Page 24 - On The Move - Volume 16, Issue 3

Twenty-two years before today’s electric

vehicles were routinely topping 200 miles (322

km) of range, there was the ground-breaking

battery powered EV1 from General Motors.
By Gary Witzenburg
Ward’s Auto Correspondent
This article first appeared on
WardsAuto.com May 31st, 2019

Available for lease in five Western cities for two model years A key goal was to see how quickly and efficiently
(1997 and 1999), it was the subject of a 2006 GM could do an all-new, ground-up car.
documentary that gave little credit to GM Driven by a new systems-engineering
for spending a half-billion dollars approach, the timing target was
to develop it and disingenuously 36 months.
trashed GM for canceling it.
Then, on Sept. 28,1990,
The vision of future transportation California’s Air Resources
appeared at the Los Angeles Board mandated the state’s
Auto Show in January 1990: a seven top-selling automakers dedicate a share of
bullet-shaped coupe designed by GM and co-engineered and their California sales – starting at 2% – to zero-emissions vehicles.
developed with high-tech California contractor Aerovironment.
Environmentalists cheered while EV skeptics scoffed and No business wants to be told how many of anything it must sell,
politicians plotted to force-feed it to the public. because nothing can force people to buy something they don’t
want. But that was the requirement.
It looked great, sprinted from zero to 60 mph (97 km/h) in 8
seconds and had achieved in one Arizona test a remarkable 125 Meanwhile, GM was going broke. Jack Smith was installed as
miles (201 km) of range, better than any practical EV up to that CEO in 1992, and he proceeded to cancel or delay a number
time. of product programs, including the nascent EV. Nearly everyone
wrote it off as canceled.
So positive was press and public reaction to it, then-CEO Roger
Smith announced on April 22 GM’s intent to produce such a But while three-quarters of the group was reassigned, a core
car. “We recognized the obvious shortcoming of EVs,” recalls team of roughly 100 engineers relocated to an off-site facility
executive director Ken Baker. “Our plan was to be battery in Troy, MI, and continued development. Baker was promoted
agnostic – take the best available and focus on engineering the to R&D vice president in April and kept the program alive under
world’s most efficient vehicle, which would give dramatically that organization.
better performance once a better battery came along.”

22 www.maada.com