by Matthew Collins
www.collinsforgov.com
The EV-1 was an electric vehicle (EV) produced by the General Motors Company in the 1990s. GM would later round up and crush almost every EV-1 it produced refusing offers of money from satisfied EV-1 drivers who wanted to keep their cars and buy them from GM rather than have them destroyed. … GM refused and destroyed their EV-1 fleet anyway. But, this is not a story about the EV-1. Nor is it a story about electric cars. This is not the story of who killed the electric car. This is not even the story about over a century of suppression of electric vehicle technologies to keep us enslaved to oil. This is not that kind of story.
Rather, this is a story about government interference in the marketplace. It is the story of the reaction by businessmen to government interference. It is also the story of what happens when governments step outside their proper role of protecting life, liberty and property. It is the story of the American automotive industry’s federal bailout. It is the story of GM’s new prototype, the Chevy Volt. It is the story of what could have happened and that which actually did happen.
GM and the Rebirth of an Electrifying Idea
A century ago, EVs were the “car of choice”. They were quite, could be recharged at home and easy to maintain. Gasoline powered cars by contrast were noisy, had to be hand cranked, and produced exhaust. Gas cars also have a lot of parts that wear out and need to be replaced. In time, the assembly line, electric starters, and cheap oil tipped the balance in favor of the internal combustion engine (ICE) and EVs silently slipped into history.
Then in 1996 American automakers began producing electric cars and distributed them in California. General Motors launched this movement by releasing a prototype car that it had kept secret by building it entirely in California called “the Impact” (later renamed the “EV-1”). The Impact made its debuted to the world at the Los Angeles Auto Show in January of 1990. It was built and distributed through GM’s Saturn division. But this was not the first electric car that GM had been involved with in recent years.
GM had been struggling financially (as had other automakers) in the 1980s and one of the rules of free market economics is that a company will either be innovative and improve thus taking the lead or continue following outdated policies and die being replaced by competitors that are innovative and adapt better to the marketplace. GM’s struggles forced it to look for alternatives. GM turned its attentions to AeroVironment and contracted with them to build an electric car for a race, the Australian World Solar Challenge in 1987. The goal set by GM was “can you build an electric car, entirely powered by solar energy that can win a race crossing 1900 miles of the Australian outback?” AeroVironment took up the challenge, and sponsored by GM, produced a one of a kind car. The result was the “Sunraycer” which won the race with a course record that as of 1994 was still standing (I do not know any updates from this information).
In the wake of the success of the Sunraycer, GM’s President turned to the same design team with the goal of creating an all electric general purpose commuter vehicle. This became known as the EV-1. These two electric cars gave GM a competitive advantage in this technology and an estimated 2 to 3 year head start compared to the other automakers.
“What’s interesting,” said John R. Dabels, former EV Marketing Director for GM, “I had worked with the program manager who had called me and said ‘would you like to be on the electric vehicle program?’ And I said ‘that’s fine, what do you want me to do?’ He said ‘very simply, develop demand for electric vehicles world wide’ and I said ‘do you have any instructions?’, and he took a blank piece of paper and he shoved it in front of me and said ‘No instructions. You go figure it out.’ And at that point I joined the program.”
Other automotive giants began producing their own versions of the EV-1 (often conversions of their gas powered vehicles). Ford produced the Ford Th!nk® and Ford Ranger EV. Toyota produced the RAV-4 EV. Honda came out with the Honda Plus EV, and several others cars by various auto companies were manufactured.
Some of these are still around but by 2006, all of the EV-1s, and many of the other electric cars produced by these companies, were gone. But why? The documentary “Who Killed the Electric Car” goes about answering this question. But I began this article by saying this is not a story of the electric car nor of who “killed” it.
