GM killed the electric car.
...it was the pickup their security guys drove around. Then they sent it to Schram's to be broken up, I got the good parts, and put it under the hood of my Fiero. Bwahaha!
Seriously guys, we already had this thread:
http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/grm/who-killed-the-electric-car/9695/page1/
Bryce
aircooled wrote: The movie is interesting, but it does leave out some very important points/facts. The big one is the actual cost of the cars (maybe 40 to 60 grand). It is pure and simple economics why they didn't sell them. Even the leases they did do on them were rather expensive. The one part of the movie that is interesting and confusing is why did GM feel the need to crush them? I mean even the one in the Perterson has all the electrics removed. The only thing I can guess is that they put a LOT of money and time into that stuff and did not want someone else to copy it. Conspiracy makes for a better movie though....
AFAIK, The U.S. government had a law at the time that said if you sell a car you MUST provide parts for 15 years. Thus GM leased all EV1s and then when the leases were up, crush em.
Thus US Gov't killed the electric car. I don't know why this is so hard to figure out.
The Volt is the best answer to the obvious shortcomings thusfar.
Keep in mind, folks, that magic technology isn't going to make charging batteries much faster, ultracapacitor or not. Sure, the battery/ultracap can take whatever huge amount of watts, but how big of a wire are we talking at how high of a voltage? This is physics, pure and simple. Ohms laws cannot be broken.
Let's take a 30 kWH battery/cap from the Mini E. If you'd like to recharge in 6 minutes, that's over 1300 amps at a common 220v. Even if gas stations were equipped with 480v, it's still 625 amps. You're basically welding at this level. It can be done, but there isn't a super easy/safe way to go. Basically, you're not going to be able to fill up your own car, or be in or around the car at the time.
Swapping batteries at the station is basically the best way to go, but interchangeability is the tough part.
You'll need to log in to post.
