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Eventually, near the end. The first run of them was lead-acid; the battery was about 60% of the weight of the vehicle.

It's not just that the car was a compliance car, it's that these were experimental models. They were not able to be registered by individuals because they didn't go through all of the mandated safety regulations that normal models do.

Was it even a compliance car?

It's eternally fascinating that people can't or won't grasp that the cars cost far more to produce than they could put them to market for, instead deciding that it was a big conspiracy.

It took until ~2015 for batteries to become practical for expensive mass market cars.

I thought they destroyed them all because they didn't want to have to provide the legally required parts and service for them. Now that they are in classic car territory, those requirements no longer exist.

I find the obsession with ev1 very US centric. There were many many other electric cars released before EV1. I think that documentary is to blame for this, GM was not the only company exploring EV's and there were other players as well. They just, for some reason or another, did not commit to it fully.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_battery_electric_vehic...

You mean Toyota and Tesla’s success? Let’s be real - the Prius and then Model S kickstarted the EV revolution.

It's not a success if you quit the race at the finish line, even if you were in the lead.

Right before that in the paragraph:

> The EV1 introduced technologies that remain foundational to modern EVs

If you’ve watched these guys videos, you would know it’s not some sort of cartoon villain trap. They took them to Detroit, showed them a ton of stuff, let them talk to a bunch of very sincere and cool engineers, gave them a bunch of unobtainium spare parts, and gave interviews on the record with executives. Let’s just say GM’s PR department is running a lot better than their cars do these days. Someone there saw the initial buzz about this find, and obviously convinced the C-suite that they could very easily score huge wins in public goodwill, partly counteracting all the “Who Killed the Electric Car” hype.

If you follow their videos, they and a handful of others have secured title to their EV-1s. There are a small number of ways the cars were able to fall out of the leasing agreement and into properly titled private ownership.

In this case, they took advantage of the fact the car was abandoned in Georgia and went to impound action, which let them buy it from the State with title, bypassing any potential agreement with GM.

We bought an F150 Lightning instead of a Sierra EV mainly because of this. I'm not interested in 'cars as a service'.

I've been satisfied with Android Automotive on my Equinox EV. I did see that there are USB dongles which can allegedly add Android Auto to the car.

Honda Prologue is an option if you really like the Ultium SUVs, sadly only a Blazer sized rebadge and no Equinox.

I do wonder what the outlook for that is now, they were supposed to be a shorter term bridge until Honda had their own EVs but Honda recently killed a bunch of EV plans so maybe the GM partnership sticks around a while?

I have a blazer ev without it and I agree it is the biggest negative. If I drove 8 hours a day their onstar is better, but if you use a car a reasonable amount it isn't worth a subscription (or setting everything up that is already in the phone)

Honestly I'm an apple guy and felt the same until I drove their Blazer EV and loved the native google maps. This is way better than projecting from phone. The native integration knows about car's battery state all the time and auto-suggests stops. Any native map in car do they but they usually aren't good quality maps. In GM's case, the native maps are google maps. I can also sign in on my google account and I don't need internet to use it (in case I'm in a remote area).

I feel I want every car to have native google maps now.

Those names are horrifiq

Equinox EV is also doing well.

Actually a Blazer, not an Equinox

Yeah, and it's still the best thing GM can even build right now. It's an Equinox without GM's bullshit and even includes CarPlay in the package.

For approximately one and a half model years.

https://insideevs.com/news/785214/2027-chevrolet-bolt-limite...

The us govt literally tried carrots (tax credits) and now the new administration is threatening owners with sticks (absurdly high national registration fees).

Oh, and everyone who couldn't afford an EV complained about the subsidies.

The easiest way to make EVs more attractive is taxing carbon.

If Elon can’t be named without someone feeling the need to comment on his behavior, that’s mostly on him. His public persona has made a neutral reference to him into a possible implicit endorsement.

I agree the comment seemed out of place and I’m speculating about why they put it in, but that’s one reason I would do so. Someone who does a Nazi salute on TV with a bizarre smile on his face is not just another business guy.

Lee Iacocca didn’t get those comments.

>It's clear that both the sentence you quote and the following one are there for political purposes,

Yes. These people can literally not fucking help themselves.

I personally see it as a pettiness and weak character that they cannot let ideology drop from the foreground even for a second.

Again, I’m in this industry. There was a marketing push because they saw a way to easily sell new and second cars even to people it doesn’t work for. Marketing pushed so hard that there’s an equal pushback from reality.

Nothing to do with Elon or Trump.

That's an old argument. The Prius hybrid was already running around with the same battery technology. They could have shifted. They could have pivoted. They could have done a very low volume production. The car was killed.

If they hadn't lobbied to make small cars more expensive because the margins were lower, they could have built a model that was capable of being EV or gasoline, to get economy of scale for most of the vehicle. Well, worked with Daewoo to make a nicer version of the Chevy Aveo which could be a 4-seater gasoline car or 2-seater EV... Well, problem with that idea is the EV-1 was only popular with Hollywood types because it was a statement vehicle, so everybody knew what you were doing. I guess the dual-purpose vehicle would not.

tl;dr You're right :)