The documented rise and fall of GM’s doomed EV-1
Built to satisfy California law, electric car became a target for conspiracy theorists
In 2006, a documentary called Who Killed the Electric Car? shone a spotlight on the controversy surrounding General Motors’ EV-1. In 1996, GM began leasing the futuristically styled, all-electric coupe to customers in California and Arizona. But the program abruptly ended just a few years later, with the cars taken back and all but a handful sent to the crusher.
General Motors blamed cost and other issues, while EV-1 fans called it a conspiracy to keep electrics out of a gasoline world. It wasn’t the only electric vehicle (EV) in the mix, but ultimately became the best-known, for better or worse.
These electric vehicles were the answer to a California mandate. With the unique ability to set its own environmental standards, the state adopted a Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) program in 1990 that would require two per cent of all vehicles sold in California by large automakers to be ZEV by 1998. Car companies would otherwise have to bypass the country’s largest market. So they began plans to sell electrics.
Companies, including Honda, Nissan and Ford, all made small numbers of EVs, as did Toyota, which put batteries in its RAV4. Most of these EVs went to fleets and utility companies, but Toyota made its model available to the public. It stopped taking orders the day after California lifted its ZEV mandate, but continued to build them until it fulfilled the final 328 contracts in 2003. About 1,500 RAV4 EVs were produced.
Even though Toyota made about 400 more electric vehicles than GM did, the EV-1 got the bulk of the publicity, both good and bad. This was mostly because it was primarily aimed at consumers, rather than commercial customers. It was based on a concept car called the Impact, and was the first of the “California-compliant” vehicles when it arrived in 1996.
However, drivers could only lease them, at prices that ranged from US$299 to US$574 per month, plus mileage charges. But unlike most leasing contracts on conventional vehicles, there was no option for the lessee to purchase and keep the EV-1 once the lease ended.
The first EV-1 models used lead-acid batteries made by Delco, which gave the car a range of only about 110 kilometres and frequently failed. These battery packs would later come under a voluntary recall. The Delco packs were replaced with superior leadacid batteries made by Panasonic, which increased the range to about 175 kilometres before the car had to be recharged.
Batteries are always an EV’s weakest point, but the EV-1’s leadacid ones were a real issue. Toyota and Honda used nickel metal hydride (NiMH) batteries, which could go about 200 kilometres and had a longer lifespan. In 1999, GM released a “second-generation” model that used NiMH batteries, eliminating the drawbacks of the lead-acid pack.
But there was more to the story. The cars had already been built and no more were in the pipeline: General Motors had already shut down the production line and sold the battery patent.
There had always been a waiting list for the EV-1. Those who drove them loved their silent operation, quick acceleration, and fuel-free driving. The final cars trickled out, mostly to politicians and celebrities.
The car companies and California had long wrangled over the ZEV mandate through the courts. The state initially planned a ramp-up of the ZEV requirement to 10 per cent by 2003, but lost a lawsuit in 2002 over it. Automakers no longer had to build battery cars to sell conventional ones.
GM reminded lessees of the contract rules: when the EV-1 leases ran out, the cars would have to be turned in. The outcry was loud and immediate, including a protest in a cemetery where owners drove their cars as if in a funeral procession. Many sent cheques for the car’s estimated $24,000 residual value in the hopes of buying them, but were refused.
Eventually, all were picked up, and all but about 40 of them were crushed. The survivors were given to museums, only one with its battery still intact.
The program remains controversial. General Motors said it intended the EV-1 to be more of a pilot project to assess the viability of electric vehicles with realworld drivers, and development costs over such a low volume of cars pushed the price of each one well past what most people would have paid to buy it. The company also claimed liability issues, and the cost of producing parts to keep the cars on the road as they aged.
Critics argued that owners could have signed off on any future liability claims, and Toyota had no issues selling some of its RAV4 EVs, a few of which are still in service.
Honda only offered its EV Plus by lease, and while it extended some contracts past their original date, it also eventually took back all the cars and crushed them. But as of 2000, both Honda and Toyota were selling hybrids in the U.S., and this new “green” vehicle — one that didn’t need plugging in — was now considered the car of the future.