In the late 1980s California had the worst air quality in the United States (and still does for that matter). Asthma rates and cancer rates increase in areas where smog is present for long periods of time such as in the bay and port areas. In addition, lung development in children is affected when there is not sufficient clean air to breath. “In 1989, a study found that one out of four 15 to 25 year olds in Los Angles County had severe lung lesions and chronic respiratory disease.” CO2 gas, a component of smog, is emitted as a byproduct of the internal combustion engine when petroleum gasoline is burned. As a result there is a direct correlation between gas powered cars in a given area and the air quality of that area. In heavily populated areas where the wind tends to stagnate due to mountainous terrain such as exists in parts of California, and where the predominant mode of transportation (both by land and by sea) is achieved by the burning of petroleum producing high amounts of CO2 gases, the production of smog occurs and leads to an increase in health problems for the people living in those areas.
Enter CARB
It is in 1990 that our story begins, shortly after the début of the Impact (prototype for the EV-1) by GM. A regulatory agency, the California Air Resources Board (CARB), did what regulatory agencies do best. They had been charged with the job of reducing CO2 emissions in the California air. With GM’s planned launch of a mass-marketed electric vehicle in the near future, EV technology became CARB’s “poster child” in a sense and CARB seized upon the new electric vehicle technology as the “technology of choice”. CARB latched on to the EV-1 and took an unprecedented authoritarian step by passing what became known as the “Zero Emissions Vehicle Mandate” (ZEV Mandate) in 1990. Now if automakers wanted to continue to sell new cars in California, some of those vehicles would have to produce no emissions. The ZEV Mandate required 2% of the cars sold in 1998 to be zero emission vehicles (ZEVs). Then that number had to grow to 5% in 2001 and to 10% in 2003. Put another way, 40,000 ZEVs by 1998 and over 500,000 by 2003. California was quickly joined in this action by the northeastern States and by 1994, a little over 50% of the automotive market in the United States was being forced to comply with California’s ZEV Mandate or similar such mandates in other States.
This was a very strong handed approach. At the time of the mandate, there was no electric vehicles produced by mainstream auto manufacturers on the road and no one knew for sure if anyone would be interested in them. Now the automakers, before the first EVs even went into production were being required by the force of law to produce between 2% and 10 % of their vehicles as EVs or they would not be allowed to sell any of their new cars in California or other States that adopted these mandates! If the general public (i.e. the marketplace) did not accept the EV-1 and its sister EVs, then the ZEV Mandate could bankrupt the auto industry! This would spell disaster for Detroit and could have brought an end to the American Auto Industry if EVs were not wanted by the buying public.
It is at this point that government interference in the marketplace, specifically CARB’s ZEV Mandate, would set into motion a chain of events that would bury the wave of electric cars that was beginning to break on America’s western coast. The ZEV Mandate took away the automakers ability to respond to the demands of the marketplace in the event that the public rejected EV technology. It also took away the automakers flexibility to respond accordingly to market demand if the public did accept EVs but their acceptance was not as fast as what the ZEV Mandate required. Either of these two scenarios, the out right rejection of EVs or, alternatively, a slower acceptance of EVs than anticipated by the mandate, would result in a misallocation of resources that would be detrimental to the American Auto Industry from a business stand point. This would mean that much needed capital would be wasted conforming to the ZEV Mandate and as a result, car prices would rise in proportion to the needs of the businesses to maintain functional operations just so that the Detroit automakers could remain in business.
In the event that history had taken a different turn of events and CARB had not created the ZEV Mandate, GM (and other companies) would have been free to produce the EV-1 (and the other models of EVs) in whatever quantity market demanded. In addition, if the EV-1 was rejected, GM (et. al.) could cancel further production of the vehicles and replace it with other vehicles that better fit what the market demanded. Furthermore, without the ZEV Mandate, GM and other automakers would not have been threatened with the loss of ALL of their revenue from a particular State should the EVs not gain sufficient acceptance by the general public. If this was not enough, the creation of the ZEV Mandate increased competition in a newly emerging market beyond what that market was capable of holding at that time while still allowing that project to be profitable. The ZEV Mandate forced every auto manufacture to develop and produce at least one (if not more) EVs to sell into the marketplace in an attempt to meet the requirements of the ZEV Mandate.
