Should we boycott GM for crushing 70+ Saturn Electric Cars in CA?

Question

Watch the documentary "Who killed the electric car" and judge for yourself. I will never buy a GM car again.

Answer 1

You are omitting the information that they also kept a population of them to perform fuel cell testing.

Answer 2

No.  (If you don't know me, I'm a VERY strong environmentalist).

Back then GM made a bold and early attempt at an electric car.  The business numbers didn't work.  It would have been insane for them to continue.

The risk of keeping the aging cars in service was too great also.  They'd be forced to keep supporting them with parts and trained service personnel, or look like a bad company.  There was no scheming against the electric involved.

With the Chevy Volt, they are once again at the forefront of trying innovative environmental solutions, while appropriately looking at the bottom line.  They're hardly rolling in money right now.

Far from boycotting them , we should be supporting them.

Environmentalists need to be practical about it if we're going to make progress.  The movie is an extreme (and wrong) statement about why things happened as they did.  Things looked a whole lot different back then, with relatively cheap oil, and few concerned about global warming.

"Monday morning quarterbacking" is far too kind.

Answer 3

Hmmm boycott a company for crushing their own property that apparently wasn't selling in the market place,  yes that sure makes sense.

Answer 4

The GM electric cars were discontinued and destroyed because they were not economically viable in the market place.  They were only produced because of a CA government mandate (government mandates are an attempt to manipulate the market place and they always create more problems than they solve).  Once the mandate was lifted, no one wanted the cars, no one would buy a new one at any price, never mind the price necessary to support their production and continued support.  They went the way of all non competative products, into oblivion.

Answer 5

its not all GM's fault.

The US government has had access to alternative fuel sources for YEARS, many other parts of the world already use them, but since we are an oil-dependent nation, and our government is sponsored by big oil, switching to alternative fuel sources doesnt make sense for our government to do, so they squash things, such as electric cars, or make it to difficult for manufacturers to produce them.

ps - i have not watched that yet, but i want to