The concept of an electric car that was first introduced by GM around the latter part of the 1990s astonished quite a number of people all over the world. At that time, there was already a need to start looking for ways and means for cars to operate without fuel. As early as that time, the concept of GM's electric car: EV1 was first developed.
As astonishing as it had been at that time, a lot of people still embraced the idea of having a car that cleaner than the typical cars out in the market. GM was even hailed for proposing such a concept! I myself was looking forward to seeing this car out in the market, and was even planning to get one, should it fit my budget.
But then again, conceptualizing a car is far different then producing the car itself. The path towards bringing the electric car was far from easy. When this plan was set in motion by Bob Stemple, the chairman of General Motors back then, people did not really foresee that it would cost the company hundreds of millions of dollars. But with these millions of dollars came patents for GM itself, so the company is not totally losing out on their investment.
In 1996, GM then released the EV1, though this was not put on sale in the market on a large scale. GM just leased roughly 300 EV1 units to the public, much to the chagrin of its numerous advocates all over the world. Why did GM decided to just lease the cars? Why not just sell them outright? This may have been a marketing ploy set in motion by GM, which is what a lot of people conceived at the time. So many questions were left unanswered by GM, but these were set aside for the moment because people were too caught up in the hype of driving environment
-friendly cars and saving much money on fuel as well.
But these unanswered questions are beginning to resurface today, and the number of such questions is growing exponentially as well. Just 4 short years after GM released the EV1 for leasing, the company took several steps towards demolishing the whole EV1 program. Over the years, we have seen GM recalling Gen I and Gen II EV1 cars from all over the state. We cannot help but question why GM is taking back these cars when people have been behind their concept for so many years now. A lot of conspiracy theories have been developed; some even claim that GM never thought the concept of an electric car was commercially viable in the first place. But, mind you, this is not due to the lack of customers because there had been so many people who eagerly jotted down their names on the waiting list, just to have a chance to lease out an EV1 of their own. This was never a problem of customers at all.
We can then turn to the fact that the EV1 has indeed experienced a lot of problems over the years, particularly in the area of their batteries. Thermal incidents and issues regarding the charger ports of the cars' batteries plagued the company, and this also prodded that infamous recall of EV1 cars back in 2000.
Personally, I believe it's a smart move on the part of GM. With the many problems surrounding the EV1, it is clear that there is a need to cut their losses already. It would be so much better for the company to just take back all the EV1 cars that have been manufactured, in the hopes of having some form of ROI here, if there is indeed any. And the company has suffered quite a huge blow already. Better to just get back the cars, get whatever money they can still get from them, and start from scratch. Hopefully, things will look brighter the next time around.