Had there never been a mandate, GMs competitors would not have been forced into producing EVs that competed with the EV-1’s niche in the marketplace. This would have allowed the EV-1 to fill its own niche without as many competitors by other companies taking away the EV-1 market share. Without the ZEV Mandate, other competitors of the EV-1 would have refrained from entering into the EV marketplace at the time they did because they would have seen that the market wasn’t demanding EVs in sufficient quantity to warrant the investment of capital resources into an EV program at that time. This created a financial strain on the automakers which now, not only had their normal operating expenses but, thanks to the ZEV Mandate, had to increase their financial obligations in developing, designing and building EV alternatives to their internal combustion engine models. The sudden increase in EV competitors caused by the ZEV Mandate reduced the EV-1 profit margins and helped keep it from going into mass production. The disadvantage there is that the cost of manufacturing a vehicle (or any product for that matter) goes down per unit, with the number of units that are produced. Had the EV-1 been mass produced in larger numbers it could have become much more profitable than it was while being produced at only four cars a day. This small level of production was in part due to the fact that the EV market had been saturated with one or more EVs suddenly hitting the market place at once from every automotive manufacturer wanting to continue to sell cars in the American marketplace. All of these economic forces spelled disaster for the EV programs of GM, Ford, Chrysler and other auto companies, both foreign and domestic.
“Every Action Has an Equal and Opposite Reaction”
The push by CARB and other agencies in other States was in itself a very strong and unprecedented move on the part of government. It is no wonder than an equally strong reaction occurred among the very companies that the mandate was directed at. General Motors and other car companies were faced with the ZEV Mandate and had two choices. They could comply with it, or they could fight it.
At first they took the only choice they had. They had to comply with the mandate. This was a necessary step because time was of the essence. It takes time to design and test vehicles and get them certified by the government for general production. Once that occurs, they still have to go into production with all the computer systems, molds, etc. being designed and readied for launch. If the efforts to alter, amend or repeal the ZEV Mandate failed, then the mandate would stand and any automaker that hadn’t taken the necessary steps to comply would be behind its competitors and faced a very real possibility of going the way of the Studebaker.
At the same time however, the car companies had an even bigger issue on their hands. While they were preparing for the worst case scenario, that the mandate would stand unchanged, they were hard at work attacking the mandate and fighting for its repeal. From the point of view of a company, the first step is to protect the business. In this case, that involves pressuring the lawmakers to make the mandate more competitive with real life circumstances. The ZEV Mandate had to be market driven so the car companies could still make money and continue to operate. Detroit automakers could not remain in business if they were cut off from selling into over half of the American auto market! The auto industries entered into negotiations with CARB concerning the terms of the ZEV Mandate. Automakers wanted the requirements adjusted so that if the EVs didn’t sell in the numbers required by the ZEV Mandate then the automakers could still continue to sell the ICE automobiles that they already knew people would buy.
CARB Chairwoman Jananne Sharpless (served from 1991-1993) said “California was faced with the prospect of ‘what do you do if the car companies don’t comply?’ and so rather than do brinkmanship about what would happen if they didn’t comply and stick with it, they started negotiating certain flexibility in the mandate.”
As is often the case with regulators, they didn’t have experience in the field they were regulating. Rather these were often politicians that knew little about the automotive industry or even how to run a business that is in direct relation to the economic rules of supply and demand. John R. Wallace from the Ford Th!nk® Program commented “[w]e had to help with the regulations, the regulatory people knew nothing about this stuff; and, we began to get the eerie feeling that we were going over a cliff. It wasn’t going to be possible.”
