This weekend I was watching the documentary "Who Killed the Electric Car?" and was really floored by what I learned. Certainly GM could not have been so stupid, short sighted greedy, could they. Could they have killed the car that may have helped save the company? Could they have killed the car that could have helped them establish dominance over Honda and Toyota? Could they have killed the car that may have guided them profitably through rising gas prices that now decimate the sales of their huge SUV's, that they bet the house on?
Some of what I learned:
1 - GM set out to fail with the EV1. The company botched the technology by suppressing NiMH batteries, limiting range although most owners were still happy with limited range. The company botched the advertising by purposely avoiding tried and true car advertising techniques. It not to advertise the cars or inform the car buying public, but instead highlighted shortcomings. GM did not sell the EV1, but set up leases. At the end of the leases, it refused to sell the cars. People pleaded to buy their cars. GM instead took them back and had them all shredded- something that has never happened before in the history of automakers.
2 - Battery innovation and production was suppressed by Standard Oil of California (Chevron) with help from GM. Cobasys, holder of many NiMH patents, is controlled by Chevron and refuses to sell or license them to almost all interested parties, and is currently involved in legal action and bankruptcy. GM is the only company they seem to be willing to sell to, but GM does not seem serious about developing true electric cars.
3 - True electric cars require almost no maintenance. Wow! I was amazed at the differences in the required maintenance between gasoline cars and electric ones. Hybrids basically require similar maintenance as regular gas models.
4 - Hydrogen Fuel Cell will never be a viable model, and its only appeal is that the gas and auto companies can keep saying it will be on the road in 20 years. I call it 40 Friedman units, because like like the Iraq War Friedman units, they units never go away. 10 years from now, the car will still be 40 Friedman units away from production. Hydrogen cars are also insanely expensive and it impossible for them to carry enough oxygen to travel as far as the electric car could go with inefficient lead acid batteries.
5 - The California Air Resources Board (CARB) was weakened, infiltrated and destroyed by pro-corporate politicians, who did what GM and Chevron told them to, kill the coming mandates so they could kill production of the electric car. They did.
I have to say in light of the GM's financial difficulty, GM's looming collapse, and GM asking for taxpayer bailout, "Who Killed the Electric Car?" is a satisfying movie. Sure it is horrible for for the environment and for all the GM workers that are loosing jobs that GM decided to kill the one car that could have saved the company. But it is also so funny to think that these idiots running GM also shot themselves in the foot. Even better is how you learn that Toyota and Honda really started to pursue hybrid vehicles because they were scared of the EV1, and were afraid GM was going to get ahead of them! Everybody should add this movie to their Netflix Que just to remind themselves how poorly the US auto companies are managed.