Why did GM kill its electric car?

Question

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_EV1

Answer 1

Because it was not economically viable.

Answer 2

Watch the documentary "Who Killed the Electric Car" and all of your answers will be answered truthfully.

Answer 3

According to the article GM simply could not make any money on it.  This was a specialty car that only the rich could afford, the technology was too new and of doubtful value (you are simply shifting the source of pollution from the gasoline engine to an electric generating plant).   It was a political ploy, an experimental attempt to find a way to comply with California's zero percent pollution requirements, and that experiment failed.

You cannot manfacture a car that only a few can afford it if it nothing in essence than a plain old car(high-end luxury cars are a different category); you can get the same results for far less.  To try to do so violates Henry Ford's maxim of building a car every family could afford.

Answer 4

keep our dependency on oil because of their hand in glove relationship with the oil corporations

Answer 5

Because of the unpopularity of the car. They just don't sell. Another electric car was advertised on the radio last week (I don't remember by whom). It claimed to be able to go 400 miles on one charge. That's a lot better. The hold up with electric cars comes down to one item - the batteries. Battery technology needs to get better, if that's possible.

Answer 6

The battery technology was not sufficiently developed.

The range was too short and the range decreased as the batteries had been recharged a few times.

When the battery technology improves so that the ranges are longer between charges the electric car will come back.

It will be important to change the source of our electricity to sources  that are not generated by the use of fossil fuels.

Oother wise we are just transferring the pollution from the location of the car to the location of the power plant.

Answer 7

Back then gasoline was cheap, and global warming unknown.  There was simply no market for it.  They recalled and destroyed them because they didn't want to be responsible for supplying spare parts, etc.

Now that things have changed GM is working very hard on developing practical electric cars.

Many so called "conspiracies" are actually pretty simple economics.

Answer 8

The most likely reason was the money they would no longer make in the auto parts business.  They make  billions selling expensive parts to dealerships that electric cars don't need.