CARB and the automakers reached a compromise. CARB adopted a memorandum compromising between the original mandate requirements and the demands of the automakers. One of the new terms of this compromise was a Market Based ZEV Launch where the car companies would produce specified numbers of ZEV that were warranted by consumer demand. If the car companies didn’t want to be required to produce high numbers of ZEVs they had to prove there was no demand for the ZEVs.
Catch 22
When given a choice between being told what to do and how to do it or having the freedom to choose for oneself what to do and how to do it. Most people would choose the latter condition. There is nothing irrational about that. Following this principle, the auto industry, having been forced to comply with a law that threatened their continued existence and having been successful at getting that law changed to be conditional by market demand, were now faced with an interesting and somewhat paradoxical opportunity.
Although GM and the other auto manufacturers had been successful at making changes in the ZEV Mandate, they had failed to eliminate the mandate entirely. “For the regulation we felt needed to be changed drastically and there were some movement that way but it didn’t go away.” said John R. Wallace. This meant that if GM and other automakers continued with the production of EVs, the terms of the mandate would still apply and there was no guarantee that since the mandate was in place, that more conditions wouldn’t be added or changed later causing even more problems for automakers.
GM CEO Roger Smith (1981-1990) had introduced the Impact Prototype at the Los Angeles Auto Show in 1990 stating that “[t]his is going to represent a great step forward for people in terms of commuting to work/from work if you don’t have to go more than 120 miles a day.” GM had done this trying to advance itself into a new market where it would be profitable and put itself ahead of its competitors thereby improving its financial condition from where it had been in the late 1980s. In addition, GM had also instructed their marketing director to create a market for EVs worldwide. But, having now been threatened with the prospect of being put out of business by the force of law and having been successful at negotiating more favorable market-driven terms within that law, GM and the other automakers now had a choice to make. They could either continue with the EV-1 program and continue to be held under government control or they could kill their EV programs, wait for the ZEV Mandates to die, and then pursue EVs or other options that may be available at a later date, should they ever decide to go down that road again.
Within the mandate, automakers had to build ZEVs in accordance with consumer demand. At the time EVs were the best ZEV available. But according to the mandate, if the automakers no longer wanted to produce their EVs they had to prove there was no market for them. In a report put out by the US Automakers Association, it was stated that the problem they faced in proving there was no demand for EVs was “growing consumer acceptance of electric vehicles”. But how could an automaker prove there wasn’t a market for an EV when there was a growing demand backed by waiting lists to prove it?
“Top 5 Ways to Kill Your Product”
1. Bad Advertising: Bad advertising can be defined a lot of ways. Many people remember the Taco Bell Chihuahua commercials. They were enjoyed by many viewers and were very popular. I don’t know if they were “award winning” but if you were to conduct a quiz asking participants to name their favorite fast food icon, the Taco Bell dog would probably be among the icons frequently mentioned and maybe the most loved (certainly better than the Dairy Queen talking lips).
But from an advertising perspective, those commercials were a dismal failure. They were loved by TV viewers but they didn’t achieve the goal of business advertising…to increase sales. GM’s advertising for the EV-1 was “Award-Winning Advertising”. But if you look at EV-1 commercials and GM commercials for their ICE vehicles, there is a marked difference. The EV-1 was always portrayed distant from the viewer. One ad showed it in the parking lot with shadows of people rather than people around it (the people were off camera). Another had a scarecrow in a field looking at an EV-1 as it drives along the edge of the field off in the distance. None of the EV-1 ads answered the three questions being asked by consumers in the showrooms: “How far?”, “How fast?”, “How much?”. If you want a consumer to buy something, they need to be able to see themselves in or with the product…not looking at it as some unattainable or unreachable curiosity that appears to be always “just out of their reach”, as was the EV-1 was portrayed. Further, EV-1 ads, had no attractive people draped over the car or anything that would create a favorable emotional response. Emotion drives sales, not analytical reasoning…ask any salesperson.
