This goes to show you that Liberals are all talk and NO action.Did the majority of liberals in New York and California give up their Volvo's Bmw's or mercedes for a EV1? NOPE. 800 leases in 4 years? 1.2 BILLION? Quick someone do the math....How much to put one of these cars on the road?
That is only $1.5 million per car.
The real reason is that the charging stations burned down two structures in the past....the battery fires were more of a liability. Plus, where are they going to dump these batteries?
I think there are some parts of the story we're not hearing. General Motors used the existence of the EV program as a lobbying point to fight against reclassifying SUVs as automobiles instead of light trucks, because they could say "see, we're making environmentally friendly vehicles to help find a lasting solution to emissions problems". The ability to fight off new pollution regulations probably was actually worth the $1 billion it cost.
GM's statement is absolutely right - now that they have hybrids in the works, and they might actually have a mass-market demand, why bother with the EV1?
As for why they only got 800 leases in 4 years - we don't know the price charged, or the restrictions which were placed on such leases. We also don't know how many EV1s GM ever bothered to manufacture. If they only made 1000, it's not surprising that they only leased 800 vehicles.
The point is that the EV1 probably had everything to do with politics, and was never designed or intended to be successful or commercially viable. In a certain sense, the whole thing was a deliberate write-off akin to a convenient tax loss. The article presents the owners' story, and GM's official story. We're left to guess at what really happened.