Why Not Revive the EV1?

usnews.rankingsandreviews.com ^ | 06-30-2008 | Staff

[Red Badger]

Dawn of the Dead Car?...........

[Red Badger]

Ping!.............

[WakeUpAndVote]

It looked like a first gen Saturn.

[Red Badger]

I dunno, I think it looked a lot like an Olds Aurora...........

[SJSAMPLE]

If the Aurora were viewed through the Hubble space telescope.

[Myrddin]

It looked like a first gen Saturn.

The Saturn EV1 should look like a Saturn.

[libertylover]

Why do they always have to make these cars so damned ugly?

[agere_contra]

Yeah, and pixellated :0)

[Locomotive Breath]

Tyranny of the wind tunnel.

[Turbo Pig]

Why do they always have to make these cars so damned ugly?

It look more like a car than the Prius; even if that car would be a Citroen.

[Da Coyote]

150 miles, my butt! Get an engineering degree. That thing coudn’t go more than 60 miles or so...and to do that you had to have no A/C, no nuttin! GM junked the cars because they were junk. Given GM’s present state, methinks all the true engineers have bolted, leaving only the MBAs that got GM in to it’s present mess.

[Red Badger]

Self portrait of the designers............

[Blood of Tyrants]

So that it will be a status symbol for yuppie liberals.

[new cruelty]

If the Aurora were viewed through the Hubble space telescope.

LOL. I got a good laugh from that. Thanks!

[Domandred]

EV1 was ten years before it’s time. If it had been marketed now demand would probably be HUGE even with it’s disadvantages. Ten years ago most people (consumers) weren’t thinking ahead so demand wasn’t as big as it would be now.

Also ten years ago operating cost on the EV1 came out higher per year then a gas powered economy car. Now my Chevy Metro costs me about 13 cents per mile to operate. An EV1 would run me about 6 cents per mile.

A ten year old EV1 (if they would have stayed in the market) would have run me a lot less to purchase then a new one off the lot (an a LOT less then the current Hybrids)

One of the biggest complaints was it’s limited range. Well most households have multiple cars. Use the EV1 (or other electric) for daily driving and keep your gas powered longer range vehicle for those weekend excursions or times when the EV1 don’t run (North Dakota winters).

I could care less about enviro-whacko concerns. I do care about money out of my pocket though, and I care that every time I fill up my gas tank I’m sending a portion of that money to other nations who are not our friends, and some times enemies.

[mnehring]

There are a of cars that look very similar to these (not sure if it was the EV1 or the old electric civic(?) but they still are putting along. Ugly little car, but it seems to last.

[VOA]

Total cost? Below $40,000, in monthly lease payments sometimes
as low as $299.

I'm sorry I can't give a citation for this...

BUT...when I was living in Los Angeles during 1995-2005, I do
remember either reading/hearing that the real cost of the EVI
was over $100,000.
And that folks like Ed Begley Jr. that got those artifically-low
leases were getting sweet-heart deals just for the publicity
from their use of the car.

Granted, the real-world cost of the EV-1 (per unit) should have gone
down with real mass production.
But even in Liberal Los Angeles, the stock of the EV-1 did sink when
a few of them suffered "spontaneous combustions" and burned
down to the axles.

(I'm not "anti-EV1"...a re-working of the concept might produce
a reasonably-price new vehicle that would make real sense in
congested urban areas.)

[umgud]

Something I rarely see in all these true elec car stories is the cost of electricity to charge them. All the green proponents of elec cars want you to believe the juice is somehow free or cleaner or both.

[RCFlyer]

“If the Aurora were viewed through the Hubble space telescope.”

---

That was funny....

[americanophile]

"There's only one problem. Every single one of these cars was sent to the crusher in 2003." ...further evidence that trying to force economically nonviable alternatives on us rather than letting the market function as the arbitor of value is itself not viable.