Ford and GM plants vs hybrids

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#21

06-11-2008, 12:23 PM

martinjlm

Proud to be GM

Join Date: Sep 2005

Location: Detroit

Posts: 564

Re: Ford and GM plants vs hybrids

Quote:

Originally Posted by FastMover

There is some other "mis-remembering" going on too!

You failed to mention that in both the Gen I and Gen II releases of the EV-1 the leases were snapped up in a matter of days. In the case of the Gen II cars, the lease releases were controlled to targeted users (many were Gen I upgrades) and a very large waiting list was created that GM never filled.

The program was ALWAYS intended to be a limited volume / limited availability / CLOSED END LEASE. It's admirable that the demand exceeded the supply. On the other hand, the demand never approached a sustainable volume - ie 10s of thousands of vehicles per year.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FastMover

You failed to mentioned that the cars were never offered outside of Califormia, and further, that leases were selectively granted to "urban" drivers by GM.

Unless California secretly annexed the states of Arizona and New York and the District of Columbia. The reason for the "urban" drivers being favored in the doling out of leases, it is simply because the vehicles had limited (though class leading for its time) range and needed to be operated within range of recharging points. The reason Cali, Arizona, and New York were distribution areas is because their state governements agreed to at some level support the deployment of charging station. Few things suck worse than being 85 miles from home with 70 miles of charge left.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FastMover

You also failed to mention that after the intial Gen I publicity campaign, GM did almost no advertising for the EV-1 within California and none in the remainder of the country.

And the reason for paying money to advertise cars you've already placed with all the lessees you can supply would be........? Conversely, the vehicle was often featured in PR ads and literature to showcase technological capability. But there is no reason to place ads to generate additional sales for something you cannot make more of than you have already sold or leased.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FastMover

Also not mentioned was the almost unanimous postive feedback from the lessees, and the offer of almost every Gen II lessee to extend their leases further or to purchase the car outright. The loss of the EV-1 for some of these drivers created a culture that still exists today, over ten years later.

Actually, in my opinion, even though this was not handled as well as it could have been, the BIGGER mistake was not following up with a more commercially viable product that took the limited range condition out of play.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FastMover

Also forgotten is the fact that GM, along with several other American manufacturers opposed the passage of ZEV laws in other states based on the CARB model dispite the liklihood that such legislation would have vastly increased the market. GM could have influenced these mandates to include hybrids or other emerging technologies in the legislation. Instead, GM refused to include emerging technologies as potential mitigations for perceived short-commings of the EV-1 in these markets. Then, having created a popular mandate and market, sued California and CARB to get the legislation reversed and destroyed both the mandate and the market.

I could refute this statement, but I would have to disclose confidential GM responses to CARB and EPA rulemaking discussions. I like my job too much to do that. In essence, the EV-1 was part of a larger GM response to the original ZEV legislation that ALL (as in ALL) auto manufacturers doing business in California objected to because.....well, it just made absolutely no sense and was based on technical assumptions made by technically uninformed politicians. California eventually and wisely changed the legislation to develop more fair, but still difficult to achieve, legislation.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FastMover

The rest is history and after CARB reversed the legislation under the cloud of several questionable circumstances involving CARB officials, GM cancelled the EV-1 program when the last private lease expired in August of 2003. GM handled the vehicle returns with very heavy handedness; charging lessee's for excessive wear, scratches and excessive mileage and insisted on agressively billing for these charges even when the cars were scrapped and scheduled for the crusher and the costs had been written off.

From time to time, one of the universities or technical colleges that received one of the end-of-life EV-1s has resored it to operating condition and demonstrated it as a technical exercise. In every case, GM has responded extremely agressively, threating legal action for violation of the agrement and witholding any further financial or technical assistance to that institution.

GM may have been correct when it claimed that the EV-1 was premature and that the technology was not there in 2003 to support it. But the market was there and GM, along with others that did include big oil, killed it -- and with it thier opporutnity to gain a leadership position. To me, the biggest disappointment is that GM did not push the technology and the lessons learned to futher the development of fuel efficient vehicles, and instead cast it aside as irrelevant for over ten years.