2. Limit the Supply: By creating an unnatural scarcity (building only 4 cars a day in the case of the EV-1) then the streets will not be flooded with visible reminders of the car. The car can’t serve as it’s own advertisement. Since people tend to want what everyone else has…the “keeping up with the Jones’” also known as the “herd” mentality, preventing the product from getting into the hands of consumers by restricting the supply line will prevent the car from producing its own demand through the force of personal envy. This has another effect. When the supply line is limited in this manner, then it is easier to justify the reason to not build the cars. This helped GM avoid the conditions of the mandate.
3. Create Red Tape and Make the Sale Difficult to Complete: EV-1 drivers, before they were able to lease an EV-1 had to submit an application to prove they warranted a car. Chelsea Sexton, a former salesperson for the EV-1 stated “We had to ask permission for everyone we gave a car to. By the end we were low on cars, we had to write case statements! … I had to write a resume for Mel Gibson and what he had done and accomplished because the people I was talking to didn’t believe he warranted a car.” Mel Gibson who was one of the celebrities who leased an EV-1 said “I was wondering ‘why do I have to fill this out?’ You had to tell them where your birth marks were. I mean it was everything, ‘Have you recently had a proctoscope inserted in your…’ ‘...well … no.’ You had to get really specific about a whole bunch of things.”
4. Describe the Limitations of Your Product: GM at first denied there were waiting lists for the EV-1, but they did finally acknowledge that waiting lists of around 4,000 people who said they would like to be an EV-1 leasee existed. However GM added that they contacted each one of them and by the time they had explained all the limitations of the vehicle only 50 would sign up. Any sales person will tell you that if you truly want to sell your product, you don’t start of by describing all of your product’s limitations! Rather it is the benefits that add value to the product and people want to buy value, not problems. Limitations are problems.
5. You May Rent, But You Can’t Buy: GM never sold any of their EV-1 fleet. Every EV-1 produced was leased. GM refused to sell any of their EV-1s to the public. This option simply wasn’t available. This immediately limited a main part of the buying public who prefer to buy their cars rather than lease them. For the record almost all of the auto companies leased their EVs and didn’t offer to sell them. However, when the companies rounded up their EVs to destroy them, some companies such as Ford, did agree to sell the EVs rather than crush them.
It was these five tactics performed by GM, along with other tactics performed by other auto makers, oil companies, the federal government and supporters of one of the EVs competitors in the ZEV market that would lead to the destruction of the EV programs.
Enter the Feds
While the automakers were fighting CARB in court over the mandate, they found a new ally…the federal government under the Bush Administration. Shortly after joining the fight President George W. Bush announced in his 2003 State of the Union address “Tonight I’m proposing 1.2 billion dollars in research funding so that America can lead the world in developing clean hydrogen powered automobiles.” A newly appointed chairman of CARB also had a hand in this new “hydrogen economy”. Four months before the CARB vote that killed the ZEV Mandate, Alan C. Lloyd was appointed as Chairman of the California Hydrogen Fuel Cell Partnership. Hydrogen was and is being backed by both automakers and oil companies because it continues the relationship the two industries have with one another now, something that would not necessarily be possible if EVs were the alternative of choice. On April 23, 2003 California Air Resources Board killed its ZEV Mandate.
The Federal Government had a hand in promoting the Hummer which it was using to replace its aging Jeep fleet. GM bought Hummer from AM General in December of 1999 and then closed its EV-1 plant one month later. The Federal Government introduced a tax deduction for 6,000 lbs + vehicles which began at $25,000 and climbed upwards to a maximum of $100,000 that same year. This deduction was part of President Bush’s Economic Stimulus Package in 2003. This deduction was enough that a taxpayer could buy a Hummer for the tax break. To be fair, the year before in 2002, there was also tax break for EV drivers. If you drove an EV, your maximum tax credit you could get was a whopping sum of $4,000.
