What was gms first electric car

GM produced 1, EV1s, but made them only available for lease. While limited by their small size just two seats and a range of less than miles, the car was popular among environmentalists and celebrities like Tom Hanks and Mel Gibson. As GM was promoting its foray into renewable vehicles, it was simultaneously lobbying to weaken the California law. When the auto industry succeeded in watering down the regulations in , GM, under Wagoner, soon after terminated the EV1, citing limited demand.

In the documentary, Who Killed the Electric Car? GM denied that accusation. Factory ZERO is our first plant that is percent devoted to EVs and once fully operational, it will create more than 2, jobs.

The plant supports 3, jobs. In total, the plant supports 1, jobs. It is the largest, most advanced battery test lab in America for over a decade. View Glossary. View our Sustainability Report. Learn More. Ultium is pre-production and is subject to change.

Actual features, product integrations and product limitations may vary. Available on select Apple and Android devices. Service availability, features and functionality vary by vehicle, device and the plan you are enrolled in.

Terms apply. Device data connection required. See onstar. For details on the Energy Assist feature see chevrolet. A standalone charging station is not required. Even while using the Super Cruise driver assistance feature, always pay attention while driving and do not use a hand-held device.

Visit cadillacsupercruise. Caption: Caption: The Detroit Electric Car Company shuts down, pretty well marking the end of the first era of electric vehicles.

Caption: Caption: EVs arrive in space! The electric lunar rover ferries astronauts around the moon. Caption: Caption: Spurred by federal incentives attached to the Clean Air Act of , engineer Victor Wouk modifies a Buick Skylark to make it a gas-electric hybrid. Caption: Caption: The Arab oil embargo, with its resulting high oil prices and fuel shortages, scares the US into thinking about EVs again.

GM develops an urban electric concept prototype. It has a top speed of 30 mph and can travel 40 miles on a single charge—in warm weather. Caption: Caption: Oil prices fall again. Caption: Caption: Toyota introduces the Prius and sells 18, units in the first year of production. It can travel more than miles before needing to recharge. Celebrities like it.

Caption: Caption: Nissan rolls out the Leaf. The fully electric car can go about 80 miles on a charge and reach 90 mph. It will eventually become the top-selling electric vehicle in the US. Caption: Caption: GM releases the Chevy Volt, the first commercially available plug-in hybrid, with a gas engine that supplements the electric drive once the battery is depleted.

And it looks amazing. Right around the time the EV1 was ready to hit dealerships, California weakened its mandate, relieving the legal pressure on automakers to offer zero-emissions cars. And after a few lackluster years marketing its electric automobile, GM unceremoniously dumped the money-bleeding EV1.

By the mids, executives realized what a colossal mistake they had made. The Japanese firm was riding to victory on a reputation for economical, fuel-efficient cars, especially the Prius, an egg-shaped hybrid that delivered 50 miles per gallon and sold in the hundreds of thousands. He also took notice when Silicon Valley upstart Tesla made a major splash with its public debut, announcing it planned to make a lithium-ion-battery-powered luxury sports car. He wanted, in effect, to build the Bolt. For the Volt, GM settled on a design that was neither a Prius-style hybrid nor a pure electric car but something in between called an extended-range electric vehicle.

But even that hybrid design forced GM engineers, to a remarkable extent, to become cavemen rediscovering fire. Being inside the Bolt feels a bit like flying economy class on a brand-new, state-of-the-art plane.

Car structure was different, since they were building around a battery, not an engine. The brakes, steering, and air conditioner were powered differently. New systems, from electromagnetics for the motors to onboard and off-board charging, each came with its own learning curve. Just turning on the car required finding the perfect sequence of electrical signals from more than a dozen modules. Then there was the battery. Lithium-ion chemistry was a new thing 10 years ago, and the Volt team quickly discovered how much of a pain in the neck it is.

They change shape as they charge and discharge. They can also catch fire. GM established a curriculum with the University of Michigan to train battery engineers. It filled a vacant building in Brownstown, Michigan, with the equipment to make battery packs. The engineers created test procedures and wrote them down as they went. They modeled different use cases for the Volt, from a woman in northern Minnesota who plugs in every night to a guy in Miami who drives miles a day.

They built the battery lab and brought in the blue environmental chambers, then used them to see how the battery would stand up to each situation.

The solution was a protective membrane over the switch body. In the fall of , when GM was in financial trouble and our program was officially "on hold," we did a series of media briefings and drives. We brought one publication at a time into the proving grounds, briefed them thoroughly on every engineering aspect, then let them test Clive's Proof of Concept POC chassis development car on a fun route to the town of Milford, Michigan, where we recharged it for an afternoon run by another reporter who joined us for lunch.

I also gave each one a thrill ride on a Proving Grounds hill course to show off the car's surprisingly competent handing. The resulting articles were highly positive. Even enthusiast magazines including Car and Driver were pleasantly surprised. And we heard later that those positive reviews helped the GM board decide to revive the program the next year.

Vehicle chief engineer Mike Liedtke vividly recalls the day he hosted ace comedian, talk show host, and car collector Jay Leno's visit to the program. Leno wanted to know everything about it, so he was thoroughly briefed and got a development-car demo drive, which he loved. Then he decided that he desperately wanted to buy the first one.

But GM told him, "Sorry no sales, lease only," which made him mad. Then, after GM steadfastly refused to sell him the first production EV1 which was still called "Impact" at the time , he made on-air jokes about the name: something like, "Was Crash-and-Burn already taken? In warm weather our lead-acid batteries lost substantial range in cold temperatures , I could drive EV1s nearly 60 miles home from the Proving Grounds and had volt charging equipment there to get me back the next morning.

One hot summer evening, I left in a car with an early NiMH battery pack and, because NiMH essentially doubled the range of the standard lead-acid, I felt comfortable diverting to a dinner in Ann Arbor. But I ran short of range on the way home that night and barely made the last several miles in painfully slow "limp home" mode with the lights off. That triggered an investigation that revealed that NiMH batteries lost energy and range when hot and led directly to reengineering the EV1's battery tunnel to provide air cooling for the model's optional NiMH packs.

Which, for that reason, were not offered in Arizona.