I've already responded in other threads on my opinions on the rest of this, so I'll just simply let this stand as the original poster's opinion. Mine is well documented.

Peace,

Martin

#22

06-11-2008, 12:32 PM

martinjlm

Proud to be GM

Join Date: Sep 2005

Location: Detroit

Posts: 564

Re: Ford and GM plants vs hybrids

Quote:

Originally Posted by FastMover

....Later, GM senior executives, like Larry Burns and even Rick Wagoner, himself, admitted that the decisiion to terminate the EV-1 program instead of re-alaigning it into hybrids or alternative fuel vehicle programs was probably one of the worst decisions ever made in the history of GM.

For the sake of accuracy, Larry Burns has not commented publicly (that I am aware of) on the termination of the EV1. Rick Wagoner's statement was that it was among the worst decisions that he was involved in, not that it was one of the worst in the history of GM.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FastMover

I can only hope that if the first edition of the Volt does not initially live up to expectations, and needs further refining to make a market, that GM will not give up on it so quickly -- and that they will treat the early adapters with more gentility that they have demonstrated in the past.

Stay tuned. I've been with GM for quite a while and I have NEVER seen a vehicle program with the level of commitment and focused energy and resources as I'm seeing on the Volt. Comparing the Volt program to the EV1 is like comparing the comissioning of the Space Shuttle to the restoration of a classic Corvette.

Peace,

Martin

#23

06-11-2008, 12:47 PM

FastMover

Old Boomer Techie

Join Date: Jun 2007

Location: Pacific Northwest (WA)

Posts: 572

Re: Ford and GM plants vs hybrids

Quote:

Originally Posted by martinjlm

...Actually, in my opinion, even though this was not handled as well as it could have been, the BIGGER mistake was not following up with a more commercially viable product that took the limited range condition out of play...Martin

On this, we can totally agree. At the time GM was presented with alternatives by the team working on the EV-1. Some of the folks at AeroVironment, as well as some of the GM engineeers close to the engineering were already urging a change in direction toward a hybrid variant. In particular, Paul MacCready was very forthcoming about the need for a way to overcome the range limitations of the available battery technology and even before the EV-1 Gen II production phase had tried to convince GM to adopt hybrid technology.

Last edited by FastMover; 06-11-2008 at 01:12 PM.

#24

06-11-2008, 08:26 PM

pagemap

Active Enthusiast

Join Date: Apr 2007

Location: Minneapolis, MN

Posts: 215

Re: Ford and GM plants vs hybrids

Quote:

Originally Posted by valerieannt

GM killed their company when they decided to CRUSH the EV1s in 03. They had one of the most advanced machines on the road but they decided to crush the technology and replace it with the HUMMERS!! Not only did they crush the EV1s, they sold the battery rights to Chevron Texaco- how smart was that?

Now that was not only the death of the electric car but the kiss of death for GM. They do not listen to consumers. They are so HEAVILY influenced by BIG OIL that consumers really do not matter. Just look at their lineup--- TRUCKS, TRUCKS, TRUCKS. Oh and designing a Tahoe hybrid- Why even bother?? GM's solution- the VOLT? Let's see, by that the time that hits the road- Nissan will have their electric car out, Honda will have three hybrids to choose from and Toyota will (hopefully) have their plug-in hybrid. So I guess GM has what is coming to them. It is just a shame that EXTREMELY POOR MGMT will put hard working people out of jobs.

Exactly, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that gas is going to continually increase in price. I guess GM management was living in la-la land when they thought people would continue to buy their gas guzzlers at $3+ a gallon. And don't get me started on the Tahoe hybrid, what a waste of engineering talent.

GM: People want to buy a HIGH MPG VEHICLE, something you are sorely lacking at this point in time. Not a hulking SUV that gets an extra 3MPG over its non-hybrid counterpart.

When I was shopping for a replacement for my American-made SUV, I was first looking at what the domestics had to offer. Unfortunately they had nothing to offer me, and I wanted something that would get 50MPG. As a result I had to turn to a foreign car company to meet my needs.

Hopefully GM can pull off the Volt, that is an exciting car.

Last edited by pagemap; 06-11-2008 at 08:39 PM.