Yep, I remember the Impact. Great pre-production car. I had a chance to go for a ride in one. But GM is a very different company today than it was under Stempel- that was 25 years ago! In any case, this is NOT data relating to dealers selling EVs. It's not even data...
- Mark From: EVDL Administrator via EV <[email protected]> To: "'Electric Vehicle Discussion List'" <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [EVDL] EVLN: (Why?) Nissan sez it is 'Tesla-3 Stoked' ... Date: 4/12/16, 4:43 PM On 12 Apr 2016 at 14:29, Rush Dougherty via EV wrote: > I'd say that the first chapter would be about the EV1, A fantastic EV > by any standard that GM did NOT want to sell and was CRUSHED ... Yeah, literally crushed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ev1_crush5.jpg I wish I could find where I read it and get corroboration, but there's a story about the Impact, the Aerovironment-built prototype that eventually became the EV1. The tale goes that when GM showed the Impact at the 1990 (I think it was) LA auto show, one of their executives, possibly Robert Stempel himself, was standing next to a board member of CARB. The CARB rep was praising the Impact and its potential to the heavens. Stempel is supposed to have listened for a few minutes, gradually becoming more agitated. Finally he looked at the guy and said, point-blank, "You're not really going to make us BUILD that car, are you?" I was surprised when they actually put the Volt on the market. When it comes to EVs, GM has generally been little talk and even less action. Most of their EV "experiments" seemed to revolve around demonstrating just how allegedly impractical EVs are / were. Look at the 1966 Electrovair II. It was a converted Corvair, really not that much different in size and weight from the Impact / EV1, but even more impossible to mass produce. But unlike the Impact, it didn't use batteries that might be affordable. Instead they filled it with silver zinc batteries. On these high-energy (for the time) batteries it got as much as 80 miles of range. Did you catch that the batteries were silver=based? Can you imagine how much that cost? Try $160,000 in 1966. That's just for the battery. The Electrovair's battery alone cost 64 times as much as a 1966 Corvair ICE ($2500). Today that 500+ volt silver-zinc battery would cost $1.2 million, based on inflation adjustment on the original cost, and about $8 million based on the current value of silver. Of >course< the Electrovair was impractical. GM didn't WANT it to be practical, any more than they wanted the Impact / EV1 to be practical. GM has been that kind of company for as long as I've been following EVs. That's been since around 1967. Maybe that history helps you understand why some of us remain deeply skeptical of GM's sincerity. David Roden - Akron, Ohio, USA EVDL Administrator = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = EVDL Information: http://www.evdl.org/help/ = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Note: mail sent to "evpost" and "etpost" addresses will not reach me. To send a private message, please obtain my email address from the webpage http://www.evdl.org/help/ . = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org Read EVAngel's EV News at http://evdl.org/evln/ Please discuss EV drag racing at NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://lists.evdl.org/private.cgi/ev-evdl.org/attachments/20160412/033bc50f/attachment.htm> _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org Read EVAngel's EV News at http://evdl.org/evln/ Please discuss EV drag racing at NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
