On April 18, 1990, Smith announced that the Impact would become a production vehicle with a goal of 25,000 vehicles. The car was powered by 32 lead–acid rechargeable batteries. Alan Cocconi of AC Propulsion designed and built the original drive system electronics for the Impact, and the design was later refined by Hughes Electronics. The car had been developed by electric vehicle company AeroVironment, using design knowledge gained from GM's participation in the 1987 World Solar Challenge, a trans-Australia race for solar vehicles, with the Sunraycer, which went on to win the competition. GM preferred a production rate of 100,000 cars per year, rather than 20,000. In January 1990, GM chairman Roger Smith demonstrated the Impact, an electric concept car, at the 1990 LA Auto Show. As a result of GM taking the cars back as the leases ended and the subsequent destruction of the majority of EV1s, an intact and working EV1 is one of the rarest cars from the 1990s. During the discontinuation, film director Francis Ford Coppola hid his EV1 from General Motors and was ultimately able to keep it. The EV1's discontinuation remains controversial, with electric car enthusiasts, environmental interest groups and former EV1 lessees accusing GM of self- sabotaging its electric car program to avoid potential losses in spare parts sales (sales forced by government regulations), while also blaming the oil industry for conspiring to keep electric cars off the road. General Motors also allegedly gave models to research institutions with EV1s being found in the wild near universities often in states of disrepair. The only intact EV1 was donated to the Smithsonian Institution. The majority of the EV1s taken back were crushed, with about 40 delivered to museums and educational institutes with their electric powertrains deactivated, under the agreement that the cars were not to be reactivated and driven on the road. Lessees were not given the option to purchase their cars from GM, which cited parts, service, and liability regulations.
The EV1 program was subsequently discontinued in 2002, and all cars on the road were taken back by the company, under the terms of the lease. Furthermore, an alliance of the major automakers litigated the CARB regulation in court, resulting in a slackening of the ZEV stipulation, permitting the companies to produce super-low-emissions vehicles, natural gas vehicles, and hybrid cars in place of pure electrics. While customer reaction to the EV1 was positive, GM believed that electric cars occupied an unprofitable niche of the automobile market, and ended up crushing most of the cars, regardless of protesting customers. Within a year of the EV1's release, leasing programs were also launched in San Francisco and Sacramento, California, along with a limited program in the state of Georgia. The cars were not available for purchase, and could be serviced only at designated Saturn dealerships. markets undertaken by GM's Advanced Technology Vehicles group. EV1 lessees were officially participants in a "real-world engineering evaluation" and market study into the feasibility of producing and marketing a commuter electric vehicle in select U.S. The EV1 was made available through limited lease-only agreements, initially to residents of the cities of Los Angeles, California, and Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona. Inspired partly by the Impact's perceived potential for success, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) subsequently passed a mandate that made the production and sale of zero-emissions vehicles (ZEV) a requirement for the seven major automakers selling cars in the United States to continue to market their vehicles in California. The decision to mass-produce an electric car came after GM received a favorable reception for its 1990 Impact electric concept car, upon which the design of the EV1 drew heavily. It was the first mass-produced and purpose-designed electric vehicle of the modern era from a major automaker and the first GM car designed to be an electric vehicle from the outset. The General Motors EV1 was an electric car produced and leased by General Motors from 1996 to 1999.
0 kommentar(er)
