of age, they had less
than 80% of their earlier power (car became slow) and range capacity.
Customers played Russian roulette if they dared try to go too far. Just
because the EV-1 could get you there a year ago, didn’t mean it could
today. And those distances varied depending upon all kinds of things –
terrain, driving style, A/C usage, etc. It simply was often impossible
to know whether the car could make it to you destination or not, even in
the unlikely event that you knew how far you had to go (assuming no
detours, etc).
“Who Killed the Electric Car?” is far and away the most dishonest film
ever created. Contrary to the cheerleading film, the EV-1 was recently named
by a panel of auto analysts as one of the worst cars ever built. There was no
conceivable reason for producing the EV-1. The film’s claim that California’s zero
emission law required them is a complete lie – the zero emission laws pertained to
all two dozen automakers, not only to those three (Honda, Toyota, GM) who
actually produced electric cars. The zero emission law was a joke, and wouldn’t
have withstood a court challenge. Recently an appeals court ruled in an almost
identical situation that states do not have the power to force manufacturers to
produce products according to their desires.
The film also implies that “a promising battery technology” patents were
bought by an oil company, implying that this was an attempt to withold the
technology from the public. This is quite funny to us in the electric car
field, since the “promising technology” was the Nickel metal hydride battery
(NiMH), which GM (and Toyota,and Honda) all used in their electric cars,
beginning with the 1997 model year for the EV-1. The batteries weren’t so
much “promising” for this application as they were heavy (1200 pounds) and
expensive ($20,000 plus) and slow to recharge (8 hours). They did last longer
than the short-lived lead acids they replaced (not by much – they lasted about
5 years) and had more power under cold conditions. The idea that Chevron
(who bought the patents, and could hardly be referred to as “Big Oil” kept
the battery technology under wraps must come as a surprise to the millions
of hybrid car owners, all of whom have one or more of these batteries in
their car. And the price has come down dramatically from the $1000 per
kilowatthour prices paid by the automakers pre-2002. They now sell for way
less than half that amount. If Chevron’s idea was to kill a technology, they
certainly did a lousy job. Despite the enormous price reductions, electric
car makers still have no interest in the “promising NiMH technology,”
although Toyota made noises (and prototypes), using them to build a plug-in
hybrid, until it became obvious that such a vehicle couldn’t hold enough
NiMH batteries to go more than 8 miles down the road via their electricity,
killing the whole idea. Paine’s movie has once again rewritten history.
Without a practical electric battery, any attempts to build a battery-only
electric car are doomed : even dimwitted 7 year olds are aware of that obvious
fact. Anyone can build an electric car – they were doing that long before World
War I. Problem is, the EV-1 wasn’t any better than those early electric cars
in the critical areas of driving range, costs, and recharge times. In 90 years
the electric car that had been made obsolete by the Model T Ford in 1906
was much the same. The movie has a talking head technologist who claims that
GM could have and should have replaced the batteries with lithium ion, implying
that this would have made some difference. At that period , th emain difference
would have been cost – the only lithium ion batteries around were 1st generation
“exploding types,” a characterisitic that talking head expert must have somehow
overlooked. He also apparently overlooked the fact that those batteries were
not available in a large cell format suitable for electric cars. The Tesla
uses those cells,all 8671 of them and also plenty of custom made software
to control them. Regardless they last way too short a period considering their
$30,000 plus cost. The Chevy Volt is using 3rd generation large format cells
with zero explosion potential and twice the lifespan. The Tesla is a totally
impractical vehicle that will have zero effect on the Earth.
Nobody killed the electric car in 2002, because the electric car wasn’t
alive. It was, in the words of senior Motor Trend editor MacKenzie, DOA.
GM is currently building the Chevy Volt, a car which avoids all the stupidity
of the battery-only, can’t-do electric car. And it will achieve virtually
everything an battery-only electric can and still be a viable alternative to the
gas powered car, which the EV-1 never was. Do the simple math and you’ll find
that as a commuter (which accounts for over half the gasoline usage in this
country) the Chevy VOLT can eliminate the need of over 96% of liquid fuel
(even without any workplace recharging) and what remains can easily be met
using ethanol. There simply is no need for forcing consumers to accept
inferior products like the totally crappy EV-1, which met the transportation
needs of practically no one, even those who could afford its high costs of
ownership, such as Hollywood stars looking to greenwash their image by
driving that “coal-powered” vehicle.
All you liars who are claiming the EV-1 (or Toyota Rav4 electric or Honda EV)
were viable cars will soon have the opportunity to put your money where your mouth
is. Mitsubishi announced an electric car to be built in 2009, and it is superior to
the EV-1 in every conceivable way : 1) it only takes half as long to recharge;
2) at 100 miles, is has 20% more driving range; 3) it costs much less than the EV-1,
especially when comparison take account of inflation – it will cost $39,000 for the
basic model; 4) it can carry three times as many passenger and has room for luggage;
5) its battery pack costs less, at $20,000, and will last 5 years;
Now, all you morons and imbeciles who claim the EV-1 was a wonder car
better can line up to buy this little gem from Mitsubishi.
Sure you will.
If GM never got rid of the EV1 and develop and contineud electric cars-I believe they would not be in the situation they are in now.