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GM's Scorched Earth Policy

Despite the popularity of the GM EV-1 and waiting lists for the high-tech vehicle, General Motors terminated their customers' leases and sent the cars to the jaws of a crusher.

GM wasted no time confiscating the cars in an effort to destroy them. Company officials cite the bottom line and weak sales as the reason for crushing the EV-1 program but owners and enthusiasts tell a different story.

EVs are an intrusive technology. They remain a threat to an oil based economy and its supporting infrastructure and the only way to remove the threat is to crush it.

This is not the first time GM waged it's Scorched Earth Policy against a technological threat. In the 1940's, GM bought out the electric street car industry and ceremoniously burned the cars by the hundreds so they could replace them with their diesel busses.

The EV-1 has met a similar fate and under GM management the program was doomed from the start.

By limiting production to a few hundred vehicles, stocking a limited supply of parts, offering the car in only 2 markets, and employing a half-hearted marketing campaign, GM's self-fullfilling prophesy of lackluster sales came to fruition.

Creating a minimal market and stifling its growth was just one part of the scheme to kill the EV-1. Part 2 of the scheme was to pressure and sue the California Air Resource Board for instituting the EV mandate, spending millions on savvy lawyers to take on the CARB.

To combat air pollution in California the CARB instituted a mandate in the 90's where 5 percent of vehicles sold should be electric. Although GM was positioned well to meet the mandate with the EV-1 they pursued another course of action by killing the car completely, citing weak sales.

Waiting lists tell another story about the increasing demand GM ignored. There were thousands of prospective customers on waiting lists for EV-1s from all over the country. GM officials deny these lists exist since upper management didn't authorize keeping a master list.

GM's ultimate plan to limit the EV market, deny the existence of waiting lists, and the pressure on legislators with lawsuits ultimately put them into a position where they could prove there was no need for the EV-1 or EVs for that matter.

Although GM could be accused of automotive genocide by crushing the EV-1, GM doesn't deserve credit for creating the car. That credit goes to AeroEnvironment who designed the original EV-1, which was known as the Impact, and by Alan Coconni of AC Propulsion.

Automotive consumers would think if GM won't embrace EVs perhaps they would compromise with gas-electric hybrids. But once again, GM in its dinosaur thinking, continues to pump out gas guzzling dinosaurs like the Hummer totally ignoring the small car market.

Toyota has produced the Prius hybrid for 7 years with its 3rd generation Prius now in production. GM contends the hybrid is not profitable. However, demand for the Prius has increased by the thousands and Toyota is making a profit on the car. Where is GM's hybrid? That's years away and if they do build a hybrid it will be a converted SUV not a purpose built hybrid.

Proponents of GM will say the company is developing hydrogen technology such as the Hy-Wire for the future. In reality, hydrogen is "look over there" technology and a stalling tactic used by industry and the Bush administration to avoid near term solutions such as EVs.

The simple fact is, EVs and hybrids are an intrusive technology and a threat to US automakers, the oil industry and friends of the present administration. The EV-1 wasn't a failure but a victim of an industry still stuck in the dinosaur age.

Written by Chip Gribben

Eulogy for GM EV1

Drivers Find Outlet for Grief Over EV1s GM is reclaiming its electric cars, so fans conduct a mock funeral.

By Bob Pool, LA Times Staff Writer

July 25, The memorial service Thursday began with a few moments of silence as the funeral procession moved slowly through the Hollywood cemetery. And why not? All 24 vehicles in the sad caravan were whisper-quiet electric cars.

Their drivers gathered to mourn the demise of the EV1, the futuristic, battery-powered General Motors automobile that was hailed in the late 1990s as the answer to smog alerts and gas shortages.

GM produced about 1,100 of the wedge-shaped two-seaters from 1996 to 1999 in what seemed to be the first wave of electric cars designed to meet tough air-quality rules. Because the EV1's technology was considered experimental, the company leased the cars to drivers instead of selling them.

But the California Air Resources Board relaxed automobile-emissions requirements. GM, claiming efforts to market the car were a dismal and costly failure, last fall pulled the plug on the EV1 and began reclaiming the cars.

Although drivers have remained enthusiastic about their electric cars, GM has refused to extend the $300-per-month leases or sell the vehicles Drivers offered eulogies to the peppy, clean-running car during a sometimes-emotional mock service attended by more than 100 others at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

Behind them were parked 15 sleek-looking EV1s, one shrouded in black crepe and covered with a funeral bouquet and others bearing personalized license plates such as NOT OPEC and REVOLTS. Nine electric-powered Toyota RAV 4s were also in the procession.

"We are gathered here to say goodbye," solemnly intoned Rabbi Brian Zachary Mayer of Van Nuys. "We are here to say goodbye to a special friend, goodbye to an idea - to an ideal, to a dream."

Santa Monica filmmaker Chris Paine organized the unusual memorial. He has been ordered to turn in his EV1 on Aug. 13. It will be scrapped by GM.

"She died before her time, in perfect health, and perhaps when she was most needed," he said. "Unfortunately, very few Americans had a chance to drive an electric car before it was canceled."

The EV1 was only offered to motorists in California and Arizona. Enthusiasts say that most of them where snapped up by Southern California drivers. GM has reclaimed many of them, leaving only about 100 on Los Angeles streets, according to Paine.

Hollywood-area City Councilman Eric Garcetti, who has had an EV1 for five years, got a laugh from the crowd when he said he will continue driving his "until December, when GM will have to pry it out of my charger's dead, cold hands."

Actor Ed Begley Jr. said he has driven electric cars since 1990. He drew applause when he wryly observed that "the detractors of electric vehicles" are correct when they claim battery-powered cars aren't for everyone. "Given their limited range, they can only meet the needs of 90% of the population," said the Studio City resident.

Several designers and engineers who helped create the EV1 were among the mourners. One of them, Wally Rippel of Altadena, suggested that the electric car is not dead. "It will go on, perhaps with a different body," he said.

"Really, it's a time for rejoicing," added another, famed aeronautical and solar inventor Paul MacCready of Pasadena. "Technology makes it inevitable there will be more electric vehicles in the future. And it's all because of the EV1."

The crowd lingered after the service ended. Actress Alexandra Paul, an EV1 driver, took a test ride on a battery-powered Segway scooter ridden in the procession by Joseph Chiu, a computer engineer from Pasadena.

There were hugs among the environmentalists, engineers and EV1 enthusiasts and a bagpiper mournfully played a dirge. Then they piled into their electric cars and – very quietly - faded away.

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