In order to protect the public and reduce their legal liability, the car companies decided to get their EVs and their dangerous batteries off the road, which is what GM and the other companies did, before destroying them in the way that most concept and test vehicles are destroyed -- by crushing.
At the time I believed that the EV1 was essentially a ploy by GM to show CARB and the public that the mandatory electric vehicle law was a mistake, and I still believe that. As the company with the most models on the market, GM would have had to spend a giant fortune to create electric versions of all its cars, and no one would have bought them. Under those circumstances, building one EV early to test the waters made more sense than building several later.
Myself and about a dozen other auto writers I know would love to have discovered that there was a larger conspiracy at work (that's an essential and unattractive part of our professional natures), but we looked and looked and looked and there wasn't one to be found. Pure electric vehicles (batteries only, recharged from the power grid) made no sense then and they make no sense today.
As for there being a plot on the part of GM or any other auto company to kill electric vehicles to "maintain the status quo" or something like that, that's difficult to credit. Producing cars that helped the environment and reduced the dependence of foreign oil were hot button items then and now, and a technology that speaks to that would be embraced by everyone involved. Look at what's going on now with hybrids, which is an over-priced Band-Aid solution to a life-threatening illness. If pure electric vehicles were even a small part of the answer, they'd be available for sale now from every smart car company in the world.
At the time I believed that the EV1 was essentially a ploy by GM to show CARB and the public that the mandatory electric vehicle law was a mistake, and I still believe that. As the company with the most models on the market, GM would have had to spend a giant fortune to create electric versions of all its cars, and no one would have bought them. Under those circumstances, building one EV early to test the waters made more sense than building several later.
Myself and about a dozen other auto writers I know would love to have discovered that there was a larger conspiracy at work (that's an essential and unattractive part of our professional natures), but we looked and looked and looked and there wasn't one to be found. Pure electric vehicles (batteries only, recharged from the power grid) made no sense then and they make no sense today.
As for there being a plot on the part of GM or any other auto company to kill electric vehicles to "maintain the status quo" or something like that, that's difficult to credit. Producing cars that helped the environment and reduced the dependence of foreign oil were hot button items then and now, and a technology that speaks to that would be embraced by everyone involved. Look at what's going on now with hybrids, which is an over-priced Band-Aid solution to a life-threatening illness. If pure electric vehicles were even a small part of the answer, they'd be available for sale now from every smart car company in the world.