By the way…..it is series everyone, not “serial” for the Volt drivetrain.

O, and Bob Lutz is the reason the Volt is coming to a showroom near you. If it weren’t for that global warming non-believer, than this current wave of electric mobility would not be upon us.

I never said the EV1 was bad (nor did GM, as far as I know). In fact, it was a great car, by EV standards. It just couldn’t be profitably produced or serviced, and it had short range. It wasn’t sustainable. Call it a “tired line,” but profits are what must drive any alternative fuels programs, not long-term government subsidies, wishes, or hopes.

As for selling more than 1000 cars, that would have only lost GM more money. The economies of scale weren’t even close. Especially when gas was $1/gallon.

Giving Toyota a pass for not crushing their EV’s is lame. It’s much easier for them to service theirs, since they were based on an existing vehicle. They probably also knew that whatever they did would be met with applause, rather than derision. But from their experience, Toyota must now think little enough of electric cars (from a profitability standpoint) that they have not made one since.

As for WKtEK and Tesla, I doubt that GM (or Toyota, or anyone else) loses too much sleep over their achievements. Show me an electric car with the same capabilities as a conventional one for anywhere near the price. They don’t exist.

Tesla and the rest have shown what everyone in the automotive business knows, but no one else seems to. I think Bob Lutz said it best: “Making a car is a hell of a lot more difficult than people think.”

Unfortunately, cool though they are, EV’s are doubly tough to make (profitably).

Oh, but you will go ahead and buy a Japanese car that runs on Arab fuel? Instead of relying on perception, why don’t you actually research American cars and realize they offer many high quality, high gas mileage vehicles (including Hybrids.) The Ford Fusion Hybrid is an excellent example.

Because they went “all-out” with the EV1, the vehicle shared no parts with any other car. Not only was the powertrain unique, but so was the entire body, chassis, etc. The drag coefficient set a record for production cars, the body (minus batteries) was superlite, etc., etc., etc.

If they had left these cars out there, it would have created a problem for anyone in case of a wreck (expensive parts, special repair procedures), parts wearing out (you can’t go to a junkyard), etc. The batteries did not have much capacity, either, and did not have a very long life (it’s hard to mandate technology when it’s not ready).

The EV mandate had been premature, and California, by combining good intentions with poor policy, had to pull out of it. CA did more damage to the EV than anyone, but government rarely takes responsibility for problems they cause (have they ever?). GM was not the only one to fight the mandate, and would have been the big winner if it stayed in efffect. It would have been the technology leader, and would have had the license to sell more cars in CA than anyone else.

Toyota only put in a token effort to meet the EV mandate. Instead, it put its money into hybrids, which made more sense than EV’s at the time, but not much more (gas was less than $1 at the time). CA let them off the hook by not following through.

Blaming GM more because they crushed the EV’s is missing the point. The financial part of keeping them alive made little sense. It may have had PR value, but GM rarely gets praise for what it does right, only skewered for what it does wrong (how many people complain about GM’s opposition to CA’s new fuel economy reg’s, but fail to mention that Toyota is also fighting them to sell Sequoias?). You only have to read this site to see that.

GM should be the hero, rather than the goat, because they made the most capable vehicle for a well-intentioned, but ill-conceived EV program. To add insult to injury, they lost the technical leadership that they “purchased” with the $1 billion they spent on the program. All to have CA say, “Just kidding.”

So let’s be fair. GM isn’t perfect, but they’re not the devil incarnate. Toyota’s halo isn’t wide enough to hide the gas-guzzling full-sized trucks that they proudly advertise, while touting their “green” credentials (or can you fool all of the people all of the time?).

And by the way, Bob Lutz is by all accounts the best product man in the automotive business; he just happens to share his opinions whether they are politically correct or not. His opinion may be that global warming is a hoax, but that hasn’t stopped him from trying to convince congress to replace CAFE with a higher gasoline tax in the past – because it would work. Don’t just complain about the quotes you don’t like (be smarter than the media).

“Absent a badge, it’s very hard to tell a BYD from an original Toyota, and with all due respect that doesn’t demonstrate a great deal of competency,”

etc .. while begging tax dollars defines bankruptcy.