Filed under: EV/Plug-in, GM
Blast from the past: 1991 CNN report on GM Impact
Tell me if anything from this 1991 report (see video below the fold) by CNN sounds familiar. First introduced at the LA Auto Show, GM planned to sell a 120 mile range electric car very soon. The electric car would be produced in Michigan, with an initial production of twenty thousand and an estimated cost in the high twenties. There were problems with the batteries, which need to be replaced every two years for "several hundred dollars." There was also talk GM might include the cost of the batteries when you buy the car but they won't confirm. Familiar? Yeah, we thought so to.
Gallery: Chevy Volt Concept
[Source: YouTube]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Ron Fischer 4:15PM (3/09/2008)
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." - Santayana. Automakers have consistently used advanced vehicles, EVs, hybrids, hydrogen fuel cell, as "playing cards" in legislative battles. Once their usefulness as bargaining chips or marketing tokens expires they're discarded as quickly as practical. The story of the Impact / EV-1 development is well documented in Shnayerson's The Car That Could.
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rgseidl 4:41PM (3/09/2008)
GM mothballed the EV-1 partly because it discovered the batteries wouldn't last long enough, partly because it wanted to deny CARB the chance to impose its well and partly because trucks and SUVs offered much higher profit margins at the time.
Battery and electric drive technology has advanced substantially since the 1990s. Raising CAFE to 35mpg by 2020 is a done deal. And profit margins on trucks and SUVs are a shadow of their former selves. Oil prices would have to fall sharply to reverse that and the only reasons they might would be a credit-related severe recession in the US - a scenario that GM would bear little or no responsibility for.
Still, once bitten, twice shy. GM would lose what little customer goodwill it has managed to scrape together over the past 24 months if it canceled the E-Flex architecture now - even if it did manage the associated PR better than it did last time. For now at least, I'd give GM the benefit of the doubt.
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Mark 5:52PM (3/09/2008)
I'm glad that consumer demand has gone from SUV's to fuel efficient vehicles. I hope SUV's are completely scrapped.
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Matthijs 7:40PM (3/09/2008)
I made a playlist with 33 video's on the EV1 and Impact.
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=1EE949459BE0D49B
I also have a video on the Impact from GM May 1990 Issue Update video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExTQHhnAVS4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_A98NOWmUw
Part 1
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Matthijs 7:41PM (3/09/2008)
Here also the Introduction Of The Impact:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anx90C-XTzA
And another Impact video by GM:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IO1hVBbBIVg
Man I would like to see GM think and act the way they do in the video, especially the last one!
Part 2
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Tony Belding 8:01PM (3/09/2008)
Actually, if you read The Car That Could, one of the striking things is that GM pushed the EV1 forward when there was no legislation requiring them to do so. They saw it as a way to get the jump on their competitors. It was only when electric cars were mandated that GM joined hand-in-hand with other car makers to oppose and undermine that mandate, even to the point of sabotaging their own product.
There is no competitive advantage to be gained from doing what everybody is forced to do.
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mike 9:56PM (3/09/2008)
Too bad the blueprints were never saved for this car, in some kind of "computer format" back in 1991 they didn't have anything so sophisticated as COMPUTERS to AID in the DESIGN or COMPUTERS to AID in the MANUFACTURING.
Too bad they never actually built a REAL Assembly line either.
I wonder how the shareholders feel about GM not having an Impact to sell with gas at $3.13.
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Derek 6:40AM (3/10/2008)
How appropriate! I just visited the R.E. Olds Transportation museum in Lansing yesterday. They have an EV1/Impact model on display there, plugged into a powering station and next to an easel that describes how it worked. What I found interesting is that the batteries for the car were mounted in a 'T' shape along the middle of the body (where the transaxle would be if it were RWD) and along the rear wheel axle.
Picture I took: http://twitxr.com/image/12308/
R.E. Olds Museum: http://www.reoldsmuseum.org/
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greg woulf 8:57AM (3/10/2008)
GM made a good business decision to scrap the EV-1, the car wouldn't sell today in numbers that would matter.
GM bashing by people on some green power trip is part of the problem, and not the solution.
The problem now is not GM, if it was there'd be electric cars in every garage. The problem is the technology and no company has done as much as GM toward fixing that.
AC Propulsion, Tesla and Wright all use descendents of the variable electric motor developed at GM. Controller technology was started by GM.
Buy the car if it's good, don't buy it if it's bad, and quit trying to punish GM for doing what they're supposed to do as a business.
GM's done more, and spent more money on EV's than anyone, and the Volt is the first car that makes sense, with the current technology.
The Volt is the car that can change what we drive, and you want to make some kind of statement against the company that's bringing it to us.
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Derek 7:22PM (3/10/2008)
Greg, you should read "The Toyota Way." By no means am I a Toyota apologist, but the book details Toyota's core philosophies and one of them is to try and make business decisions that are beneficial to society, whether it's unobtrusive factories or cars that pollute less. It was one of their motivations for bringing the Prius to market.
Now, it really didn't make sense for Toyota to release a hybrid when gas prices weren't very high (1997) and environmentalism wasn't as big of a deal. They poured massive amounts of R&D into the project and beat their own expectations on time to market. Despite a slow start, the Prius became a runaway success for Toyota in past couple of years.
What I'm getting at is, from a pure profit-making standpoint, the Prius didn't make much sense back in 1997. However, it was a car more beneficial for the environment and it ended up becoming the market leader in a new segment. Who knows how successful the EV1 could have been?
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texmln 1:10AM (3/11/2008)
Oh man, you're so right. What a great article on GM constantly offering 'vaporcars'. Say, did you hear the one about this company called Tesla who keeps promising to build an electric supercar? Yeah, no kidding. These guys are constantly putting out press releases and getting blog space but, get this, their car doesn't even have a transmission! But hey, at least Tesla sounds good, dude. Those dicks at GM, all they've ever done is build hundreds of millions of vehicles over the last 100 years, employed millions of people in 200 countries on six continents, created countless related industries, helped win two world wars, and been one of the primary engines of economic growth and prosperity for the Western world. I wish they'd never existed so we could all drive our oxen across the south forty every morning at 6am and live a life of subsistence farming.
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