Our tax system has been manipulated since its conception to steer the choices made by Americans. Everything from encouraging charity by making donations tax deductible, encouraging marriage between a man and a woman by offering Married Filing Joint as opposed to Married Filing Separate or the dreaded “Single” status, and promoting single parent families with the Head of Household status to tax credits and deductions on whether or not you put solar panels on your roof. Let’s not forget the promotion of low income families being encouraged to have more children they can’t support by offering an Earned Income Credit! In what direction was President Bush trying to steer the American people by offering Hummer drivers a $98,000 advantage over the drivers of EV-1s? This was about the same time that President Bush announced the idea to drill for oil in Alaska’s Wildlife Refuge.
However the Federal Government had been involved in the auto industry long before this. In the 1970s for example, President Carter introduced CAFÉ standards during the United States fuel shortages. This resulted in increased fuel economy during his administration. President Regan supported by the oil companies took office in 1981 and deregulated many things and at the same time period the OPEC nations lowered the price of oil dramatically to prevent any alternatives from being developed as a result. Due to the deregulation, fuel economy didn’t improve much during the 1980s. When Clinton took office he once again, like Carter before him, wanted to improve fuel economy, however the lobbyists on behalf of the automakers and oil companies were still very strong and were opposing change. The Clinton Administration struck a deal with the oil companies and automakers. The Clinton Administration agreed not to pursue fuel economy standards and the automakers agreed to look into hybrid vehicles spending about $9 billion in research and development of hybrid vehicles over an eight year period. However, once Clinton left office, the American automakers walked away from hybrid vehicle technology having not put a single hybrid vehicle on the roadways in spite of the $9 billion in taxpayer dollars that had been given to the automotive giants for that purpose.
Enter the Japanese
Japanese automakers were scared of losing competitive advantage to the US automakers with the Clinton inspired Hybrid Vehicle Program. The Japanese were not aware that the US automakers had no real interest in developing hybrid vehicles or that the US hybrid vehicle program was a political bait-and-switch to avoid the development and reintroduction of EVs and the ZEV mandates that had plagued car companies a few years before. Since they were unaware of this, they actually did devote time, money and energy into developing practical hybrid vehicle technology. The result would help tip the balance away from US automakers and help cause the financial destruction of the US automotive industry that resulted in the automotive bail out under the last Bush Administration.
US hybrid vehicles in 2006 got 25 mpg. Comparatively, Japanese hybrid vehicles got an average of 42 mpg. This created a waiting list for the Toyota Prius and Honda Insight shifting the US consumer’s former demand for EVs and fuel efficient vehicles to Toyota and Honda and away from US automakers in favor of the hybrid alternatives they were offering. Ironically Honda and Toyota both had and continue to have waiting lists for their hybrid vehicles which in turn has made it nearly impossible to buy a new hybrid for less than the list price and helps maintain a high resale value of used Toyota and Honda hybrid vehicles. (Remember GM denied for a long time that it had similar waiting lists for its EV-1s and then contacted all of their potential customers and described the limitations of their product before asking the customers to make their purchases.)
It is at this point that we are starting to see the other hand that government intervention has in the marketplace. Where on one hand, CARB used the force of law to compel the adoption of certain technologies and were the instigators of violence against free markets, the federal government’s practice of ignoring the limitations of its specified powers resulted in the creation of incentives to waste taxpayer money on programs that were for political reasons not intended to produce a real result. In the former case with CARB this practice caused a retaliation on the part of automakers just so they could continue to survive and in the latter case, allowed special interests to make laws that work in their favor and created motivation of foreign competitors to research and produce a superior product that would later bankrupt the American Auto Industry. Both CARB and the federal government used their law making power for purposes other than for the protection of life, liberty and property that allowed such things as the oil and automotive lobbies to gain so much power in Washington, the loss of a competitive edge in EV technology, and the creation of a superior foreign product. If the Federal and State governments remained within their proper function of protecting life, liberty and property, then there would not be CAFÉ standards, a ZEV Mandate, incentives to purchase a Hummer or drive an EV. Had the Federal Government under the Clinton Administration not created the hybrid vehicle program, taxpayers could have saved $9 billion dollars and the Japanese automakers most likely would not have been prompted to develop hybrid vehicles vastly superior to their US counterparts. It is possible that the EV-1 would have evolved into the EV-2 and EV-3 by now. EVs could be more affordable and wide spread in the United States lessening our dependence and need for Middle Eastern crude oil. Countless lives, US, English, Iraqi and Afghani could have been spared. The US might not have had such a tarnished reputation overseas and with our European Allies when Bush left office. This is a world we will never know and it is impossible to imagine all the alternatives that could have been had government remained within its proper roles. Not only in regards to the auto and oil industries but in every sphere of our lives that it has enjoyed infiltrating. Such a world without government interference would be virtually unrecognizable to anyone living today. But where do we go from here?
