I think you're referring to a certain Hughes Electronics company in Los Angeles. A subsidery of GM. I was doing some proposal work then and thought we could use a power converter they had developed for their car. So we met with their engineering team to see if we could adapt it to our program.
While many of us did see the electric car as impractical, GM's Hughes subsidiary was upfront about it's limitations. No tricks.
There are market realities that must be dealt with. One of those realities is that politics often gets in the way of sound science. And in politics the perception is the reality.
I worked on a DOE study contract about 30 years ago whose funding was the result of political impulses. It was the result of the 'Three Mile Island' "disaster". We had a peanut farmer as president at the time. The study was of little importance and yielded little real useful information. IMO.
We call these kind of projects "boondoggles". There purpose is to appease the ignorant masses and demonstrate that our glorious leaders are on top of the situation. In the process we stay employed and get to do some nifty engineering.
GM never lied. They just said, you want us to build an electric car, we'll do it. We'll make the best one possible for a reasonable price. They did. It's just that they knew it wouldn't be successful in the market place (even though many of the small number of owners became very devoted to their cars because they were fun to drive).