Looking Towards the Future
Chrysler didn’t entirely abandon its EV program. Chrysler Corporation still owns and operates the GEM plant producing Neighborhood Electric Vehicles (NEVs) which go a top speed of 30 mph. GM on the other hand has taken a slightly different approach installing in there ICE vehicles technologies that were learned from the EV-1.
However today, GM once again finds itself in a bad financial situation similar to where it was in the 1980s when it began its research into EVs in the first place with the Sunraycer and EV-1. This company, although I think it has made some very bone headed moves in the past (although I admit, looking from their perspective, I might have done the same thing just for the mere principle involved), once again stands at the doorway of possibly becoming an industry leader. It once again is going back to the technology and advances it made with the EV-1 and releasing a new EV. Although not the same kind of all electric EV like one might expect. This time it is learning from its past experience and making a petroleum dependent EV, although it isn’t a hybrid in the traditional sense.
GM, this time, is giving its EV program to its Chevrolet division with the new Chevy Volt. The Volt is an EV in that it is propelled by an electric motor rather than a gas burning ICE. However, unlike the EV-1 produced by GM’s Saturn division, the Volt contains a gas powered electrical generator on board. In the Volt, the driver fills a gas tank which powers an electric generator. The electricity from the generator is then sent to the electric motor which in turn drives the wheels. This differs from a typical hybrid where both the electric motor and a gas engine both power the drive wheels in tandem. The Volt is similar in design to diesel locomotive engines. The way a locomotive works is diesel is used to turn a diesel powered electrical generator onboard the locomotive. The electricity created by the generator is then used to turn an electric motor which then propels the train down the track. This is the same process used in the Chevy Volt that is scheduled for launch in 2010 with models available for purchase in 2011.
Chevrolet’s website, when talking about the Volt, states “The Extended-Range Electric Vehicle that is redefining the automotive world is no longer just a rumor. In fact, its propulsion system is so revolutionary, it’s unlike any other vehicle or electric car that’s ever been introduced. And we’re making this remarkable vision a reality, so that one day you’ll have the freedom to drive gas-free.
“Chevy Volt is designed to move more than 75 percent of America’s daily commuters without a single drop of gas. That means for someone who drives less than 40 miles a day, Chevy Volt will use zero gasoline and produce zero emissions.
“Unlike traditional electric cars, Chevy Volt has a revolutionary propulsion system that takes you beyond the power of the battery. It will use a lithium-ion battery with a gasoline-powered, range-extending engine that drives a generator to provide electric power when you drive beyond the 40-mile battery range.”
The Chevy Volt is a plug in electric vehicle and has a range of 400 miles (100 miles further than the EV-1 would be capable of even if it were powered by Lithium-ion batteries (an option that was never offered by GM but was possible near the end of the EV-1 program)). Whether or not government intervenes in the production and distribution of the Volt either though introduction of a new mandate or their involvement of special interest groups remains to be seen. But the technology of the EV-1 lives on in the Volt.
www.collinsforgov.com
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